PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
19 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- | COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
white and coloured, though the property quali fication operates in favour of the white. The black West Indian is, or can be, as much citizen of his colony as is the white.
Where there is no elected legislature in these colonies, there is no disability attaching to the coloured man. In the more highly developed Eastern colonies representatives of the coloured races are found in the Legislative Councils. In Ceylon there are Sinhalese, Tamil, and Moormen members, while in Hong Kong and in the Straits Settlements a Chinese is in the Council.
In less organised communities, e.g., in West Africa, again there is no disability, though there are to a large extent Special Courts and laws or by-laws to meet the special cases of the natives, In the older West African colonies there are practically always coloured men in the Legisla tive Councils. We have in short in such cases, as a rule, Colony shading into Protectorate, and British Crown Colony citizenship coupled with special laws or institutions arising out of and improving upon such tribal organisation and authority of native Kings and Chiets as existed prior to the introduction of British rule or protection.
The case of Fiji is rather special. Under Letters Patent of 1904 the Legislative Council consists of the Governor, ten official members, six elected members and two native members. The six elected members are elected by voters of European descent, the two native members are selected by the Governor out of
a list of not more than six names submitted to him by the Great Council of Native Chiefs. It is to some extent a Crown Colony reproduction of the New Zealand plan.
PAPUA.
The case of Papua is a special one. By a Commonwealth Act of 1905, British New Guinea, as it was then called, was "accepted” as a "territory under the authority of the Common- wealth." I do not know a quite parallel instance of a dependency of a colonial federation. The white men seem to be under 1,000 and to be to the natives in the ratio of one in 400 or more. The Act provides for a nominated Legislative Council. It does not directly enact that the unofficial members must be white, but it implies it, for the numbers of such members depend upon the numbers of the "white resident population." Provision is made for taking a poll on the sub- ject of liquor licences, and the adult white people shall for the purposes of this section be deemed to be the people of the Territory." We have here Crown Colony Government as the Australian self-governing colonies wish to exercise it. Where the Imperial Government would, if possible, put natives in the Legislative Council, the Commonwealth Government does not apparently comtemplate the possibility of any but white members,
5
Land Tenure and Citizenship.
Probably the most complicated questions that arise with regard to native races in the British Empire are connected with land tenure.
I only want to point out here the close connexion- which indeed is obvious-between land tenure and citizenship. Occupation or ownership of land is largely the basis of franchise, wherever there is not a near approach to universal man- hood franchise. Private ownership of land is the system with which white men are familiar, com- munal ownership is the more usual system among natives races; and it is interesting to notice that while the more advanced views among white men are tending back towards communal owner- ship, progress of the native races is generally looked for in the direction of gradually sub- stituting individual for trial ownership. The natural inference is that some intermediate stage
may be evolved in the future which will suit white and coloured alike.
Tribal tenure of land is very difficult to combine with citizenship, as we understand it, though it may be combined with representation of the race, such as the Maori representation in the New Zealand Parliament. It may be taken.
I think, as roughly true that ordinary citizenship and tribal tenure are incompatible with each other. In the one the individual is the unit, in the latter the tribe.
.
There may be, of course, aud
are, grades both in communal and in private ownership. Com- munal tenure itself may be a long advance oil no tenure at all, or on tenure at the will of the strongest. Where there is much land and a relatively small nomad population, as in parts of East Africa, I take it that there has been no tenure at all in the sense of ownership.
Of land tenure in the Nile province of the Uganda Protectorate, Judge Carter writes. "There is no king or overlord of this part of the Protectorate, and there would appear to b no conception of ownership as apart from occu- pation, consequently there is no absolute owner- ship by the chiefs or by the peasants. Although it has been stated that for the purposes of cultivation natives hold the land in common. I gather that this is not intended to convey the idea that there is collective ownership, but merely indicates that the natives are grouped together in villages, and that the natives of a village occupy the land and cultivate it, and apparently a person possesses his own piece of land and does not hold it in common.' In some other parts of the Uganda Protectorate, so far as there is any ownership at all, it would seem to be ownership by chiefs simply in virtue of superior strength and not as a matter of right.* In Swazi- land, as I understand, communal ownership has meant little more than holding or occupying
11
* 36172/07, Uganda,