PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
19 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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acquiring the privilege should not be exacting, reading a reasonable degree of learning, such as and writing, either in English or Zulu, good character, and conformity to civilised custoins." I have quoted in the footnote at page 18 the further proposed qualifications for race franchise,
Personally, I would lay great stress on a lan- guage test, and would make knowledge of English, wherever we can, without awakening jealousy, a sine qui non of citizenship. The natives are British subjects, and usually loyal British sub- jects; they are likely to be kept in their loyalty by learning the language of the Empire and being rewarded for learning it-thereby be- coming a more integral part of the whole com- munity. As the Governor of Fiji lately told his Legislative Council :—“ After all, it is education in the English language that the Fijian native mostly needs if he is ever to play the part of an ordinary English subject." Further, where we are dealing, as in South Africa, ́not with Mohammedans or Buddhists with religions to be respected, but with adherents of savage tenets and rites, I would frankly make Christianity a sine qui non also. "The Commission is satisfied that one great element for the civilisation of the natives is to be found in Christianity." (Report of the South African Native Affairs Commis- sion, page 41.)
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It is obvious, as said above, that the tran- sition to citizenship of clans or individuals must come, on the one hand through gradual exemp tion from special laws and rules, eg, from communal tenare (an exemption which should come late and not early-for, until the native is educated, it is a safeguard against unscrupulous white men), from courts of law for native cases only, from special taxes for natives only, and so forth; and, on the other hand, through gradual education. But the most difficult point would be-having fixed the standard and the qualifica- tions to establish a definite authority and a definite machinery for making the law or the rules work and live. The personal element would be all important. Some more or less independent authority, not changing with parties in an elected legislature, trained Residents, acting in some sort as revising barristers and under the control of a governor or paramount chief, or under a permanent Board of some kind, would alone ensure continuity and wisdom in working out an almost insoluble problem.
(d) There are some non-political measures and precautions which apply to natives all the world over, and most of all in their non-citizen stage.
It would be useless and superfiwns to eu- large upon these, upon which volumes have been, and could be, written; but, if it is desired to have some uniform policy or standard of policy in regard to native races based on accurate
Message to the Legislative Council, loth October,
1907.
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knowledge, and to collect, compare, revise, and utilise the manifold information which comes to band with regard to the working of this or that class of measure in different countries and among different races, it is worth considering— (i) whether a standing advisory com- mittee for the purpose at this office with (in addition to members of the office) men on it who have known the different lands and races night not be of al- vantage;
(ii) whether it is not possible to draw up on certain subjects sotne very simple model laws or rules, or both, which cau
be nude a groundwork in the different colonies and be modified to suit local conditions. In a much simpler matter -that of prisons and prison discipline-
we have had a model set of very ele mentary rules, which have been sent out here and there and have helped con- siderably in getting the different Colonies into line; and
(iii) whether, if it is impossible to draw up such models, and indeed in any case, we should not at any rate keep on stock, perpetually revised up to date, printed summaries of the various measures on given subjects which have been tried among native races in different parts of the Empire.
As to (ii), in regard to such a question as Drink, to take an instance, I do not see why we should not have model laws and model licensing regulations, i.e., the skeleton of laws and of rules. embodying so much and so much only as would be generally admitted to be, irrespective of the particular native race and of special local circumstances, right in principle and-subject to modifications according to time and place and conditions not impracticable.
In regard to Csury again, as to which see what is said on pages 31-2 of the Natal report, there might well be a model ordinance, drawn up after comparison of any existing laws or rules on the subject in tropical colonies, and embody- ing whatever restrictions the Secretary of State favours. Personally I should like to make any loan to a native not in the citizen stage irrecover- able at law, passing some such ordinance as the Ceylon Ordinance No. 2 of 1899 "to protect public servants from legal proceedings in respect of certain liabilities." But in regard to this and to other subjects the main points upon which I would wish to insist are—
(a) that, if it is at all possible, it would be at once useful and politic to have, and to be able to say that we have, in such cases as those to which I have referred, the outline of some kind of approved law or rules always on hand and available, and
(b) that such outline should as far as