CO885-(18-19) — Page 387

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O.885

19 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

6

will of the chiefs-a wholly different rom such well defined rights as may be here, e... the village community system

in force from time immemorial. there may be private ownership without ip attaching. An instance of this may in the provisions of the Glen Grey Act ape Colony. The object of that Act was, erstand it rightly, gradually to substitute in native districts individual allotments imunal tenure; but the allotments are ble without the Governor's consent, they be subdivided or sublet, and it is ex- provided that the value of the land o counted for the purpose of qualifying ranchise. The section runs All laud under the provisions of this Act shall, for poses of Section 17 of Act No. 14 of 1887 ned to be held on communal tenure wording of Section 17 of Act No. 14 of the Parliamentary Voters' Registration

as follows :--

"

No person shall be entitled to be registered a Voter by reason of his sharing in any com- anal or tribal occupation of lands buildings iless he shall be in actual occupation for the riod required by the eighth section of the nstitution Ordinance, of a house or other ilding, whether situated or not situated on nd held on tribal or communal tenure, which use or building separately or together with nd occupied therewith held upon other than ibat or communal tenure shall be of the value

seventy five pounds sterling."

general principle, however, is, I take it, rliamentary privileges, such as white men upply in the case of natives in inverse ion to the extent to which the tribal holds.

ences between the position of

e Natives in the Crown Colonies

id the Self-governing Colonies.

t from the general consideration that all

is with regard to natives are rendered far plicated by the absence of responsible, ¿e., overnment on the spot, the characteristics Crown Colonies as regards the natives

summed up as follows :-

(4) Such colonies are all or nearly all

the home of the natives and not of the white.

llowing from this,

(b) The whites are as a rule far less numerous in proportion to the natives than in the self-governing colonies, and

e) The natives presumably see more

a proportion of the official white element

as compared with the unofficial, than in the self-governing colonies, because so

large a proportion of the white element

in the Crown Colonies is official.

7

(4) The ultimate power-the last word in the administration of the Crown Colonies-is not in the Colony, but in England.

(e) The administration of the Crown Colonies has more personal element in it than there is in the Self-governing Colonies.

For all these five reasons the condition of the natives tends to be better in the Crown Colonies than in the Self-governing Colonies, though there are arguments on the other side

Taking the reasons in order.

(a) As far as I know the West Indies and Mauritius and Seychelles are the only tropical colonies in the Empire where white men in any numbers have been born and bred and made their homes for generations; and in the West Indies and in Mauritius alone among tropical Colonies (omitting the sub-tropical Mediterranean dependencies) are there representative institutions, such institu tions in the case of Mauritius being of comparatively recent origin. It is note- worthy that while, in the temperate regions of the British Empire, repre- sentative institutions without responsible government have (except in special in- stances) been the stepping stone responsible government, in the West Indies they are in a sense the remanent of responsible government. In old slave times, Barbados was to a large extent

to

a self-governing colony, self- government being confined to the white oligarchy. With the abolition of slavery, ́ self government went back to repre- sentative institutions without responsi bility; the white men lost a certain amount of citizenship and the black men gained citizenship.

Elsewhere thun in the West Indies and Mauritius, roughly speaking, the white men go to the tropical dependencies to rule and trade and not to make their homes. Hence

(6) In all the Crown colony regions, not excluding the West Indies, they are few among many and

(e) The proportion of these few who

are officials is large, so that the natives, especially in the least developed parts, probably come into contact with more government officers than unofficial whites.

Now it is true that

(i) where white men make their homes in the same land as the natives they must know the. natives more intimately than if they are merely temporary sojourners among them and

S

R