270 THE SPECIAL COMMISSION, ETC. 



or at any rate the Protectorates of Uganda and East Africa — should be 

 placed under one administration, conducted by a competent official with the 

 rank of a High Commissioner. Uganda is merely the hinterland of East 

 Africa. East Africa is mainly valuable as being the region furnishing 

 the best seaports for the outlet of the products of Uganda. The postal 

 services of the two Protectorates were already fused under the {special 

 Commission. It is difficult to see why the fusion of other departments 

 should be delayed. It would lead to a decided economy in the number 

 of officials, to the complete absence of any further friction caused by 

 the emulation of two rival Protectorates as to which sliould show the 

 highest local revenue, and to a single policy being adopted throughout 

 on all (juestions of importance aftecting the natives. At the present 

 time appeals from the law courts of these two Protectorates are sent 

 to Zanzibar, where the judicial officers appointed to try these appeals 

 know little or nothing of native laws and customs and the general 

 conditions of inner Africa. ^loreover, Zanzibar, like ^Mombasa and 

 Entebbe (or any other spot in the Kingdom of Uganda), is not 

 thoroughly healthy for the residence of Euro[)eans — very much the 

 reverse. We have, on the other hand, in the Eastern Province of the 

 Uganda Protectorate a remarkable area of absolutely healthy country. 

 Apart from the ><'andi Plateau — wherein I have fancifully sketched out a 

 territory as large as Belgium, and almost without existing human 

 inhabitants, which should become a future White Man's Colony — apart 

 from the Nandi Plateau, the area of absolutely healthy country is not 

 exhausted. The whole Kift A'alley, from Naivasha on the south to near 

 Lake Baringo on the north, is almost equally healthy, though not 

 equally well adapted for the handing over en bloc to the white man. 

 Why should not, one asks — and no etfective negative reply can be given 

 — a central Government for all British East Africa be founded at some 

 suitable spot on the railway, on the Xandi Plateau, some Simla of p]ast 

 Africa, with an absolutely healthy European climate ? 



An administrative capital founded here would be only thirty-six hours' 

 journey even by the existing slow trains from ^Mombasa, and therefore 

 twenty days from London, two days from Zanzibar, seven days from British 

 Somaliland, two days from the administrative capital of Uganda, ten days 

 from the Congo Free State boundary, the Albert Nyanza, and the Albertine 

 Nile, and not more than three weeks even by the existing means of 

 communication from the frontier posts on the Uganda side of the Egyptian 

 Sudan. The Eastern Province of the Lganda Protectorate might become the 

 home province of this great East African territory, in the heart of which 

 would reside the Governor-General or High Commissioner. Separate com- 

 missioners might still be appointed for the special management of Uganda 



