Review of Revie\c9, l/S/06. 



Leading Articles. 



175 



IMPERIAL CONTROL OF NATIVE RACES. 



Mr. H. W. V. Temperley, writing doubtless with 

 the best intentions, but a'so, perhaps, with little 

 first-hand knowledge of native questions or colonial 

 feeling, contributes to the Contemporary Review an 

 article with this title, which is hardly likely to please 

 Colonials. 



EFFECTIVE IMPERIAL CONTROL OF NATIVES. 



The Natal affair is taken as a peg on which to 

 hang an argument for some effective kind of Im- 

 [lerial control of native races in the Colonies, Crown 

 and self-governing. Mr. Temperley, after referring 

 Id the fact that Canning's settlement of the West 

 Indian slave problem would have been wiser, could 

 he have carried it out, than the total abolition of 

 slavery advocated by Clarkson and Wilberforce, and 

 arguing therefrom that the statesman at home is 

 likely to manage native problems better than the 

 t 'olonial, proceeds to say: — 



Few will deny tliat the fact of tlie Colonies being able to 

 -'ivern themaelves does not render them equally compe- 

 u*nt to govern native races. The difference between self- 

 discipline and command over otiiers is infinite. Almost 

 every young and rising nation will Ije possessed of a 

 .swelling self-confidence, a pride, a reclilessness. a lack of 

 moral sense, which older nations have outgrown. 



He then proceeds to talk of the blinding power of 

 ■ race prejudice," and to assume that Colonials in 

 their dealings with natives are actuated by race 

 prejudice. Certainly in New Zealand, where he 

 proceeds to censure the treatment of the Maoris, 

 the white settlers are extremely fond of the natives, 

 and will put up with treatment from a native with 

 which they would never put up from a white settler. 

 Probably if the Maoris had been left quite to them- 

 selves they would have decreased much more than 

 they have. 



CO.NTROL IX THE INTERESTS OF THE COLONIES. 



Mr. Temperlev then argues that the evidence 



against the Natal native policy is strong, for these 



di.sturbances, in which he thinks the Government 



quite rightly interfered, occurred in the Colony 



which gives less legal and political rights to its 



natives than anv other in South Africa. His sug- 



L^cstion is: — 



In the interests both of Natal herself and of the Empire 

 as a whole, the assertion of some kind of Imperial control, 

 nr of temperate but authoritative suggestion, would seem 

 eminently desirable if not imi>eratively necessary in the 

 distant future. The British Empire has always prided it.- 

 aelf on its kind treatment of native races; it took a noble 

 part long ago in the abolition of slaver.v, and has taken 

 a noble part to-day in the protest against the atrocities of 

 the Congo. It there be any truth in these oft-repeated as- 

 sertions about our zeal for justice and fair play, a general 

 native policy for the Empire as a whole (excluding the 

 exceptional case of India) is necessary. Concrete instances 

 have shown, as in the West Indies, that that control 

 is reall.v exercised in the interests of the Colonies them- 

 selves. Nor can it be morally right or politically expedi- 

 ent that Colonies should, as in the past, buy their experi- 

 ence of governing natives at the cost of decimating the 

 native races. 



To which some Colonials will say that unless the 

 Imperial Government understands native questions 

 very^ much better than it has understood other Colo- 

 nial questions in the past, the decimation will soon 

 be decimation doubled. 



A COMMISSIONER OF NATIVES. 

 A Commissioner of Natives should certainly be appointed 

 aa an official in the English Administration. Every Colony 

 which has natives under its charge has such a Minister in 

 its Cabinet. The Colonial Secretary has an enormous mass 

 of work in governing the responsible and the Crown- 

 Colonies. It would be a great increase in efBciency it the 

 care of the natives were taken from his hands and from 

 the hands of the Foreign Secretary, and placed under the 

 direction of a single official. This Commissioner for Natives 

 would probably be subject to the Colonial Secretary, or 

 there might be two Under-Secretaries for the Colonies in- 

 stead of one, the first undertaking Colonial, the second 

 native affairs. 



In the new scheme of the Imperial Coiincil this 

 Imperial Native Minister would play an important 

 part, and native questions would form part of the 

 subjects discussed by such a Council. " Some uni- 

 formity of native policy, not absolutely but at least 

 relative, is urgently required," and Mr. Temperley 

 admits that infinite tact is needed to work such a 

 scheme. 



EARTHQUAKES IN THE MEDl/EVAL IMAGINATION. 



A contributor to the Gentlemaii s Magazine for 

 May has been looking up early references to earth- 

 quakes in England. One can conceive the large 

 place which earthquakes filled in the mediasval 

 imagination. A chronicler writes in 1133 that the 

 earth moved with so great a violence that the house 

 in w-hich he sat was lifted up with a double remove, 

 and at the third settled down again in its proper 

 place. Another chronicler, writing in 1587, tells of 

 a sudden earthquake in England, doing a good deal 

 of damage among the churches in London. He 

 says : — 



The great clock bell in the palace at Westminster strake 

 of itself against the hammer with the shaking of the 

 earth, as divers other clocks and bells in the steeples of 

 the City of Loudon and elsewhere did the like. A piece 

 o£ the Temple Church fell down, and some stones fell 

 from St. Paul's Church, and at Christ's Church near to 

 Newgat-e Market, in the sermon while, a stone fell from 

 the top of the same church, which stone killed out of haJid 

 one Thomas Grey, an apprentice, and another stone fell 

 on his fellow-servant named Mabel Everett, and so bruised 

 her that she lived but four days after. 



This earthquake endured in or about London, not pass- 

 ing one minut* of an hour, and was no more felt. But 

 afterwards in Kent and on the sea-coast it was felt three 

 times. 



It goes without saying that the people all fell a- 



praying. 



Active Old Age. 



Mr. David Williamson, in the Quiver, gives a 

 short account of a number of aged persons who 

 maintain an active life. He selects Dean Gregory, 

 of St. PauFs, aged 8i4 ; Prebendarj' Hutchinson, over 

 90 ; Bishop Courtenay, 93 ; Rev. Thomas Lord, 

 oldest Free Church minister, 99 ; Seilor Garcia, loi ; 

 Miss Mary Alexander, 102; Rev. John Aldis, Bap- 

 tist, 98 ; Dr. Guinness Rogers, 84 : Baroness Burdett 

 Coutts, 92 ; Miss Florence Nightingale, 86 ; Miss 

 Balfour, the aunt of Robert Louis Stephenson, over 

 90 ; Mr. Richard Peter, solicitor, 96 ; Lord Hals- 

 bury, 8x ; Lord Strathcona, 86; Lord Kelvin, 82; 

 Sir Andrew Lusk, 96 ; Lord Cranbrook, 91 ; Duke of 

 Rutland, 88; Gerald Massey, 78. 



