124 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



I thiuk it is quite clear that there are four main duties which we have 

 to perform if we are to render the impact of European civilisation upon 

 the African not only innocuous but in the long run beneficial to the latter's 

 welfare. We have in the first place to concentrate upon the various 

 problems summed up under the words ' public health.' We have in the 

 second place to improve the standard and quality of the native as an 

 agricultural producer both of food and economic crops. Thirdly, we have 

 to provide for further transport facilities both to secure the wider 

 marketing of African products and to secure that in the movement of 

 labour there is not the same wastage as obtains at present. Fourthly, 

 we have to educate the native in such a manner that, whether he is a 

 direct producer or a wage-earner, he may advance in the scale of civilisa- 

 tion and assimilate such new moral controls as will fit him to withstand 

 the dangers and make the best use of increasing wealth. 



As regards the second point, I think we must recognise that throughout 

 the greater part of Tropical Africa below the 5,000 feet altitude native 

 production under the guidance of European agricultural officers is the 

 only practicable policy. Where there are highlands — and it so happens 

 that these highland areas are at present very sparsely populated by 

 Africans — European colonisation can be introduced. Personally, I hold 

 that this European colonisation, so far from being detrimental to the 

 native, may be of the highest educative value. The European farmer and 

 stock-owner introduces examples of more scientific development, and 

 I think it is already clear from the experience of Kenya that no small 

 proportion of the natives who have worked on European plantations 

 have learnt not only improved methods of cultivation which they can 

 apply on their family holdings when they return to their reserves, but 

 also something of a higher standard of life. 



There are many plantations, particularly in Kenya, where an ever- 

 increasing interest is being shown in the housing and sanitation of native 

 labour. The settler's wife is frequently quite as valuable as her husband 

 in educating up native labour not merely to be a more efficient labourer, 

 but to be a better man. 



The recent articles in ' The Times ' from the pen of Mr. J. H. Oldham 

 are among the most striking that have recently appeared upon native 

 policy in Tropical Africa. He has clearly come to the conclusion that 

 Kenya presents not merely a series of problems of local significance, but 

 offers an almost unique opportunity for an experiment in racial 

 co-operation, which, if wisely directed and based upon a scientific study 

 of cause and effect, is perhaps more full of promise than any experiment 

 that has hitherto been tried. 



I think it is clear that in East Africa, where the contact between 

 European and native is probably closer than elsewhere and the mutual 

 interdependence most marked, we have an opportunity, such as seldom 

 presents itself, for working out on scientific and humane lines the various 

 contributions which European civilisation can give to the African races 

 without destroying what is valuable and distinctive in their characteristics. 



European colonisation, in the few areas where it is climatically 

 feasible, has been the principal means of introducing not only a new 

 crop but a whole series of new ideas which can contribute to the advance- 



