February 28.
From his journeys in the Prorectorates of East Africa Mr. Winston Churchill has come back in a spirit of sane imperialism upon which all but the extreme body of Little Englanders may be ready to congratulate him, and themselves. For, as our London correspondent recently pointed out, there is member of the present Admini stration who occupies a more conspicuous position in the public eye than the Under-Secretary for the Colonies; and upon this prominence, no less than upon the undoubted ability and strong nervous energy which mark the Churchill family, depends his influence in the counsels of the nation. It was, perhaps, not to be sup that the man' who had travelled widely throughout India and the whole African continent, and with exceptional opportunities of studying closely the regions which he touched, should take a narrow or petty view of his duties at the Colonial Office. Even the political somersault which Mr. Churchill achieved when, to use his own phrase, (without consideration for its possible inaccuracy) he was "driven out of the Conservative party" would hardly justify so mean a view of his judgement. The chief fear was that he might be overwhelmed by rival or superior opinions in the Cabinet, of which he still is not a member; or by the weight of the many and diverse elements in the Liberal Purty which are at least united in their whole-hearted devotion to the village pump. But two years in office have shown clearly that if the popular estimate of Mr. Churchill as the real Colonial Secretary, and not Lord Elgin, is excessive, the Under-Secretary has no idea of not letting his voice be heard. When, in addition to these considerations, we find Mr. Churchill making such a speech as that which he delivered before the National Liberal Club on his return from East Africa, we may feel that the Colonies will overlook his occasional errors in tact so long as he continues to show the same appreciation vf their necessities.
East Africa indeed has enchanted Mr. Winston Churchill. Never had he seen countries so fertile and beautiful outside Europe. In visiting Uganda he had found a country which, from end to end, was a garden; and "he could not doubt that that extraordinary system of 0 lakes and waterways which was to be seen on the map of Africa must one day, as a centre of tropical production, play a most important! part in the economic development of the whole world." On the reverse of this fair picture we have to reckon with savage beasts, which, unhappily it may well be thought, are growing scarcer every year, with noxious insects and dread disease. To argue from this that " it would be a mistake to attempt by official means to augment emigration to these countries " is, perhaps, to divagate upon considerations in which there is no general call for the assistance either of Mr.
Churchill or of the Colonial Office. The peculiar virtue of British colonization is to expand i to its own requirements effort on the part of Government to direct a stream of emigration into a particular channel will be apt to defeat its own object by thwarting the fall play of individualism. On the other hand there will be every agreement with Mr. Churchill's ax-lom that the development of the country should be persevered in without flagging, and that there must be no stint of capital expended, especially on essential communications. During the last four years the revenue of the East Africa Protectorate has more than trebled itself, while that of Uganda has increased by over 50 per cent. In both cases the grants in aid have been able to show a corresponding decrease; but it is obvious, as Mr. Churchill pointed out, that the date at which the Protectorates will have become entirely self-supporting must depend there being no undue reduction in the Home Government's generosities. Of the security of the speculation Mr, Churchill has no doubt. Cotton, rabber, fibre, hemp and many other commodities may be looked for from the Protectorates of East und West Africa in an increasing stream: and here the traveller has seen the ultimate relief of the Lancashire cotton trade from the anxieties to which it is limitations in the supply of raw material. Incidentally Mr. Churchill believes that East Africa may offer a field for the surplus labour of India to the relief of the Asiatic question in the Transvaal; and of the condition of native tribes in the Protectorates he declares that '"it would be an evil day for them if they were handed over from the careful and dis terested control of British Imperial officials to the hard self-interest of some small local community." Those words may be commended to the attention of sentimentalists as bearing on other regions besides East Africa.
The statesmanlike natare of the opinions which Mr. Winston Churchill has gleaned from his tour goes fur to contradict those adverse criticisms which were directed at the tour before he left England. But even if the results had been different, it may be thought that the criticism was at least premature. At the very worst the travels of a Colonial Minister would lead to the avoidance of such mistakes as the injunctions once issued to the Advocate-General of Mauritius to hold a court twice a week in the Seychelles, which are more than 900 miles north of Mauritius; and to the British chaplain in Port Elizabeth to hold afternoon services in Durban,—two pieces of official ignorance which are still preserved, we believe, among the Colonial Office archives. If precedent for the tour were needed, it could be found in the voyages of Mr. Chamberlain to South Africa and of Herr von Dernburg to German East Africa. But since there is no objection among the shareholders of a company that the directors should spend money in making them-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.