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history who would not work. In the interests of the natives all over Africa, we have to teach them to work.”
Such was the language used by Mr. Chamberlain in the House of Commons on the 6th August, 1901; and still more recently he expressed himself as follows:—
“We are all of us taxed, and taxed heavily. Is that a system of forced labour? . . . . . To say that because we put a tax on the native therefore he is reduced to a condition of servitude and of forced labour is, to my mind, absolutely ridiculous. . . . . . It is perfectly fair to my mind that the native should contribute something towards the cost of administering the country.” (House of Commons, the 9th March, 1903.)
“If that really is the last word of civilization, if we are to proceed on the assumption that the nearer the native or any human being comes to a pig the more desirable is his condition, of course I have nothing to say. . . . . I must continue to believe that, at all events, the progress of the native in civilization will not be secured until he has been convinced of the necessity and the dignity of labour. Therefore, I think that anything we reasonably can do to induce the native to labour is a desirable thing.”
And he defended the principle of taxing the native on the ground that “the existence of the tax is an inducement to him to work.” (House of Commons, the 24th March, 1903.)
Moreover, it is to be observed that in nearly every part of Africa the natives are taxed. In the Transvaal every native pays a “head tax” of 2l.; in the Orange River Colony he is subject to a “poll tax;” in Southern Rhodesia, Bechuanaland, Basutoland, Uganda, and Natal a “hut tax” is levied; in Cape Colony we find a “hut tax" and a “labour tax;” in German East Africa also a tax is levied on huts, payable either in money, in kind, or in labour. This species of tax has also been applied in the Sierra Leone Protectorate, where payment could be made “in kind by rice or palm nuts,” and it has been suggested that work on roads and useful works should be accepted in lieu of payment in money or produce.
The legality of a tax is, therefore, not affected by the mode of its payment, whether in money or in kind, so long as the amount is not excessive. It is certainly not so in the Congo, where the work done by the native does not represent more than forty hours’ work a-month. Such work, moreover, is paid for, and the tax in kind thus gives the native as it were some return for his labour.
Payment of taxes is obligatory everywhere; and non-payment involves measures of compulsion. The regulations under which the hut-tax is levied impose on the native, for non-payment, such penalties as imprisonment and forced labours. Nor in the Congo is payment of taxes optional. Repressive measures have occasionally been rendered necessary elsewhere by the refusal of natives to conform to the law, e.g., the disturbances at Sierra Leone, in connexion with which an English publicist, speaking of the police force, states:—
“Between July 1894 and February 1896 no fewer than sixty-two convictions, admittedly representing a small proportion of offences actually committed, were recorded against them for flogging, plundering, and generally maltreating the natives.”
Further instances might be recalled of the opposition encountered among native populations to the institution of governmental regulations. Civilization necessarily comes into collision with their savage instincts and barbarous customs and habits; and it can be understood that they submit but impatiently to, and even try to escape from, a state of society which seems to them to be restrictive of their licence and excesses. It frequently happens in Africa that an exodus of natives takes place from one territory to another, in the hope of finding beyond the frontier a Government less well established or less strong, and of thus freeing themselves from all obligations and restraints. Natives of the State may quite well, under the influence of considerations of this kind, have crossed into neighbouring territories, although no kind of emigration on a large scale, such as is referred to in the English note, has ever been reported by the Commandants of the frontier provinces. On the contrary, it is a fact that natives in the Upper Nile region who had settled in British territory have returned to the left bank in consequence of the imposition of new taxes by the English authorities. Besides, if it is these territories which are alluded to, the information contained in the note would seem to be in contradiction with other particulars furnished, for instance, by Sir Harry Johnston.
“This much I can speak of with certainty and emphasis, that from the British frontier near Fort George to the limit of my journeys into the Mbuba country of the Congo Free State, up and down the Semliki, the natives appear to be prosperous and happy. . . . The extent to which they were building their villages and cultivating their plantations within the precincts of Fort Mbeni showed that they had no fear of the Belgians.”
