Governor General, the partition of German East Africa, the redelimitation of boundaries, problems of railway construction and a united East African Colony. He discusses also the Home Government, native taxation, local representation, land along with land laws, native rights, their education, the labor problem, migration, industrial questions, and missions.
Treating the colonial policy in dealing with the natives, the author shows some sympathy. He does not believe that the tax on natives has been wisely imposed and, therefore, asks for a uniform and more equitable system. To effect such a reform, however, he believes that the local government with increased authority in its own affairs should exercise such power rather than have such a policy determined by the Home Government through its appointive executive and legislators who act for the colonies though not of them. The question of native ownership of spare land, he believes, should be carefully considered, inasmuch as there has never been any real title to the possession of definite blocks of freehold lands in Native Africa. Native education also should be taken in hand and there should be adopted a suitable scheme, applicable to all the Protectorates.
"In the first place in one shape or another," says the author, "we introduce a direct but immoderate impost such as a hut-tax or a more general poll-tax, the money for which has to be earned. Next, we endeavor to create new wants: clothes, ornaments, manufactured goods and luxuries of all kinds. All this represents a gradual process of regeneration, as the native is by nature very conservative and, therefore, slow to adopt new tastes or acquire ambitions. But we endeavor to raise his ideals and to inculcate the view we ourselves hold: that man should not be satisfied with mere existence, like beasts in the field, but should adopt civilisation and everything that, in the main, we consider to be essential to civilised life. We ask him, therefore, to produce something—other than for his own immediate wants—whether it be by labour done for an employer, or on his own account."
