A.—6

present year to West Africa. These reports are, if I may say so, really fascinating documents, and well worth reading in extenso ; but it would be useless for me to attempt to summarize them in the course of a survey which, as it is, may prove a little long for members of the Conference. Visit to West Afriea of the Prince of Wales. There is one event in the history of the West African colonies in the last three years which has been to them of outstanding importance—that is, the visit of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales last year. That visit aroused everywhere the greatest enthusiasm among all the native populations and among the native chiefs. Everywhere he was received amid scenes of the greatest enthusiasm, splendour, and dignity. Some of these were wonderful assemblies. I believe the great assembly at Kano was attended by over fifty thousand chiefs and warriors and representatives of these northern Emirates, more than half of them mounted, all collected in a great West African Durbar. The march past of these chiefs was a scene of extraordinary barbaric splendour, warriors in chain mail handed down, they say, from the days of the Crusades, at any rate made by a tradition which goes back to the Crusades, horses covered with quilted trappings, camel men bearing great oryx-hide shields, dancers, minstrels, jesters, and all the rest of it. That was only one of a great number of palavers, as they call them in Africa —they would be called durbars in India—which brought these primitive peoples into direct contact with the representative of the Throne. I believe from all the reports I have had from Governors and political officers that the effect of that visit was not only momentary but has been lasting, and has served greatly to strengthen the attachment of these peoples to the conception of a great Empire into which they have come and from which they have already derived enormous benefits. East Africa. East Africa is now, since the incorporation of the Tanganyika Territory into the framework of the Empire, a single compact territory extending from Rhodesia to the borders of the Sudan and from the Great Lakes to the Indian Ocean, a territory with characteristics all its own. It is not like West Africa., a country where only the black man can live. Though most of it is tropical it is studded with islands of high ground with a delightful climate, where the whitfe man not only can live himself, but, as far as experience goes, can have his family and bring up his children. On the other hand, it is not South Africa ; it is not a country which can be described as a white man's country in that sense. Only a very small proportion of the total population can ever be a white population. Thus it stands in some way midway between these two types and calls for a policy of its own —what has been described as a dual policy—a policy which regards both its primary trusteeship of the native inhabitants already there and the fact that the main development of their country must come through development in trade, in civilization, in health, in the progress of the natives themselves, and which, realizing that there is room and space there for the establishment of white communities, is prepared to give these white communities every possible encouragement for their healthy development. y Governors' Conference. I might say something with regard to some of the results of the Commission which visited East Africa under Mr. Ormsby-Gore's chairmanship and the suggestions which are embodied in his report. The first important result was the meeting of a Conference of the Governors of all these colonies at Nairobi in February of this year, and the establishment there again, in Africa, of something in the nature of a conference system modelled upon the system of our Imperial Conferences. I believe that there again, following our example, without any interference in the separate administrations of the different colonies with their different characteristics—some mandated territories, some protectorates, some colonies —an enormous amount of progress can result from a regular system of deliberation. Development of Transport. The Ormsby-Gore Commission laid great emphasis on the importance of developing the transport system of East Africa, and particularly the system of railway transport, and in pursuance of its recommendations His Majesty's Government decided at the end of last year that it would guarantee a loan of £10,000,000 for the development of transport—railways, harbours, and roads—the loans to be raised by the various Governments concerned. In order to ensure that this money would be wisely expended I appointed a committee, under the chairmanship of Sir George Schuster, the Financial Member of the Sudan Government, and with the aid of that committee's report I hope to get through Parliament within the next few weeks the necessary Bill guaranteeing these loans. I do not think I need go into the details of the various railway schemes, but they are all aimed, first of all, at developing the areas that are already on the verge of profitable production, more particularly the cotton areas in Uganda, and then at linking up the at present disconnected railway systems of East Africa, and at linking them also, eventually, with the railway system of South Africa. As regards the trade of East Africa, the total net trade of East Africa in 1923 was over £17,000,000 ; 1925 shows that it has been increased to nearly £28,000,000. There again we have all the evidence of really progressive development. Southern Rhodesia. I might perhaps at this point make some reference to Southern Rhodesia and the territories of the South African High Commission which, though they are under the Dominion's Office, are none the less, for the purpose of this survey, perhaps more appropriately dealt with at this point. The High Commission territories continue to make steady progress, and, as in the case of West Africa, the visit of the Prince of Wales last year was the occasion of many demonstrations of enthusiasm on the part

98