A New Code of Empire
More and more it becomes evident that the basic causes of the late European War were extra-European. Primarily it was the rivalries of economic imperialism that molded the alignments and oppositions of the Great Powers and along with these the underlying issues of the conflict. Today the vital crux of world politics and most of the latent threats to world peace lie in the same direction, and the extra-European rivalries of the imperialistic world powers, America included, still dominate international relations. The progressive settlement of the after-effects of the World War and what may be done toward the prevention of its recurrence demand, therefore, a thoroughgoing reconstruction of international relations in their secondary as well as their primary zones of possible conflict. For rival activities in these secondary zones lead to more shortzsighted commitments and more aggressive positions than dare be associated with the more carefully guarded immediate relations between sovereign nations. Any adjustment involving a curtailment of imperialistic rivalry of colonial policy is for this reason one of the most promising and constructive phases of world reorganization; and the system of Mandates under the League of Nations is definitely the one, and potentially the other.
Viewed in this light, the regime of the mandates under the League of Nations is one of the corner-stones of the new international order which the League is supposed to institute and which the Covenant of the Peace Treaty has underwritten. For a new principle of tenure in colonial domain and the new policy of international responsibility in the field of colonial administration both of which are implied in the Mandates Principle, are revolutionizing in international law, theory and practice; in potential force and effect the Mandates system is a new code of empire.
The current view of the mandatory system is too frequently colored by the thought of its immediate origin as a compromise by which the declared principle of the World War and their Wilsonian formulation were reconciled with the commitments of secret treaties disposing of the colonial holdings of the Central powers. The latent strength and importance of Article 22 resides, however, in the theoretical incompatibility of the mandates principle with the theory and practice of the old colonial regime. This feeble step-child of the Fourteen points may very well turn out to be a political Cinderella and carry over into the future the heritage of the new internationalism that was all but lost. As has been accurately observed,—There is a profound and basic difference between colonial administration based on sovereign control where it is the prerogative of the colonial power to fix and judge its own course of action and trustee management under the mandate system regulated by formal contractual obligations and specific prohibitions and exercised under the permanent and active control of an international organization.1 There can be no permanent evasion of this difference;—in principle an alternative theory and practice of colonial tenure and administration has been set up and given legal existence international sanction and a practical working start. The statement that this new system “exists more in theory than in practice” is not only true to fact, but clear understanding of the possibilities of the extension and development of the mandates system begins only in the cheerful recognition and acceptance of this as a fact. If it is possible on the one hand to extend either the principles or the actual system of the mandates into a new code and regime of colonial administration, transforming the prevailing system of empire, then, on the other, it must at least be an open possibility that this new system should stand a test of strength with the old regime even at the risk of its becoming a convenient stalking-horse for the extension of the old order. It is more in the interests of reactionary than progressive thinking to minimize or cloak the tentative and experimental character of the mandates system, for not to realize that is to fail to recognize its revolutionary character. Mr. Leonard Woolf, a competent observer, characterizes Article 22 of the Covenant of the League as “the first public recognition in history that there is an alternative policy to imperialism.” “There can be no doubt,” he says, what the words of Article 22 mean. They mean that the mandated territories in Africa shall be administered primarily in the interests of the native inhabitants, that the trustee of their interests is the League, and that the League shall employ a particular state to carry out the terms of that trust. If this system is to be honestly applied, the mandatory has no right to treat the mandated territory as part of its empire; it is simply a trustee on behalf of the League which has itself declared itself to be a trustee on behalf of civilization.2
Adopted February 13, 1919 by the Peace Conference, Article 22 of the Covenant instituted for “those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them” a new form of government. Declaring that there should be applied to these countries and their people “the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilisation,” the Pact entrusted their government to nations assigned by the League of Nations who should as Mandatories on behalf of the League, act as administrative trustees and political guardians. The assignments and the specific contracts of administration were made by independent mandate charters, but the general theory of the system, the gradation of A B and C class mandates, and the authority of the League and its advisory body of supervision,—the Permanent Mandates Commission, were outlined and guaranteed in the Covenant itself. As a result of this and subordinate agreements fourteen jurisdictions to the total area of 1,258,831 square miles with a population of 19,531,000 were handed over to this system of control. The basic stipulations applying to the mandates are prescribed disinterestedness of control, liability to regular public international accounting for the performance of the trust, and a more or less specific indication of the provisional character of the control. Even the gradation of the mandates with respect to degree of development emphasizes the progressive character of this political tutelage. The promise of autonomous statehood under international recognition and guarantee hangs as the logical and eventual status over the whole system instead of merely being dangled at the nose of the class A mandates that, in the language of the Article, “have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to the rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone.” Cutting through all legal quibbles it would seem that under this system mental authority rests as delegated power in the mandatory government, with the source and sanction of sovereignty in the League of Nations and the title of sovereignty internationally guaranteed in the vested interests of the people themselves.
In accepting such a mandatory commission, a State accepts an obligation as a political trustee, bound by international agreement and confirmed periodically by the procedure of an annual report of its stewardship to the Council of the League. For matters of detail in administration and of consultation and advice as to policy, the Council is supplemented by a Permanent Mandates Commission by original authorization of the Pact. An expert and impartial standing committee of ten members is thus constituted,—its impartial character guaranteed by the provision that five of its members must be appointed from non-mandatory countries and the definition of their individual and collective tenure as permanent. They are thus international civil servants charged with the function of guarding in principle and practice the terms of the Covenant with respect to the mandated and the contractual agreements of the several mandatory charges.
That this system of government by mandate is gradually crystallizing in actual practice and slowly building up a body of precedent is due primarily to the conscientious constructive and tactful functioning of the Permanent Mandates Commission. It has held thriteen ordinary and extra-ordinary sessions and, in addition to treating certain issues of general policy which will be discussed later, has examined the annual reports of the mandatory powers in the presence of accredited representatives of these governments who have been asked for specific interpretations, explanations and often additional information. While the Commission has no judicial powers, it has power of recommendation and advice both in the direction of the Council of the League to whom it submits its reports with observations and to the mandatory governments. It addition it may and has often received petitions of grievances from individuals and groups in the mandated areas, avoiding, however, any procedure of a formal hearing of petitioners. The normal course of petitions is through the mandatory government itself referred to the Commission with the government’s comments, but petitions may come from outside disinterested sources. Further since 1925 the Commission has laid down without objection by the Council a policy of receiving information about conditions in the mandates by individual members in private interview. Obviously the Commission has been careful to stay within the limits of its advisory functions and not to set itself up as a tribunal or court of appeal to the detriment of the practical authority of the mandatory agents of government. On three disputed points: to maintain the right of petition, the right of extended interpolation of the mandatory powers through formal questionnaire and the rights of independent but indirect enquiry into internal affairs in mandated areas,—(the case of Syria in 1924 and Samoa in 1927,) the Commission has maintained a moderately firm position. Its moral authority has been, and will probably continue to be, its chief asset; the mere fact of such large-scale and detailed publicity as its published reports and meeting memoranda having developed a standard of accountability new in colonial government.
By a policy of assigning specific departments and problems of government to the special concern of single members, the Commission has attained a degree of continuity and expertness in supervision and advice impossible otherwise. This in connection with the maintenance of the Mandates as one of the ten permanent sections in the Secretariat is making available for the direction and consultation of official and unofficial interests an increasing amount of detailed information and experience in colonial administration. The Eighth Report of the Commission emphasizes the constructive side of the Commission’s function in speaking of its dual task of supervision and collaboration. The Commission must in scrutinizing the reports of the mandatory powers determine the extent to which the principles of the Pact and of the Mandate Charters are finding effective realization in the administration of the respective territories. But it must also do all in its power to assist the mandatory powers in the execution of the difficult and important mission which they are carrying out in the name of the League and for which they are accountable to its Council. “Recommendations to the Council, especially advisory opinions on interpretation of policy are matters of prescribed duty and regular procedure for the Commission. However, practical consultation of the Commission by the mandatory governments, a purely optional procedure, has proved to be an important aspect of the Commission’s work. Obviously instead of a merely technical administration, a new regime is in the making through the cooperative effort of the Mandates Commission and some at least of the mandatory governments. While the Council in theory has deciding power and final authority, the more such a practice is developed the more will the advisory body have in practice the real influence and in many cases the initiative. As one writer puts it,—“the formation of the Mandates may be characterized as a system of guarantees, a moral frame work about a program not yet fully sketched in, but to be progressively worked out in the light of experience.”
Although the concept of a mandates system came into considerations of the Peace Conference originally as a plan for the disposition of the Turkish possessions in the Near East, and was merely extended at the instigation of General Smuts and after much controversy to the final disposition of the former German colonies, the mandates of class B, all African, are really the crux of the mandates system. Had the territory to be provided for been exclusively African, there is reason to believe that the mandatory system might not have been selected by the Council of Five.3
Yet it was the extension of the mandates principle to these African territories which called forth the most specific declarations both of the general principles of colonial trusteeship and of specific guarantees by which these were to be applied. The six mandates of class B,—British and French Togo-lands, British and French Cameroons, Ruanda-Urundi, the Belgian mandate, and Tanganyika also a British mandate, are all African. With the addition of one African mandate in class C,—South-West Africa under mandate to the Union of South of Africa, these territories comprise over 938,000 square miles and a population slightly over thirteen million. Thus over two-thirds of the population under mandatory control is African. It is these seven mandates that have thrust the mandates principle and system into the battle-area of the old colonial regime, each of them confronting on all sides colonies proper and old-style protectorates held under the system of permanent tenure and unaccountable sovereignty. To the extent that it is an alternative system of colonial administration, the mandates regime becomes so primarily through its inclusion of the African mandates. For they involve in the most fundamental way the political and economic situation of imperialism, with large undeveloped natural resources, undeveloped populations once under the direct control of the old colonial regime, and differences of level and type of civilization which directly challenge the professed ideals of guardianship and tutelage. They offer the severest burden and the most decisive test in the entire range of application of the mandates principles. Without apology the present report construes them as the practical test-case of the progress and possibilities of this system under the auspices of the Covenant and the League of Nations.
Although it has no share in its administration, the United States is in both a moral and a legal sense, party to the whole mandate system. As one of the Allied and Associated Powers it was responsible for this reassignment of territory, and has subsequently negotiated by treaty recognition of nine of the fourteen mandates. During the negotiations of the assignment the mandates it protested officially and had its objections taken into unofficial consideration and satisfactorily adjusted before the final confirmation of the mandates in 1922. Deeper still than any legal and political relationship, the United States cannot disavow moral responsibility for the proper maintenance of the mandates principle. It was defined as the fifth of President Wilson’s Fourteen Points, and owes its incorporation in the Pact more to the attitude of the American delegation than to that of any other of the contracting parties. Two additional factors bring the issue involved closely home to the practical concern and interests of America. The first is America’s growing share in the trade of the tropics and responsibility for the effects of economic imperialism the world over. The second is its share in the delicate issues of the relationship of the white to the colored populations of the world both as great world power and co-partner in the economic interests of imperialism and as herself domestically involved in some of the crucial aspects of this same problem. Public opinion in the United States on this phase of world politics should be much more interested, much more informed, much more cooperative than it is, and this should be especially true of public opinion among American Negroes whose interest in the international guardianship of the rights of minorities and of undeveloped peoples and their tutelage for self-development and self-government is both sentimental and practical.
In this connection, it is interesting to note that on January 6, 1919 at a meeting held at Carnegie Hall, New York City under the joint auspices of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Pan-African League, a resolution was sent to the Versailles Peace Conference asking for the creation of an independent Central African state under international protection. It was proposed that this state, consisting mainly of the former German colonies with small ceded portions of the Belgian Congo, embracing a zone climatically unsuited for permanent European residence, should be set up and administered under international protection with an international civil service competitively open to the nationals of all the guaranteeing states, including of course the colored citizens of America. This significant suggestion, practically simultaneous with the famous pamphlet of General Smuts, was cabled to President Wilson, then in France as First Plenipotentiary of the United States at the Peace Conference and subsequently was submitted formally to the American Peace delegation and to the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs. It declared for an internationalized Middle or Equatorial Africa to be developed in the interests of the conservation of its natural resources and the progressive development of the native populations toward eventual self-government. Later in February, the Pan-American Congress in session at Paris renewed this suggestion in detail in a memorandum signed by fifty-seven delegates and addressed to the Conference.
The public interest and participation in this question on the part of Negro-Americans, in common with American public opinion in general, suffered a setback through the non-participation of America as an official member of the League. From time to time since there have been sporadic revivals of interest in terms of special issues and special problems connected with the African situation, but what seems to be the most desirable at present is the cultivation among American Negroes of an enlightened and cooperative body of opinions for the mandates program. The only possible machinery of international control at present is the League of Nations, and the present scheme of indirect international control of this considerable section of African territory guarantees in prospect at least all that could reasonably have been expected through a system of indirect international control. A more serious loss was the failure of the United States to enter the League and thus to give official support to this and other aspects of its constructive work.
But unofficial American cooperation with this, as with other aspects of the work of the League, has been considerable and influential. In respect of the mandates proper, the secretary of the Permanent Mandates Commission is an American, and Americans are eligible for membership on the Commission, and one of the first appointments which unfortunately had to be declined was offered to Mr. Cameron Forbes, former Governor of the Phillipines. In respect to the larger but closely connected African interests, American cooperation has been important. The most exhaustive study of African colonial government including of course a report on the administration of the Mandates is an American research project.4 The Rockefeller Foundation has contributed largely to the program of tropical sanitation and the control and prevention of tropical diseases. And an American agency5 has been responsible for two commissions of enquiry that have made the first systematic surveys of Education in Africa, which in turn have been the precipitating factors in the recent extensive revision of educational policy and program in British Tropical Africa and four of the African mandates. At this critical constructive stage in the development of the mandates system and policy, in both the spheres of its direct jurisdiction and indirect influence, the increased participation and cooperation of enlightened American opinion and assistance is imperatively needed. Further, such participation and cooperation could come in considerable measure from no more logical or desirable source than from the enlightened sections of the Negro-American population, as Afro-Americans twice interested and doubly obligated.
Any fundamental revision of the mandates system will immediately involve the United States as a contracting party and guarantor of the treaty disposition of the former German colonies in spite of the fact that the definite title to the mandates derives from the Council of the League and for legislative sanction, the membership of the League. The proposals, highly tentative as yet, for the return of all or part of these territories to Germany, like any other fundamental revision of the mandates system or policy, would involve the consent and sanction of the United States. Restoration as a colonial holding would of course involve complete negation of the Mandated principle and pledge,—a breakdown on the political side which is unlikely. The question of restoration by way of the assignment of a mandate to Germany raises immediately another sort of issue in which the United States has direct interest, even though a non-member of the League. The policy of the economic open door, not only extended to all members of the League by the “equal opportunities for trade and commerce” clause in the Covenant was one of the stipulations of the mandates policy especially advanced by the American delegation. Its maintenance and extension to United States interests has repeatedly been insisted upon by our government through the State Department. One of the special pleas, if not the main one, for total or partial restoration of the German colonies is the economic one of giving Germany market outlets and sources of raw products to enable her to meet the strain of her reparations agreements. On the theory of trusteeship and in the scrupulous practice of the open door policy, no such material benefits could possibly accrue to Germany in the capacity of a mandatory power. The conferring of a German mandate would thus either be useless on the basis of this particular argument and only a sentimental concession to German national pride or else a flagrant and dangerous violation of the mandates principle and open confession of the lapse of the trustee basis into a policy of vested interests and closed or preferential economic spheres.
The principle of economic equality stipulated in the mandate is up to the present the most explicit and most widely guaranteed declaration of the principle of the economic open-door in areas ordinarily subjected to closed and preferential trade and investment in the interests of the nationals of special government. Batsell6 insists, with warrant that “the principle of economic equality is an essential part of the mandatory system.” A question under the interpretation of this point came up at the thirteenth session (June 1928) of the Permanent Mandates Commission and an enquiry calling for fundamental interpretation of the binding power of the agreement has been asked of the Council of the League. It is obvious too that sooner or later the question of the renewal of old concessions in the mandated territories will bring up in practical form the theoretical rights of all nationals to invest and demand on equal terms economic recognition on an international scale under international supervision. This ultimately will make more obvious the discrepancies of closed or partially closed economic areas in adjacent colonies and will undoubtedly bring a demand for the internationalization by agreement of economic rights in these areas and therefore an abandonment of the spheres of economic influence principle under which the older forms of colonial exploitation have proceeded.
On any infringement or curtailment of her international economic rights and interests, the United States may be confidently expected to assert herself, and with respect to the mandates this has been up to the present her main official concern. Even where selfishly motivated, her insistence on the policy of “economic equality” reinforces however one of the vital practical principles of the mandates system. However there is a moral converse to this situation, with a direct bearing of the same principles upon the United States’ own policy. The protection of American economic interests abroad has dictated more than one breach of some of the same principles. Our government cannot consistently contend for the economic open door and economic equality on the one hand and on the other hand countenance and even abet American capital in policies of exploitation and politically protected spheres of penetration. Such relatively recent procedures as the forced supervision of Haitian fiscal affairs and the conditional Liberian loan upon the basis of which the Firestone Rubber Concession in Liberia was made open to crushing criticism of inconsistency in our foreign economic policy. Indeed the implications of the mandates code are as embarrassing for the ruthless exponents of economic imperialism as they are for the politically imperialistic nations. The principle of trusteeship has relevance to the Phillipines, to Porto Rice, to Haiti, and Nicaragua as definitely as to any of the colonial holdings of the European powers. Not merely because of its initial sponsorship which is itself a strong moral committment but because of the inescapable effects on practical situations in which the United States is involved. It is impossible for us to ignore or disregard the trend of such policies as those of the League in respect to mandated areas, undeveloped peoples and precariously situated minorities. Even if the United States should never formally join the League, it must take cognizance of these policies of the League; official cognizance of them as formulated in draft conventions submitted for ratification and informal cognizance of them as an enlightened world opinion which sooner or later will bring to bear upon the foreign and domestic policies of the United States the force of such principles. The mandates system is rapidly becoming a code of judgment with respect to the relations of the big powers to the lesser and weaker powers and with respect to the relationship of the economic industrial countries with the tropics.
Benjamin Kidd in his book, “The Control of the Tropics,” speaks of the political and cultural independence of the tropical world on this western European world, but with great perspicacity points out the converse of this,—the vital economic dependence of the western European world and the economy of the industrial nations upon the tropic world both as a source of raw materials and as export markets. Any checking or revision of economic exploitation must be reinforced by a clear understanding of this mutual dependence and the realization that the most selfish motives alike dictate care and moderation in the manipulation of these large economic areas. It should be clearly pointed out how short-sighted the policy of over exploitation really is in all its features. First,—that land expropriation leads to forced labor, and by way of that to the disintegration of normal self-supporting native life, and this in turn to depopulation, economic dependency and lowered capacity for consumption of goods;—a first vicious circle by which over-exploitation defeats its own ends in the long run. In the second place too rapid depletion of natural resources adversely affects both the present and the future world market or necessary commodities,—in the first instance by over-supply and low prices, in the second by scarcity with prohibitive prices. The third fact slowly dawning on the imperial type of mind is that closed and artificially regulated areas, government influenced prices and the practice of “dumped” or forced export markets disturb the natural balance and growth of trade and produce trade slumps in which the forced gains are more than counterbalanced.
In the discussion of contemporary colonial administration the economic view and the economic factors are of paramount importance. The particular distinctiveness of present-day imperialism is its economic basis. The report of Miss Mary Sheepshanks puts the situation very forcibly: “Economic imperialism as a politic by which control rights are acquired of those undeveloped lands or commercial concessions in backward countries where in effect these are used (exploited) not in the interests of the natives but in the interests of the European state which has control of particular groups of nationals of that state. Such a policy necessarily involves protecting such territories and spheres of influence against the intrusion of other nations, both by treaty and as a last resort by force. This politic, born in the course of the nineteenth century, is particularly a development of the period 1880 to 1914.”7 It is well to note both the shift from the political to the economic motive and the comparative recency of the intensive stage of this process of economical exploitation. To the theorist, the principle of the mandates expressed in Article 22 seems to derive from the ideal of the development of the subject populations gradually to the capacity of self-government. Its main motive, therefore, seems to be humanitarian democracy. However, the actual working policy of the mandates is that of international responsibility and a quasi-legal duty of trustee or guardianship. The trustee or guardianship idea is a direct derivative of economic life; already the mandate system has applied to a political administration some of the most fundamental economic ideas,—the notion of a quid pro quo in the colonial relation, other than the vague “benefits of civilization,”—the notion of accountability and a regular accounting, the principle of an open investment market as guaranteed in the economic equality clause,—the germ of the idea of conservation of both natural resources and the people themselves; and the beginning at least of that still more vital economic factor,—the alleviation of economic dependence in the maintenance of open labor markets and the protection of native labor. It is surprising to note how much of the essential moral guarantees and duties of the mandates bear re-statement in economic terms. This is not irrelevant,—for to return to Kidd’s statement the penetration of the tropics is an economic necessity and our modern industrial system is vitally dependent upon it. Perhaps more sanction for colonial reform will come from a practical but long term view of the colonial situation in its economic aspects than in the past has come from sentimental missionarism or abstract humanitarianism. Certainly it has been the part of wisdom for the Permanent Mandates Commission to have a permanent economic adviser representing the International Bureau of Labor associated with it and to avail itself of the information and technical advice of this important international agency. And in the constructive management of the mandates economic reforms, especially in connection with native labor, must be increasingly emphasized.
The proposed draft Convention on forced labor under the auspices of the International Labour Bureau is accordingly one of the first practical steps in the underpinning and the extension of the mandates principle of protection of Native Rights and the prevention of ruthless economic exploitation in colonial areas, mandates as well as colonies. For the maintenance of fair labor conditions even in the Mandates, where it is admittedly much in advance of conditions in most of the colonies, is in the absence of definite standards and restrictions particularly in a situation where under pressure of taxation or labor demanded for public works may legally escape being a technical breach of the Mandate charter. Already compulsory labor is prohibited in the mandates except for “essential public works.” Even more than the praiseworthy international Convention against Slavery, this Draft Convention looking to international agreement and cooperation in the alleviation and elimination of this much more general and insidious form of slavery is of the utmost importance. It is not too much to regard it as one direct outcome of the mandates program and as a logical step in what seems to be the gradual international extension of the mandates system by international conference and subsequent international agreement. This convention at present in tentative draft form has been based on an extensive and detailed investigation of labor conditions and labor practices in colonial areas including the mandated territories and an averaging of certain minimum requirements based on the principles of fair protection and the precedence of human conservation above all immediate material gains.
The salient points will undoubtedly be,—regulation of porterage, one of the excessive drains on African health and prohibition of excessive labor drafts even for public works by quota limitations and the regulation of conditions, duration and season of such large-scale or “gang labor” employment, the prohibition of the private labor draft positively by the outlawry of direct or indirect government collusion with large concessionary companies and large plantation owners and indirectly by formulation of standard written labor contracts and the removal of legal sanctions for their non-performance, and the stipulation of standard sanitary safeguards and limited zones within which labor my be imported or exported on a wholesale scale.
The mere mention of these objectives of modern colonial labor reform brings up the question of American adherence even in advance of the eventual issue of the ratification of some international Labor Convention embodying them.
From numerous sources, liberal and scientific as well as radical and humanitarian, warnings and protests have come against the potential dangers of the huge concessions to the Firestone Rubber Corporation of one million acres of land in Liberia for rubber cultivation. Criticism focusses on three points:—
1. The danger of unfair reinforcement of a private commercial interest and concession by governmental pressure and a system of fiscal advisers such as is at present in force between the United States and Liberia.
2. The danger of conditions tantamount to forced labor and government regulated wages lower than the normal wage of an open labor market by collusion with official agencies of the Liberian government,—which has opened a labor bureau to facilitate the recruitment of labor for this large scale operation.
3. The flagrant inconsistency between such policies reinforced by state authorized private loans and the traditional and professed American policy of the economic open door.
The United States cannot afford the moral inconsistency of such a policy both that of the American sponsorship of the mandates principle and the United States attitude toward similar policies on the part of other governments.
An enlightened labor code for colonial areas and populations internationally guaranteed would bring us just one step nearer that ‘Code of Native Rights’ which so many progressive minds regard as the safest and most effective way of underwriting specific reforms in colonial administration and consolidating their effect. Many lines of progressive thinking have independently come to the same or quite similar conclusions; formulated or suggested outlines of such a code have come from three or four countries, and a number of organizations in each represent different shades of political thought,—liberal as well as radical, some humanitarian others objectively scientific. The degree of unanimity is exceptional considering the diversity of the organizations in type and approach: among them such groups as the British Labour Party, the British Trades Union Congress, the Pan-African League, the British Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society, the Womens League for Peace and Freedom, the International Missionary Conference (Le Zonte), not to mention a number of outstanding individual publicities and reformers. The relevance to our subject of discussion is two fold—first in that the two associated expert bodies of the League of Nations—the Mandates Commission and the International Bureau of Labor, in addition to having built up the nearest approach we have to any such international charter of the rights of dependent peoples, would inevitably be the most effective agencies for its proper codification and promulgation through the channels of an international convention. The second is that if we consider it not as an administrative system merely, but in principle the Mandate regime is already potentially such a code as far as purely political guarantees can carry and express it.
One of the most constructive ways of assessing this would be to state this new code of empire in a tentative outline. There is, it seems, a certain basic minimum of rights and principles that can and should be specifically guaranteed. They are subject to legislative safeguard and it is not safe to leave them open in the interest of “development” or further insight into the situation. The minimum taken by comparison of several of these projected codes oddly coincides in almost every particular with the provisions of the mandatory charters. In a few instances as to land policy notably, the principle is held more strigently than in the provisions of these charters, but there’s no conflict of principle and the single omission from the point of view of the mandates’ charter’ the right of appeal and petition, is provided for in the mandate machinery. Then in addition to such a basic minimum of necessary guarantees there would seem to be certain constructive principles of policy relating to longer term but developing interests which might be formulated as the basic objective of a reform program.
The minimum of guarantees, closely following those of the mandate charters, and upon which all progressive colonial policy should agree to conform, may be stated as follows:—
A. The establishment of the principle of the non-alienation of native land, and as a necessary corollary re-allocation of dispossessed native tribes under government supervision and with compensation to European title holders in areas where this alienation of land has flagrantly dislocated native life.
B. The suppression of all forms of forced labor by international convention, as the result of either direct or indirect pressure, including currency taxation, and the maintenance of open competitive labor markets by some system of labor contract laws and responsible government supervision.
C. The strict supervision of valid concessions, the prohibition of general monopolies, and the curtailment of large-scale concessions except on short-term lease, and the gradual abrogation or conversion of long-term leases in effect.
D. The establishment of the principle of economic autonomy of colonial areas by formal adoption of the policy of the expenditure of the public revenues within the area, and the creation of local native treasuries for local developments.
E. The prohibition of the organization of any native military forces except for local police purposes and the defense of the territory, and the prohibition of the traffic in arms and the sale of spiritous liquors.
F. The guarantee of the rights of appeal and petition, of the freedom of worship, conscience, public utterance and right of assembly.
In view of what someone has aptly stated as “the danger of working solely on a standard of material and economic prosperity” certain long-term interests should also be guaranteed in general principle or outline at least. Such a program must be regarded as the legitimate extension of the foregoing guarantees. It really incorporates a good deal of the more enlightened procedures of contemporary colonial reform as well as consistently reflected the mandates’ practical ideal of progressive development for self-government. A forward-looking program of this sort would almost necessarily embrace:—
A. The establishment by international agreement of a Code of Native Rights embodying the principle of trusteeship and in specific committment at least the basic minimum guarantees of the mandatory charters.
B. The institution of systems of local government based on what is called the system of indirect rule recognizing the authority of native Chiefs either upon an hereditary basis or some system of representative appointment consistent with the traditional institutions of tribal life and custom.
C. The assumption by the government of responsibility for general public education and a program for the standardization and indirect supervision of established private and missionary centres of education through government subsidy and cooperation.
D. The maintenance or gradual opening up of colonial and protectorate territory upon the principle of international economic equality.
E. The establishment in principle of a policy of the conservation of the natural resources of colonial territories and the supervision of land cultivation and public health and sanitary measures toward the same end.
For purposes of comparison a statement of colonial program and aims is sketched in a recommendation for the treatment of subject peoples and dependencies outlined by the British Trades Union Congress and the British Labour Party is also given. It will be found to be in agreement on all essential points and to conform very closely to the mandate practice as far as that has been already worked out.
It is interesting to note among the recommendations one to the effect that the mandates system be voluntarily extended by national legislation to the colonies of the British Empire.
“A code of Native Rights for all the tropical Dependences of the British Empire should be worked out, adopted, and publicly proclaimed. It should deal mainly with—
(a) LAND. The model to follow is that of the British possessions on the West Coast of Africa, where the Government has treated the land as in fact the property of the native communities, has refused to alienate lands to Europeans, and has encouraged the African to make most economic use possible of his own land. Native rights should receive legal sanction. Every native family to be assured sufficient land for its support. Leases to Europeans should only be granted for short periods, with the consest of the native communities.
(b) LABOUR. Legal compulsory labour should be prohibited except for native tribal purposes of a local character. Colonial governments should publicly declare that they take up an entirely indifferent and impartial attitude as to whether the native works for the white man or for and that no official pressure will be exercised. Native production should be encouraged as providing an alternative to wage labour. There is an increasing danger that Tropical Dependencies will be industrialised; this means that native workers will be engaged in producing the same article—sometimes (as in South Africa) in the same territory, “Where mines or industry are started, the Government itself should be the controlling body. All capital investments in tropical Dependencies should be under an effective and well-defined degree of Government control.
(c) TAXATION. Taxation should not be imposed in order to compel the native to work for wages. It should be raised for revenue purposes. The white population should bear their fair share of it. The revenue should be used for the community generally and the revenue raised from the taxation of the natives at least should be spent on services directly beneficial to them, such as Agriculture and veterinary help, medical service and education.
Two further points should be noted.
(i) It is highly desirable that the Mandate system under the League of Nations should in time be extended to all those parts of the British Empire (as of other Empires) which are inhabited by weaker races. This would not only emphasize our responsibility as trustees, but would enable what is good in the British or other systems to have its effect upon the practice in all Empires.
(ii) No new territories, where whites are in a minority, should be granted what is called “responsible” government, until the natives, through their representatives, exercise effective and substantial influence corresponding to their numbers. Till then, government by the Colonial Office or by Dominion Governments is more trustworthy,”8
With a view to long term interests the mandatories have been encouraged by the Commission in steps toward the conservation of their natural resources and programs of sanitation aiming at the abatement of tropical disease and the conservation of the native population. The latter was immediately imperative because in certain areas alarming conditions of depopulation existed. Subject to budget restrictions in some of the poorer mandates, notably the French Cameroons, these activities have rapidly grown under the mandatory regime. But it is in the domain of education that the long term interests of the native population can and must be most effectively safeguarded. Advisory oversight of this important department was assigned to the late Madame Anna Bugge-Wicksell whose recent death was a serious loss in the constructive efforts of the Commission along these lines. Madame Bugge-Wicksell in this capacity had visited America under the auspices of Phelps-Stokes Fund and had studied extensively the current types and programs of education, academic and technical, in operation in schools for the American Negroes. She had come to the conclusion favorable to full government responsibility for general public education combined with a policy of cooperation with existing missionary agencies under government subsidy and supervision. She was personally convinced that the lessons of that Negro’s experience in America had much relevance to the African situation, and that useful adaptations could and ought to be made. She was also in favour of the gradual enlistment of a limited number of trained American Negroes, especially in technical education, in the campaign of African development. Any formal pronouncement of the Commission as to an educational policy was of course out of the question, but in line with the guarantees and responsibilities of trusteeship nothing less than full government responsibility for general public education could be accepted as consistent with the trusteeship idea. In several instances movements for the introduction of technical training and scientific agriculture and the like had been favorably commented upon the increased expenditure for educational item in the budgets noted and encouraged and interesting experiments like that of the school for “sons of Chiefs” in Tanganyika territory commended. The change in the African educational policy, partly under the auspices of the English Parliamentary Committee on Native Education, partly under the encouragement of the Mandates Commission has been stated by Mr. Hambley as “not designed to Europeanize the African native, but to develop the African for life in Africa.” “Education,” he says further, “has changed from a system providing escape from native life for a few people of position or exceptional ability to a method of scientific training designed to supply native teachers and leaders to the villages from whence they came.”9 This is a view of education most consistent with the mandatory idea of the protection of native institutions and preparation of the native populations for self-development. A Memorandum on Educational Policy by the British Advisory Committee on Native Education in Africa states very explicitly the type of Education believed to be most needed at present in Africa. It says:—
“Education should be adapted to the mentality, aptitudes, occupations, and traditions of the various peoples, conserving as far as possible all sound and healthy elements in the fabric of their social life; adapting them where necessary to changed circumstances and progressive ideas, as an agent of natural growth and evolution. Its aim should be to render the individual more efficient in his or her conditions of life, whatever they may be, and to promote the advancement of the community as a whole through the improvement of Agriculture, and the development of native industries, the improvement of health, the training of the people in the management of their own affairs, and in the inculcation of true ideals of citizenship and service. It must include the raising up of capable, trustworthy, public-spirited leaders of the people, belonging to their own race. … The first task of education is to raise the standard alike of character and efficiency of the bulk of the people, “but provision must also be made for the training of those who are required to fill posts in the administrative and technical services, as well as of those who as Chiefs will occupy positions of exceptional trust and responsibility. As resources permit, the door of advancement, opened for those who by character, ability, and temperament show themselves fitted to profit by such education.”
There is but one fault to be found with the present situation, that the Mandates Commission by the very nature of its function has little or no power of initiative on the one hand, and that on the other, the budget resources of the African territories, colonies as well as mandates, are so meagre, and that then, only the smaller portion of these can be expended on the larger constructive tasks.
From the analysis of the basic immediate demands where four out of six requisites have direst economic bearing, it will be seen that economic safeguards and reform are vital to the success of the newer colonial policy. In view of this the association of an officer of the International Bureau of Labor as expert adviser to the Permanent Mandates commission, and the organization of a Commission on Native Labor at Geneva are almost as important to the successful working out of the mandates policy as the machinery of the Mandates Commission itself. Indeed in the constant medley of petitions and disputes coming to the Mandates Commission, the facts now available in the archives of the International Bureau of Labor have on more than one occasion served as impartial checks in the judicial estimation of the situation with expert officials of the Bureau as unofficial referees. Indeed until some direct machinery of investigation is worked out for the Mandates Commission, as between the administrative reports of the mandatory officials on the one side and the petitions and bills of grievances on the other, the relatively objective information of the Bureau of Labor has been the most valuable and trustworthy body of information accessible to the Commission. But this is a poor substitute for the right of independent local investigation,—not so much because of any inadequacy of the Bureau’s information, but because of its limited scope as referring merely to labor and closely allied conditions.
One of the great difficulties in the machinery of mandate supervision is about the very point. The Commission has steadfastly maintained the right of receiving petitions but has tried on the other hand to safeguard the dignity and authority of the mandatory power. Information on matters of dispute between these governments and their wards can be secured only through official reports and answers to the questionnaire of the Commission or through channels of indirect inquiry. However, it is quite obvious that in addition to a desire to establish the authority of the mandatory power, the Mandates Commission has been forced to conserve its own moral authority and to avoid overstepping its advisory capacity, as prescribed by the League constitution. Many suggestions have been made to correct this obvious weakness including that of extending power to the Commission to send out commissions of inquiry and even the suggestion that the Commission have permanent residents or consuls in the mandated areas to make direct reports or investigations. All suggestions of this character have naturally been strenuously opposed by the representatives of the mandatory governments and action on them deferred up to the present. However, the indirect power of publicity through the published reports and answers to Commission’s inquiries have served with astonishing effectiveness. In the last analysis the real force behind the mandates, as indeed behind the League itself, is the moral force of enlightened public opinion and the pressure of this opinion through world-wide publicity.
Likewise the force of the example of the operation of the Mandates policy in the mandated territories is at present largely moral,—although in its short term of operation favorable improvements of trade are general and balanced budgets possible in spite of increased expenditure on public works of all sorts, the initial cost of which has been a heavy strain upon the resources of these territories. But here as in the available economic results of Nigerian and Gold Coast trade and government income under the fairer system of non-alienation of native lands, a minimum of large plantation concessions, and a recognition and stimulation of native leadership gives practical reinforcement to the value, demonstrated and potential, of the newer policy of colonial administration. It seems to work not only in the interest of the natives but also for the practical interest of the colonial administration and the European capital invested in the colony or dependent upon the supply of raw products drawn from the colony.
Mr. Leonard Woolf10 sees in these facts a possible resolution between the selfish interests of economic exploitation and the altruistic interests of moral guardianship. He concludes:—
“First, the whole history of Africa since 1800 shows that unless the European government prevents the acquisition of land by white settlers and European companies and refuses to allow any compulsion of any kind upon the native to work for wages for Europeans, the economic interests of the native cannot be protected and sooner or later he becomes an economic slave.”
“Secondly, this has been recognized by governments themselves in Africa, and there are in fact two different systems of government actually in existence there, one of which reserves the land for the Africans and refuses to compel them to work for Europeans, while the other alienates the land to Europeans and seeks to compel the native to work on the Europeans’ land. The first policy and system can be seen working in some of the British possessions on the west coast; the second in Kenya.”
“Thirdly, the history of the British west coast possessions shows that it is untrue that the exploitation of the land for the purposes of European industry cannot be effected if it is left to the natives and unless it is controlled by Europeans.”
The danger points for the extension or even the maintenance of the Mandates policy are of course those areas where cheap land, cheap labor, large areas subject to government expropriation through concessions and climate suitable for prolonged European residence combine to make a tempting field for the reversal of the policy of trusteeship. In an analysis of a situation of the type in East Africa, Mr. Buell regards the rise of the “white settlement” policy there and its possible consolidation in an East African Dominion’s policy as the most dangerously reactionary program in all Africa and rather rightly seems to regard Tanganyika as the opposing bulwark. Geographically thrust into the very heart of this area, entrusted with the moral vindication and defense by practical example of the other system, Tanganyika is in a strategic though dangerous position. But as Mr. Buell estimates, the obligations of the mandate are intrenched in an international treaty, a non-partisan body of supervision, and in view of the pledge a challenging world opinion: he rightly concludes that “the future of East Africa may therefore rest with the League of Nations.”11
Already the Mandates policy has accentuated the difference and given international sanction to the newer more human standard. Germany’s loss of her colonies has thus broken the unanimity of the greater powers with respect to the older policies of control and administration. Like the situation between the Northern and the Southern United States in Abraham Lincoln’s days we have in present-day Africa a fatally contradictory alignment of colonial system with the inievritable dilemma that Lincoln so vividly characterized as a house divided against itself. No more than the United States can Africa hope to remain half-proprietary, half-trustee,—part on the exploiting basis of expropriation, part on the new basis of conservation of free trade. The mandate system thoroughly applied, according to Mr. Woolf12 should have “an immense repercussion in the rest of Africa. There seems to be no reason in the scheme of the universe to believe that the inhabitants of Tanganyika are a sacred trust of civilization, and those of Kenya by destiny the economic slaves of white men, and it is inconceivable that a slave society in Kenya should be able to live side by side with a prospering and developing native society in Tanganyika. The interests and development of the inhabitants of Africa either are or are not a sacred trust of civilization; if they are, and if they are treated as such by the League through its mandates, then sooner or later the mandate system will have to be extended to all the ‘possessions’ of imperialist Powers in Africa.”
One would be foolishly optimistic to hold such views merely on abstract faith in the League: over-confidence of this sort in the best interests of the ultimate vindication of the mandate experiment. Indeed the principles of the Mandate were asserted in 1885 in the Convention of Berlin and repeated more explicitly in the Revision Act of 1919. The ground for practical hope lies in the very vital connection of the old colonial order with the almost suicidal rivalry for colonial power and the present deadlock of the contending forces. If Article X is the pivot of the Peace Covenant for the preservation of peace and the status quo, Article 22, it will more and more be realized, is the only practical safeguard that it will not be fundamentally overthrown; in General Smut’s phrase, “Europe is being liquidated,” Europe was a tactful euphemism for Empire. The mandates are a revision of empire, and as such the only peaceful alternative to total loss in an orgy of over-exploitation. It is this strong negative power as much as the positive force of enlightened idealism which may be counted on to struggle through with the mandate’s experiment to a new and fairer policy of colonial administration.
1. Van Rees, D.F.W.—Les mandate Internationaux, Paris, 1927.
2. Woolf-Leonard—Imperialism & Civilization. N.Y., 1928 p.172–3.
3. Batsell, W.R.—The United States and the System of Mandates—International Conciliation Pamphlet No: 213, p.270
4. Buell, R. L.—The Native Problem in Africa, 2 vols. N. Y. 1928.
5. Education in West Africa—The Phelps-Stokes Fund, New York, 192
6. Education in East Africa—The Phelps-Stokes Fund, New York, 192
7. Sheepshanks, Mary—Economic Imperialism—section report V Congress of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, p. 15.
8. British Commonwealth Labor Conference Agenda—London, 1928 p. 4.
9. Hambley, W.D.—Racial Conflict in Africa—Journal of Negro History, Vol. XI, p. 587.
10. Op. Cit. p. 111.
11. Buell, R.L.—The Destiny of East Africa—Foreign Affairs, April, 1928.
12. Woolf: op. cit. p. 179.