The Fabian and the African

...Webb did nothing...

...He wanted no more inconvenience from below than did the Kenya whites...

...Webb's document insisted on the continuity of imperial policy since 1923 and fully accepted the White Paper of 1927, which had been a fairly plain statement of the "Dual Policy" brand of White Supremacy...

...It could not even persuade the Secretary of State to attend its meetings...

...Suppose that the Fabian colonial secretary had pushed ahead with a militant "pro-African" policy and had gotten defeated on it...

...Convinced that their trust in the British government was betrayed, many Africans in subsequent years sought other means to redress their grievances...

...While it was in the happy process of being transformed from above, it could not tolerate any disturbances from below that might shake its equilibrium...

...As we have seen, he did not even permit his party "advisers" to testify before the Joint Committee...

...Leonard Woolf thought Webb was being misled by Grigg, but this was untrue, says Gregory: Through the years, as an opponent of Marxist revolution, Webb had directed the Labor Party toward socialism along a course in line with his own philosophy, "the inevitability of gradualness...

...Not only the African independents were excluded...

...Oct...

...That is a lovely picture painted by Beatrice: the Fabian minister refusing to see a fellow Fabian because his civilservice expert informs him the fellow is a troublemaker...

...Webb yielded to Tory outcries and white settlers' pressure not because he was convinced by their arguments nor because he was a coward, but because he was afraid of the same danger they were afraid of, i.e., stimulating the Africans to take matters into their own hands...

...Since he and his government would name the members, this would seem to be a safe move...

...Essentially Beatrice shared the faith in the permanent government bureaucracy: she had meditated in her diary a few years before that the "civil servants—a fine body of men—[are] I think the most upright and intelligent class in the community...

...icism by a governor of his Secretary of State was so extraordinary that the officials [in the Colonial Office] were perplexed as to how to word the reply...

...But that is inevitable," explained Beatrice, who was aware of this criticism...

...More outlandish still, he did not think there was anything objectionable about it...

...Why not meet him casually in the Fabian office...

...The consequences of Labor's failure to make even a gesture in the direction of African interests may well have been decisive for the direction taken by Africa: The report of the Joint Committee . . . was the final act in a drama of intense controversy that had held the attention of British, African and Indian audiences for a decade...

...staff...

...Therefore there had to be a fight, and the battleground chosen by Webb himself was the device of a Joint Committee of Parliament...

...When Kenyatta and Mockerie came to London at considerable expense to present their views in person to the whitesahib Colonial Secretary, they were granted an audience only with the Permanent Under-Secretary "and their conversation with him was disappointing...

...Another such term was Native Paramountcy...

...One powerful motivation was the maintenance of the united front of the white sahibs before native eyes...

...The two were well educated and could speak English fluently...

...133, 140...

...The consequence would have been an earlier spur to African unrest...

...Secondly, the chairman naturally had to be either a Laborite or a Tory...

...This may be deemed merely an error in judgment by our hardheaded statesman, especially by change-minimizers...

...Drummond Shiels, his under-secretary in the Colonial Office, wrote in The Webbs and Their Work: It has been asserted that he was dominated by his Civil Servants...

...Not desirable that you should see Philby...

...Grigg refused...

...For technical constitutional reasons he had to be raised to the peerage before taking office, becoming Lord Passfield...

...Webb's White Papers on East Africa were unacceptable to the settlers (and Tories) for two reasons...

...It is an extraordinarily extreme picture, this account of Webb's fatuous futility as colonial secretary...

...When Africans in Kenya heard that they were to be represented on the committee, the Kikiyu Central Association requested that it be authorized to proceed with the election of the Kikiyu delegates...

...Almost everyone knows that Sidney Webb's Fabianism was, if nothing else, practical, constructive, and hardheaded, unlike the revolutionary extremists he held in sovereign contempt...

...The interests of the State also demanded no rude shocks to its stability or prestige among the Lesser Breeds...

...The interests of the State were paramount because this State was itself, by the inevitability of gradualness, being transformed in the direction of collectivism...

...Second, the latter objected to the "benevolent" part of Webb's benevolent colonialism: security of land tenure for Africans, not quite so exploitative a taxation schedule, better education, housing, etc...

...Gregory's remark that Webb viewed the permanent officialdom as being neither reactionary nor radical hits the mark...

...Beatrice Webb wondered, in her diary, what the Colonial Office staff thought of Sidney: A super-civil servant added to the C.O...

...But when they arrived in London, even though examination of witnesses was to continue for many weeks, they were notified that they had arrived too late...

...What was the general reason for the myth, and why did Webb fall in with this pattern of apparent parliamentary cretinism...

...They were not reactionary: that is, they did not (most of them) act as mouthpieces of the white settlers against London...

...Postscript: It was precisely at this time, while the Labor cabinet was foundering and the colonial secretary was floundering, that Beatrice was discovering the fascinating vision of the Super-Civil-Service State in the totalitarian system under Stalin...

...His main activity is to pick the brains of all and sundry, selecting from or harmonising conflicting or divergent policies...

...But this was not all...

...Dr...

...pp...

...Let us get out of the way, first, any suspicion that Webb expected any new policy to be applied with or with out delay...

...As a last resort, they submitted to the committee a written exposition of their grievances...

...6, esp...

...On the contrary: "Webb, favorably impressed with Grigg and desirous of minimizing change during the transition in governments, persuaded the Governor to accept an additional year of office...

...and the causes of Mau Mau...

...In his opinion the advisory committee had fallen into the hands of militant radicals—Buxton, Woolf, Leys, Ross, and Wedgwood...

...He regarded as experts most, if not all, of the senior men in the Co lonial Office and was, perhaps, in dined to accept their judgments without always applying the same critical examination which he gave to other matters...

...As mentioned, it is easy to explain it all by Webb's imperialist-mindedness, but while this is a fact, it does not get to the bottom of the episode...

...but this is not the side we are interested in here .2 It is something else...

...1 Berkeley, University of California Press, 1962...

...One aspect of this picture is fairly well known: Webb's almost unquestioning pro-imperialism...

...can be traced to the fluctuations in British colonial policy between 1923 and 1931...

...It was after this that the man called Johnstone Kenyatta changed his name to Jomo Kenyatta, and, as secretary of the Kikiyu Central Association, set about "to rouse the African community into mass protest against the the white man's civilization...

...To be sure, Gregory rightly insists that Webb was not the "tool" of his civil servants, but "These men made suggestions, of course, and their recommendations usually were accepted without question...

...but then it is not certain what he would have recognized as bias...

...The Times, for example, had devoted an editorial to this plea...

...Naturally the conclusions in the Committee's report went to the Right...

...They were not radical: that is, they did not get "fanatical" about African interests...

...Grigg had a long public record as a virulent White Supremacy imperialist, the kind who could openly say in his opening address as governor: "The base on which the whole pyramid of our civilization in this Colony is reared is native labor," and extol the "white man's burden...

...If so it will be the British Fabians who will show the way: not the continental Marxists...

...The prominent Labor men interested in African affairs whom Gregory labels the "humanitarians"— Josiah Wedgwood, Leonard Woolf, Julian Huxley, Norman Leys, W. M. Ross—were regarded as too pro-African by Webb and likewise kept out...

...Modest enough, but the whites were in no humanitarian mood...

...Did then Webb appoint a "disinterested person...

...On September 10, Beatrice wrote in her diary: "Am I strong enough to go to Russia so as to give vividness to any line we take...

...Only because organizations such as the Anti-Slavery Society protested did Webb and the Committee correct this oversight [sic...

...First of all, the government decided that the Committee would consist of 20 members drawn equally from both Houses and from the two leading parties...

...When ultimately three African witnesses from each of the three East African territories did appear before the Committee, they were heard only cursorily and pro forma: "Obviously, they were summoned, not because they could furnish important information, but because without them the committee could not claim that it had heard the opinions of all commu nities...

...This insistence on continuity in policy was implemented by Webb's definition of "right to equal treatment" of races as "right to equal treatment in accord with their several needs...

...According to this pretense, the policy of His Majesty's Government had remained unchanged throughout the various White Papers...

...said I, on behalf of the rebel, who happens to be a Fabian approved by Calton...

...For example, Webb, who was a benevolent man, wanted an African leader released from jail...

...Gregory is moved to comment that this showed "the existence of Kikiyu grievances was scarcely acknowledged by the British government," i.e., the Laborites...

...It is rather strange that nothing of any importance has ever been written on this decisive test of Mr...

...Just before Webb came in, Grigg had been scheming with Tory officials in Britain to put across a program dear to the white settlers, one not only more ruthless toward the Africans but aimed at loosening even London's reins on their power...

...The rigging was complete...

...Webb settled comfortably into the groove as first among the servants of the State...

...Discouraged by failure and confused by the many definitions of policy, humanitarians ceased to campaign for a change in East Africa...

...Some day, of course (said the doctrine of the Inevitability of Gradualness), the Africans would have more freedom, but for today what was inevitable was white supremacy...

...It might seem that a Labor government would have no hesitation in doing what a Tory government would have done by reflex: taken the chairmanship for its own man...

...His would-be visitors are censored...

...This Orwellian synonym for White Supremacy was invented under the 1923 Tory government when the Duke of Devonshire was colonial secretary...

...What Webb established for the Africans was that none of the whites, not even the white "socialists," was willing to concede self-government...

...Perhaps needless to say, none of these men was a left-wing socialist, let alone a Marxist or a revolutionary...

...the news "all over East Africa" would have been that there was a deep split between the central government of the white masters in London and the local power of the white settlers...

...These could hardly be viewed except within the framework of white supremacy in Africa, even though the white settlers also had to be kept under control by London...

...In fact, one of the main aims of the Fabian Society was to ensure that socialists would know exactly what to do when they took over the government...

...The Tory majority had no reluctance to use its control, all the more since it obviously had nothing to fear from Webb...

...To begin with, Gregory insists justly that Webb's policy cannot be blamed on "bad advisers...

...A deeper level of motivation—and incidentally a farther insight into Fabianism—is suggested from another direction...

...Fair and square, except for one inconvenience: this meant the appointment of five Labor members of the Lords, and outside of Webb himself there existed only three...

...Webb saw to that...

...First of all, Webb advocated stricter control from London than the settlers aimed to achieve...

...Publications in History, vol...

...did not even censure, let alone recall Grigg...

...The local government flatly refused...

...He certainly did not want any advice from Africans themselves...

...While Webb held office, he was accused of being the tool of his civil servants...

...In addition, they were often political reactionaries on principle and were not loth to use any handle against the "socialist government" in office...

...Norman Leys, the Laborite "humanitarian," wrote after the Labor government's debacle that the Laborites "allowed themselves to be misunderstood...

...They were merely relatively militant in advocating redress of African grievances...

...In 1949, during the third Labor government, the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs, the Earl of Listowel, assured Conservatives in the House of Lords that the doctrine was no longer the official pol...

...they would have to conquer it themselves...

...The picture that emerges, often despite Gregory, gives a fascinating insight into the underlying nature of Fabianism, that is, of the purest variety of socialist reformism ever developed in the history of socialist thought...

...The chairmanship went to a "strong Conservative," and when he died, to another strong Conservative...

...He was an admirer of Mussolini and liked to address his public dressed in similar black-andtan military attire...

...He had spent the first ten years of his career in the Colonial Office and during these impression able years, he, no doubt, got into a civil service way of looking at things...

...Whom, then, did Webb rely on, if we count out Tories, Laborites and Africans...

...The Kenya government was de facto the governor alone, Sir Edward Grigg (later Lord Altrincham...

...Another influence which affected him was his great respect for the individual whom he be lieved to be an expert...

...The most disappointing of Webb's actions," says Gregory, "was his stand before the Joint Committee," because he took his stand on the parliamentary myth of "continuity of policy...

...Webb never expressed any objection to the report...

...The doctrine was defined by explicitly approving the 1923 formulation of the good duke, together with some additional benevolent banalities...

...As per...

...This is not accurate, though the effect of the real position may seem to have been somewhat sim ilar...

...Well, well...

...By temperament and training Sidney belongs to the Civil Service...

...Univ...

...Webb differed from the reactionaries wholeheartedly in wishing to control the subject races benevolently, but he did not differ in fearing their tendencies toward self-emancipation...

...When Webb took office, the British policy of White Supremacy in Africa had already gone under various pseudonyms: the Dual Policy, or MultiRacial Partnership, or Equal Rights h la Cecil Rhodes...

...a hardheaded man would know what to do...

...On January 4, 1932 she jotted down: "Will she [Russia] become the Mecca...

...After the disgraceful collapse of their second government, Labor abandoned a radical approach to reform in imperial as well as domestic affairs...

...To their consternation, however, the memorandum was not published as part of the written evidence...

...A pilgrimage to the Mecca of the equalitarian state led by a few Fabians . . . wiIl bring about the world's salvation...

...But," writes Gregory, "Webb paid too much heed to the opinion of others that the chairman should be a disinterested person...

...Before Webb, this "continuity" was also the Tory tradition...

...On their return they devoted their remaining years to consummating a neartotal marriage of Fabianism and Stalinism...

...It was an admonition that "the interests of the African natives must be paramount" in the minds of the white masters, i.e., a rewording of the tired slogan of the White Man's Burden...

...By August 24, 1931 when the Labor government fell, she was well on the way...

...Perhaps," replied Sidney, doubtfully...

...This transformation depended particularly on "the most intelligent class in the community," the enlightened bureaucracy, with whom Webb felt at one even as against Fabians...

...the association at its own expense finally sent its president, Johnstone Kenyatta, and a Kikiyu teacher, Parmenas Mockerie, to appear before the committee...

...Fabian himself—until the recent appearance of an unheralded monograph by Robert G. Gregory, Sidney Webb and East Africa.1 Now we have an examination in depth of Webb's activity as colonial secretary, concentrating on the main problem (outside Palestine) that faced him: Kenya...

...The Fabian super-civil servant dreaded this as much as the Duke of Devonshire...

...After a year in office Webb issued two White Papers on East Africa, in one of which he revived the 1923 term and ordered that "the doctrine of native paramountcy" be applied "without delay...

...The scheme therefore handed the Tories a free-and-clear majority of 12 to 8, gratis...

...it is an exhilarating, even an amusing prospect...

...2. He did...

...2 For this aspect of the Webbs and Fabianism, barely touched on by Gregory, see Bernard Semmel's Imperialism and Social Reform (Cambridge, 1960), chap...

...There was, indeed, a party Advisory Committee on International Questions which concerned itself closely with East Africa, but Ironically, it exerted less influence when Labor controlled the government than when Labor was in opposition . . . because of Webb's attitude and an ill-defined party constitution, it had no direct connection with the administration...

...This was the essence of Fabianism at work...

...In 1929 the Labor party did take over the government, and Sidney Webb entered the cabinet as Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs...

...Then there was the episode of the Joint Committee of 1931...

...All over East Africa the news has gone that the Labor Government has recanted...

...On May 17 she and Sidney drafted "our hypothetical conclusion prior to our tour," since they already knew what they were going to find in the promised land...

...the responsibility was his...

...In the course of their sojourn in Russia, Sidney would whisper, "See, see, it works, it works...

...That the Committee was biased is evident in the record," says Gregory...

...All quotations not otherwise ascribed are from Gregory...

...Of course, no African suspected of an independent attitude was permitted to appear...

...Hence the rather venomous hostility toward the "extremists" Kenyatta and Mockerie, the "fanatics" Ross and Wedgwood, the "militant radicals" Woolf et al...

...Now there is no better opportunity to be practical, constructive, and hardheaded than as a cabinet minister...

...After all, it is the legitimate duty of a gradualist to be gradual, and he might fear lest the shock of replacing a fascist-minded ultra with a less virulent type be too much for the social fabric to bear all at once...

...Webb also was attracted to his permanent officials because they were neither reactionary, as he thought preceding Secretaries of State had been, nor radical, like some within his own party...

...essentially the "Dual Policy" was endorsed with an obeisance to the term "native paramountcy...

...Grigg openly and stridently opposed and sabotaged Webb's orders...

...The whites must not seem to split among themselves because this emboldens the natives to make trouble...

...And S. did not see him...

...For many years the Labor Party avoided all reference to native paramountcy...

...manent bureaucrats their concern was maximizing the interests of the State...

...But what were the interests of the State...

...Such crit...

...For example, in the list of witnesses gotten up by Webb, not a single African was included...

...Five other "humanitarians" did get before the Committee, but "most witnesses expressed the settlers' viewpoint," says Gregory...

...Webb never uttered a complaint or reproach...

...In long diatribes he denounced not only his minister Webb but the government party...

...If the white masters admit that they sometimes change policy, the natives too may get the idea that the policy can be changed . . . by other means...

...After a first meeting Webb decided that Ross was "very fanatical...

...About two weeks before, Bernard Shaw, returned from Russia, had given his Fabian lecture in which he explained that the Russian regime was pure Fabianism, that Stalin "had given up 'workers' control' for the Webbs' conception," and that Stalinism was Webbism plus the new concept of a party-oligarchy...

...icy in East Africa...

...For without doubt we are on the side of Russia...

...Was it a misunderstanding...

...and they drafted the letters that he sent to Grigg and also his main statements of policy...

...One can be sure that the man who called himself Johnstone Kenyatta thought so too...

...he has been most troublesome to the office fomenting discontent over there," said his official adviser...

...Now the new colonial secretary was not stuck with Grigg, who was going to retire shortly...

...The logical alternative was subterfuge...

...We have here blood-brothers of the French Algerian colons, the ultras of Kenya...

...of Calif...

...He did not...

...Why...

...Not quite all and sundry, by the way...