The Future of the British Empire

...Perhaps the most important step in the colonial sphere taken by this government has been the establishment or the Joint Caribbean Commission with the United Stales, the aim of which is the economic and social development of the Caribbean region...

...Part of this attitude is undoubtedly the result of constant anti-imperialist agitation by British people themselves...

...There have been widespread labor disturbances in tht West Indian islands, sometimes culminating in bloody riots, as in the Bahamas a few years ago, and in Jamaica in 1938 and, the years immediately following...

...Perhaps the most important is the Colonial Uurean of the Fabian Society, which under the able leadership of Dr...

...In addition to these attempts to bring the native forms of government into more close approximation of western forms, the West African progressives have launched an agitation in favor of having the Colonial Office entrust the higher positions in the civil service in these colonies to the West Africans themselves...

...Perhaps as important as any other cause of an awakening among the colored races of the British Empire was the fact that a British and foreign-educated middle class of white-collar and professional workers has grown up in many if not most of the colonies, a class which feels that it should and as a right ought to take leadership in the administration of the affairs of those colonies...

...The political regime in these colonies differs vastly, varying from Ceylon which verges upon Dominion status, to less democratic regimes in the West Indies, to varying degrees of indirect rule in Africa and Southeast Asia...

...The nationalist movement in India has gained worldwide attention during the last quarter of a century...

...The Commonwealth will find itself faced with a new problem...

...But it is not as important as it once was...

...These labor movements have not been fought merely as economic struggles, but have been closely tied up with the fight against foreign rule...

...In the colonies there has grown up in recent years a great surge of unrest —part of the awakening of the colored man...

...The second great section of the Empire is India...

...In 1910 the Government went even further, appointing a number of prominent British Laborites as Labor Commissioners in a number of the colonies to improve labor conditions and foster labor organization...

...It is expected that Ceylon will be given more or less complete Dominion status soon after the war...

...The new Jamgican constitution was generally welcomed...

...On the other hand, in Britain there has come about a state of mind which proclaims that the ultimate object of the British is to see all of the colonies organized on a self-governing, independent basis and to see the British Empire turned truly into the British Commonwealth of Nations...

...They have taken ver> inadequate steps to extend the advantages of higher education to colonials...

...They have extended the rights of labor in most of the colonies, and have made labor organization legal...

...Organizations, too, have done valuable work in trying to convert the British to a more liberal colonial attitude...

...Individuals like Lord Hailey, an excolonial administrator of considerable talent and human sympathies, have done much to'convince the British that the Empire needs reforming...

...Churchill has presided over a government which has taken several steps towards this transformation...

...Hitherto the British Commonwealth has been an association of White, English-speaking Dominions...

...Although the West Indians are predominantly Negro, they have been in close relationship to western ways of life for three centuries and have more or less absorbed the western, and more particularly, the British methods of social organization...

...However, little or nothing has been said about similar movements in the colonial sections of the Empire...

...Since (he labor movement has almost everywhere been in the van of the nationalists, this is an important concession...

...Sometimes legal and sometimes illegal, the People's Party won a notable victory early in 1943 when the British government granted Jamaica a constitution giving the Jamaicians extensive rights of self-government, with the additional promise that the situation would again be reviewed in five years - presumably with an eye to granting the island even more complete autonomy...

...On the other hand, the majority of the West Africans still live under their primitive tribal forms of society, and the progressive ami western minded individuals in those colonies see their task^as one of adapting this primitive tribalism to western ideas and social forms, and bringing about an evolution of the tribal society into a western democracy...

...DARTLY, this feeling that autonomy should be * granted to the colonies arises from a lack of interest...

...w # • IUST what the future of the colonial Empire of •* Britain will be is of course in the lap of the future...

...An active little group of M.P'a keeps itself informed upon evtnts in tho colonies and keeps the Minister hopping it things do not go right...

...So, in spiff of Mr...

...The movement takes a different form in West Africa, naturally, than it does in the West Indies...

...There are scores of these colonies of greater or lesser size and population, scattered on all of the continents but one and in all of the seas...

...Hut, say the Wist Africans, the British have been attempting to change this concept...

...Thia will not come as fast as the colonials themselves desire, and will come perhaps too fast for the more imperial-minded Tories...

...riea which are the staples of the region, so ¦ that the straggle against these powers has inevitably taken on a nationalistic tinge...

...Their development and standard of living varies inw menaely, from the quite European island of Malta to aome of the most primitive regions in the world —New Guinea, for example...

...For instance, the West Africans point out that under the tribal system, a rude form of democracy existed, where the chiefs could not take any action against the will of the tribe, or even without consultation with the tribe, and the Paramount Chiefs could not act with.iut the consent of the lesser ones...

...The Future of the British Empire The Trend Toward Self-Government in a Democratic Commonwealth of Nations By Robert Alexander WINSTON CHURCHILL haa said that ha did not become bis Majesty's Prima Minister in order to preside at (he dissolution of the British Empire...

...First, come the selfgoverning Commonwealths — Great Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Ireland, which are all sovereign and independent nations, to a greater or lesser degree...

...As they point out, all of the lower positions in the country are held by the Africans, and they believe that there are now enough educated natives to hold the more responsible positions as well...

...There are still many like the young officer in the Waves who confided to the present writer thst "you know, those Eastern races are all like children, and you couldn't really give them freedom...

...and desire, rather, to develop the primitive tribal organization into something resembling s parliamentary democracy...

...ChurehiW* proteMlatiom to the contrary, there docs teem to.be a movement toward the disintegration of the British Empire at an Empire, and its reconttitution at a Commonwealth of Nations...

...Most British, in fact, think very little about the colonies, and know even less...

...Few Britons have any knowledge of the colonial Empire...

...In fact, in one particular area of Nigeria, they've proposed that election of the council of chiefs be conducted by means of a secret ballot, and elsewhere they have advocated various adaptations of the old tribal form, to make it more nearly conform to western democracy...

...It has appropriated considers .!•.' money for the economic development of the colonies, to make them less dependent upon single crops and thus lew susceptible to the ups and downs of the commodity markets...

...This class, which feels itself as well-educated as the colonial system has outlived its usefulness...

...Hinden had an important part in getting the new Jamaican constitution pushed through, and her bureau ippliis much if not most of the material used by those Labor Party M.P.'a who make it a practice to keep themselves and the country at large posted on colonial affairs...

...Britain' now stands pledged to give thia great region its independence upon the conclusion of the war, and sooner or later it will probably find itself forced to do so...

...The spread of labor movements, both communist and non-communist* was undoubtedly also a factor...

...Nor is pride of Empire a particularly powerful feeling, apparently...

...Witt., say, the establishment of Ceylon or Jamaica as a Dominion, a colored nation would be admitted to this association of independent powers...

...The Fabian Colonial Bureau gathers information fiom the colonies on developments there, finds the demands and desires of the colonials, and tries to pass on I Ins information to the Labor M.P.'s...

...Adopting the practice of indirect rule, they have attempted tto turn the chi...

...There will be more and more extension of sslf-govcnment to the colonies...

...And, whether he likes ft or not, Mr...

...The present government has taken a number ef steps which will ultimately be of considerable assistance to the colonies in preparing them for self-government...

...The movement in the West Indies has undoubtedly gone farthest in Jamaica...

...However, in spite of this harshness, there has grown up in Britain a feeling that sooner or later Britain will and must give self-government to the colonial sections of the Empire...

...Be this as it may/ the British Empire appears to be in a state of transition which will ultimately leave it little resemblance to its former self...

...As one West African put it, "If the old chief tried to buck tin- will of the tribe he'd be cither dethroned or killed—or both...

...The third great division of the British Empire is a collection of dependencies the colonies...

...If and when it comes about, it will be a very heartening developmmt and at least a small indication that the White Mini realizes that the "burden" of governing the world is no longer his...

...When speaking of the Empire, the British usually classify it into three sections...

...But in spite of lack of popular attention from abroad, these movements have grown, especially during the last decade...

...Imperialism, Tory and otherwise, is far from dead...

...fa into petty tyrants, dependent upon the British administration of the colony rather than upon the tribes themselves...

...He was first drawn into the laeer movement end the movement for national independence daring the troubles ef the late thirties, and he set all at* his energies to organizing it and making it a success...

...This agitation is dangerous, and a number of prominent leaders, pot only in West Africa, but in other sections of the Empire as well, have been sent to jail...

...This agitation for self-government was specially notable in the West Indies and in West Africa...

...Rita Hinden has acted as a clearing house for liberals and laborites in Britain and the colonies Dr...

...As a war measure, they have developed the resources (especially the mining and agricultural resources) of some of the colonies...

...It is these colonies which make true the old adage that "the sun never set* upon the British Empire...

...The progressive West Africans oppose this transformation of the chiefship into a despotism...

...The public utilities are controlled from abroad, as are the great agricultural Indus...

...This victory came after an earlier constitution had been rejected by the Jamaican Legislature, under pressure from the Nationalists...

...However, its general outlines can, perhaps, be seen...

...The economic resources of most of the West Indian islands are completely controlled by foreigners, resident or absentee...

...further measures of self-government are expected in other colonics—Malta and Cyprus, for example...

...At that time Japan, a colored nation, for the first time took her place in a major world conflict...

...His National People's Party is organized throughout the island and haa given the main leadership to the independence struggle...

...TO an American, who never thinks of West Africa without thinking of the most primitive tribal ways of living, it is surprising to learn that there is not only a considerable native white-collar class growing up there, but that there is a strong movement for local autonomy...

...These were organized primarily in two groups—one the Bustamente Labor Unions and Jamaica Labor Party* and the other the Jamaica Trade Union Council and the National People's Party...

...Partly, this arises from the fact that these movements have been neither so powerful nor so noisy as that led by Gandhi...

...The latter is led by Norman Manley, a lawyer and a man of exceptional talents...

...Changes in the colonial Empire of Britain are being brought about as a result of two different sets of development*—one in the colonial regions and the other in the mother country...

...The same with the Paramount Chief, who has been made an absolute monarch over his whole aria...

...Previously, she had demonstrated an ability to hold her own with the western powers, and partly due to her example, but even more as a result of developments within each specific area, these moves against dependency gained force...

...There serious labor unrest broke out into open rioting in 1938, and at the aame time resulted in the formation of permanent political and labor organizations...

...However, there are genuine feelings of attachment to the Dominions and they are looked upon with more or less parental pride by many Britishers...

...They vary in size from little Ascension Island, a mere speck in the broad South Atlantic to the great East and West African and Malayan regions...

...Some of these are organizations of colonials ta Britain—like the West Africa Students' Union but moat of them are British in inspiration and memlx>rshin...

...TUK upsurge of feelings of independence among the British colonies ia part of the awakening of barkward peoples which has taken place since the first World War...