Paramountcy to Partnership: J. H. Oldham and Africa

International African Institute

Paramountcy to Partnership: J. H. Oldham and AfricaAuthor(s): George BennettSource: Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Oct., 1960), pp.356-361Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International African InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1157597 .

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[356]

PARAMOUNTCY TO PARTNERSHIP: J. H. OLDHAM AND AFRICA'

GEORGE BENNETT

T HE jubilee of the World Missionary Conference, which was held at Edinburgh in June I91O, should be noticed by students of Africa, since it brought into pro-

minence for the first time, as one of its two secretaries, a man who was to have considerable influence on African affairs and was the first Administrative Director of the International African Institute. This was J. H. Oldham who had been briefly a missionary in India and then secretary of the Missionary Study Council of the United Free Church of Scotland. ' The conspicuous ability' he showed in the organization and running of the great conference led to his subsequent appointment as full-time secretary of the Continuation Committee, which was set up to maintain the work of the conference2 and which became in 1921 the International Missionary Council. In this post, and as the first editor of the International Review of Missions, Oldham was in constant and daily touch with mission affairs from the whole world. He was, in fact, beginning a long career as a missionary statesman, with, from the First World War, his headquarters at Edinburgh House in London. In negotiating then with the Govern- ment over German missionaries and their property in India and the British African territories, Oldham began to build up a fund of goodwill in the official world.

As the war ended, and amidst the great flow of correspondence pressing upon him from all parts of the world, Oldham became convinced that he had to concentrate his attention upon Africa. Reviewing Leonard Woolf's Empire and Commerce in Africa in 1920, he commented: ' We cannot go on taking the Gospel to the people of Africa and at the same time acquiesce in national conduct which daily contravenes that

Gospel.'3 Woolf's book had much to say about East Africa, whose affairs were in-

creasingly attracting Oldham's attention. During the next decade Oldham became

intimately concerned with Kenya and had an important influence on its history. With the end of the war an acute labour shortage developed there. The Kenya

Government issued instructions that officials were to assist the settlers to obtain labour and the local missionaries protested at the ensuing abuses which they regarded as inevitable under the system. At home Oldham saw that this was a question- significant phrase-' of paramount importance '.4 In view of the Secretary of State's unsatisfactory reply to the missionary representations, Oldham developed the matter on to a wider plane. A memorandum, Labour in Africa and the Principles of Trusteeship, was submitted to the Government with a most distinguished list of signatures: influential Members of Parliament from both Houses and from all political parties, prominent University figures, and religious leaders of many denominations. The

I This article has been rendered possible by might be of wider interest. the writer being given the privilege of access to 2 WorldMissionary Conference Report, vol. ix, pp. Io, the Oldham papers, which provide the sources of 35, and I34-5. the unfootnoted material, for work he is doing on the 3 International Review of MAissions, ix (i920), p. 460. history of Kenya. It seemed that a preliminary report 4 Ibid. x (1921), p. 183.



J. H. OLDHAM AND AFRICA

whole incident provides a remarkable demonstration of that tact and organizing ability which made Oldham so powerful a figure behind the scenes. Then, as later, he sought to keep personalities out, to make plain the deep issues involved and to remove them from the sphere of party politics. A man of reason and moderation, Oldham soon became a trusted adviser to politicians in the Colonial Office.

Thus, in 1923, he made two most important contributions. First, he was asked by Ormsby-Gore, the Under-Secretary of State, to submit suggestions for a modus vivendi between the missions and the Government with regard to education. The Govern- ment was proposing to act in a field the missions had pioneered and where they then provided some 90 per cent. of all educational facilities in the British African territories. On Oldham's suggestion, and despite the hostility of officials in the Colonial Office, a committee was appointed composed of Government and mission representatives, together with educationalists. From this Advisory Committee on Native Education in Tropical Africa, of which Oldham was a foundation member, there

emerged, in 1925, the important statement, Education Policy in British Tropical Africa (Cmd. 2374) which in first draft was the work of Oldham and Sir Frederick (later Lord) Lugard.'

Oldham's other and most considerable contribution in 1923 concerned Kenya. He was the real father of the paramountcy declaration with respect to that troubled Colony. The long quarrel there between the European settlers and the Indians had reached a climax in a threatened revolt by the Europeans late in 1922. The Imperial Government summoned both sides to London, where prolonged negotiations took place. Through the presence of a Kenya missionary, the Rev. Dr. Arthur, who had come with the European delegation to represent native interests, and through missionary contacts with the representatives of the Indian Government, Oldham became involved as a mediator. The Kenya missionaries were almost as opposed to the Indians as were the settlers, while Oldham knew well from missionaries in India and Ceylon of Asian bitterness on account of racial discrimination in Kenya. He insisted to the missionaries on the two sides of the Indian Ocean that they should consider first the paramountcy of native interests, but the idea had a wider application. Sup- ported by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the suggestion of a declaration on these lines was put to the Colonial Office, to whom it appeared as a welcome way of escape. In fact this famous proclamation in the White Paper of July 1923 settled nothing. Subsequent argument over the meaning of paramountcy recalled to some the intensity and complexities of the great theological controversies of the past.2

The enforcement of paramountcy depended on the validity of the succeeding sen- tences in the White Paper: the Government regarded themselves as exercising a trust on behalf of the African population which they were unable to delegate or share. Yet the weakness of this was soon apparent: the cost of declarations is eternal vigilance, something a democracy is little capable of exercising at a distance. Thus Sir Edward Grigg, who became Governor of Kenya in 1925, found it easy to convince Oldham

For the close relationship on African affairs (I952), p. 263. Oliver discusses (ibid., pp. 250-72) which developed in these years between Oldham Oldham's work and influence down to the missio- and Lugard see M. Perham, Lugard, vol. ii, The nary conference of 926 at Le Zoute, where, through Years of Authority, chaps. 31 and 32. Oldham's influence, a number of African adminis-

2 Hailey, An African Survey (1938), p. 142, quoted trators, including Lugard, were present. in R. Oliver: The Missionary Factor in East Africa

Bb

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PARAMOUNTCY TO PARTNERSHIP

that the policy of I923 had failed: settler influence on the Government of Kenya was so great that the sole trusteeship of the Imperial Government could not operate. This was not surprising: the whole tendency of British colonial rule has been to devolve power to the local unit. It seemed inevitable to Oldham, as to others, that the situation in Kenya would become increasingly difficult to control. Moreover, a major lesson of the crisis of 1922-3 had been that a British Government was unlikely to use force against white settlers in Africa.

Since Oldham never accepted' inevitabilities ' in history he endeavoured to check these tendencies. One instrument he sought to employ may today seem curious, but Oldham had the gift of working in terms of his period. There was then-and particularly after the publication in April 1925 of the Ormsby-Gore Report on East Africa

(Cmd. 2387)-a widespread feeling that much research was needed into the problems of Africa. Oldham, sharing in this view, became heavily involved in discussions with

politicians and officials at the Colonial Office. They encouraged him to seek financial

support from American foundations for the development of research during a visit he was about to make to the United States. Oldham's first and immediate success was in obtaining the initial grants from the Rockefeller Foundation which rendered possible the establishment of the International Institute of African Languages and Cul- tures. In its formation 'the initiative', as E. W. Smith recorded, 'was taken by missionaries, led by Mr. J. H. Oldham '.2

The most important area in Oldham's thinking was East Africa and there, it

appeared, Grigg might assemble, in Kenya, a new ' kindergarten' with Oldham as Director of Research. Indeed, for this he fully considered giving up his influential

position as the international missionary statesman of Edinburgh House. He could attach such importance to this project since he seemed to have retained an almost Victorian belief that education had a liberating quality, that knowledge of the facts would render possible right action in Africa, the establishment of a firm policy. Thus, in a future crisis an informed British public would be prepared to support any necessary strong action, while knowledge would free men from the grip of blind economic forces, in which he saw the inhabitants of Kenya, Europeans and Africans alike, as caught up. He repeatedly maintained that the settlers were not as bad as they appeared from their speeches, that the evils of Kenya arose less from evil intention than from ignorance: men did not know their best and wisest course in their difficult

position. Holding these views and accepting that the declaration of I923 bore no relation to

the facts of the situation, Oldham agreed, in 1927, that a new policy statement was

necessary, in which the settlers would be associated in the trust. Whilst he recognized that this would appear as ' a revolution in policy', he assured Amery, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, that he would support such a statement, provided that African opinion was brought in by a 'clear enunciation' that the Dual Policy of economic development of both the immigrant and the native areas should be applied in the political sphere also. The White Paper, issued in July, responded by instructing the Commissioners, who were to examine Closer Union in East Africa, to consider

I e.g. Lords debate on the Ormsby-Gore Report, (i926), p. 56. There are accounts of the early history 20 May I925 (Hansard, 5th ser., vol. lxi, cc. 363-417). of the Institute by Lugard (Africa, i (1928), pp. I-I7)

2 E. W. Smith, The Christian Mission in Africa and by E. W. Smith (Africa, vii (I934), pp. I-27).

358




also how the Dual Policy might be thus extended.' Further, Oldham himself was included as a member of this, the Hilton Young Commission.

In view of later events the welcome accorded to Oldham's appointment must seem ironic. Grigg was ' particularly anxious ' that he should serve, while the Chairman of the Kenya settlers' political association surveyed the members of the Commission with the comment that they seemed to represent hostile interests but they could rely implicitly on Oldham's impartiality.2 In fact, Oldham was the one member of the Commission with real knowledge of Kenya, acquired from a visit in 1926 and from the extensive correspondence he had since maintained with missionaries, settlers, and officials. There, as elsewhere, Oldham had shown a remarkable ability to follow the apostolic example of being all things to all men. With his transparent desire to seek a solution in agreement for the problems of Kenya, he, with Sir George Schuster, was mainly responsible for the majority report. This contained the first statement of what later became a British objective of policy: ' What the immigrant communities may justly claim is partnership, not control.'3 Thus Oldham, who was at least the joint author of this sentence, was largely responsible for the two words ' paramountcy' and 'partnership', which have been taken as summarizing British policy in the multi-racial territories of Africa.

Whilst we may today look back in admiration on the Hilton Young Report for its analysis of the scene, its recommendations did not then command assent. The Com- missioners raised again the issues of paramountcy and of the common roll franchise, both anathema to the settlers. Although they were prepared to grant an unofficial majority on the Kenya Legislative Council, this was only under such safeguards of asserting Imperial authority that the settlers reacted to the report with hostility and threats. Oldham later allowed that some of its passages might have been more tact- fully phrased to underline his desire for a solution by consent. Nevertheless, the essential point remains: Were the Kenya settlers such reasonable men as Oldham professed to believe? Were they really prepared to accept facts ? Were they not after power?

In face of the storm in Kenya, Amery sought to salvage something of his plans for East African Federation by sending out Sir Samuel Wilson, his Permanent Under- Secretary, to produce an agreed solution. By the time he returned .the Conservative Government had fallen. Passfield, the new Labour Colonial Secretary, intended at first to implement the Wilson Report which had largely accepted the settler view- point, but Oldham organized such pressure that the Government drew back. After a lengthy pause for thought during the winter of I929-30, it accepted the suggestion, in which Oldham, working with Lord Lugard, took the main initiative, that East Africa should be referred to a Joint Select Committee of the two Houses of Parliament.

In this Oldham was taking precedent from Indian affairs, though here the outcome did not follow precedent. Oldham had hoped that the Joint Select Committee would produce an agreed and positive policy. Its members were, however, so chosen to represent all sides that it could agree only on innocuous statements. Nevertheless, these were sufficient to enable successive British Governments to maintain the

I Cmd. 2904 (1927), pp. 5 and 7. 2 East African Standard, 22 October 1927.

3 Cmd. 3234 (I929), p 239.

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PARAMOUNTCY TO PARTNERSHIP

position for the future; the fears, in which Oldham had shared, that control would be rapidly lost proved, for various reasons, unfounded. Only once more did Oldham have to brief an Archbishop of Canterbury for a debate in the House of Lords on Kenya.

Yet before Oldham could be satisfied to turn the concentration of his attention from Africa there remained one interest to be satisfied: the expansion of knowledge through research. In 193 his ideas took two important steps forward. The Inter- national African Institute, of which he became Administrative Director, then adopted, as its immediate plan of research, the study of the effect on African societies of their contacts with European influences. From 1925 Oldham had been urging this as the main subject for consideration; upon this, in particular, he wished studies in Kenya to be directed.

Also in 193 , in July, Oldham arranged the introductory luncheon which brought together a senior representative of the Carnegie Corporation and leading members of Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Oldham's long contacts with American foundations, seeking funds for African research, were now to yield a golden harvest: the African Survey which Lord Hailey was later so brilliantly to conduct. Credit for the idea of the Survey was given in it to Smuts's Rhodes Memorial Lectures at Oxford in 1929. There is thus a certain irony in that Oldham, who published a small booklet of critical examination of Smuts's lectures,' should

already have prepared the ground to make this idea fruitful and was able, in the plan- ning committee of Chatham House, to see that the Survey was on the factual lines which he had so long advocated. In fact-if we may change the metaphor-what Smuts did was to provide the spark to a great pile which Oldham had been diligently accumulating.

In 1938 the Survey was published; in the same year Oldham resigned from the position he had held since I931 as Administrative Director of the International African Institute. After twenty years of great influence on African affairs it seemed that he might now turn his attention elsewhere, for he always believed in concentration as of the essence of success. Once later, in retirement in 1955, he did return to publish New Hope in Africa. There he provides a clue to the foundation of his strength: in

describing the Capricorn Society as making a deliberate attempt to turn the tides of human thought in Africa by its advocacy of racial partnership, Oldham added: ' Such an attempt would be in the highest degree presumptuous, if it were not in response to

something fundamentally right-something that is deeply and firmly rooted in the constitution of things.'2 Here was the mystic speaking, hinting at the inner strength which enabled him to go on through the crises of the twenties. To Oldham in I 9 8 the problems of Africa were new, but he could regard them not only from the lessons learned through his missionary experience in India and from the diverse view- points brought to him by his world-wide contacts at Edinburgh House, but always from that deeper knowledge which enables a man to regard public affairs sub specie aeternitatis.

360

I White and Black in Africa (I 9 3 0). 2 p. 84.




Resume

DE LA PRIA2MINENCE A L'ASSOCIATION: J. H. OLDHAM ET L'AFRIQUE

J. H. OLDHAM, dont la valeur fut reconnue pour la premiere fois lors de la grande conference de missionnaires tenue 'a ldimbourg en I9Io, devait plus tard exercer une influence considerable sur les affaires africaines. Il avait etabli son quartier-general dans Edinburgh House, a Londres, et etait devenu missionnaire-homme d'etat. Au cours des negociations avec le Gouvernement, pendant la guerre, au sujet des missions allemandes, il s'assura une attitude bienveillante de la part de l'administration; ensuite, la maniere - digne d'un homme d'etat - dont il a aborde les questions de la main-d'ceuvre survenues au Kenya a fait de lui un conseiller de confiance. En 1923, les propositions faites par Oldham concernant les rapports entre le Gouvernement et les missions au sujet de l'instruction aboutirent a la creation d'un Comite Consultatif dont il etait un des membres. En I925, ce Comite fit une declaration importante au sujet de la politique britannique en matiere d'instruction en Afrique. En 1923, egalement, le Ministere des Affaires Coloniales accepta la suggestion primitivement faite par Oldham d'une declaration de la preeminence des interets indigenes au Kenya. A la suite de l'influence des colons europeens, il s'avera difficile de maintenir cette attitude. Oldham redoutait que l'autorite se perdrait rapidement lors de la delegation du pouvoir par les Britanniques et, comme controle, il insista sur la necessite de recueillir des renseignements et de faire des etudes sur les problemes africains. Il se mit en contact avec des institutions americaines et il obtint les premieres subventions pour la creation de l'Institut International Africain. I1 envisagea, a un moment donne, d'aller au Kenya en qualite de Directeur des Recherches, avec Grigg, le Gouverneur, comme chef. En 1927, admettant le point de vue de Grigg qu'il serait preferable de reconnaitre l'influence des colons dans une nouvelle declaration de politique, il assura Amery, le Ministre des Colonies, de son soutien, a condition que mention soit faite de l'evolution politique africaine. Dans ces circonstances, Oldham fut nomme membre de la Commission Hilton Young, chargee d'etudier l'Afrique Orientale, et il fut en partie responsable de la premiere enonciation de la doctrine de l'association raciale. En raison de l'accueil tumultueux accorde au Rapport par les colons, Amery envoya son chef de cabinet qui redigea un expose plus favorable a ceux-ci. Oldham organisa une telle opposition a cet expose que le gouvernement travailliste nouvellement elu fit marche en arriere et adopta l'idee, sur laquelle Oldham avait insiste, d'un renvoi devant un Comite Parlementaire Mixte, qui s'est avere suffisant pour permettre aux gouvernements ulterieurs de maintenir la situation au Kenya. Par la suite, l'influence d'Oldham s'exerga principalement dans le domaine des recherches: elaboration des projets pour l'African Survey, et en tant que premier Directeur Administratif de l'Institut International Africain, poste d'ou il se retira en 1938. Dans le seul ouvrage qu'il ait ecrit ulterieurement au sujet de l'Afrique en 195 5, il indique la source de sa force: c'est-a-dire qu'il avait le sentiment du mystique de l'ordre des choses.

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Paramountcy to Partnership: J. H. Oldham and Africa