Native Administration in Africa

Abstract

IT is not my object in this paper to enlarge on the more technical aspects of administrative policy as applied to matters in which native interests are involved. They present, of course, many topics of outstanding interest to the student of governmental or other activity in Africa. They are, however, larg;ely questions of method, and the method used must, in the long run, be judged in the light of the purposes which it is intended to serve. It is these purposes with which I intend to deal, rather than the details of the methods used. I can perhaps make this point clearer by a concrete example. I have lately made some study of conditions in South-West Africa, and I propose to use this as an example, because it illustrates the manner in which two widely different systems can be followed within one territory, as a result of the different purposes which they are designed to serve. South-West Africa consists of two distinct portions, the tribal areas in the north, and what is known as the police zone, which occupies all the centre and the southern part of the territory. The police zone is so called because it is the only area which the Germans actually administered and is the only area which contains a European settlement. The tribal areas, which run up to the Portuguese border, are occupied by two groups of Bantu tribes, the Ovambos and Okavangoes, numbering some 198,000 in all. These areas are native reserves in a much stricter sense than many of the reserves created by the British in Central and East Africa. They are geographically isolated from the police zone by a broad belt of unoccupied and more or less waterless land. Europeans, other than missionaries, are not admitted to them. There are no mineral deposits and therefore no industries. The tribes have a self-contained economy, in the sense that practically nothing is exported by them, and imports are confined to a limited number of consumers' goods which are sold in three controlled shops. In effect, their contact with the outside world has hitherto been limited to the annlual migration of a certain number of men who contract to work on the farms and in the mines in the police zone. Now the purpose here has clearly been to maintain this portion of the territory as a purely native area, and the system of administration has been adjusted to this end. There is in each of these two tribal areas a Native Commissioner, with practically no staff. Except for one government doctor, there are no technical or departmental officers and no government police. The tribesmen-happy folk-pay no taxes. They manage their own affairs, including all judicial issues, under their own tribal custom. The system of