Abstract
A MOTION by Mr. de Rothschild in Committee of the House of Commons on July 9 to reduce the Colonial Office vote initiated a debate on colonial administration with special reference to East Africa, and afforded Mr. Ormsby-Gore as Secretary of State for the Colonies an opportunity of making an important statement in reply, in which he touched upon a number of matters affecting native interests. As an earnest of a promised expansion in education when resources permit, he referred to the provision forthwith of a central institution in Uganda, which would extend facilities for higher education throughout East Africa. He also showed that he is fully aware of the necessity for considering the possibility of regulating the movements of emigrant labourers, to which attention has been directed recently, more especially by conditions in Nyasaland (see NATURE, June 6, p. 921). His most important pronouncement, however, was concerned with the difficult and controversial question of the allocation of land as between native and settler in Kenya. He announced that two orders arising out of the Morris-Carter Report are in contemplation. By one of these orders, some 48,000 square miles of territory will be reserved to the natives, this including the most thickly populated areas, in which 86 per cent of the natives are living; while in the second order, 16,000 square miles of the highland area will be assigned to non-natives, one quarter, however, being set aside for a permanent forest reserve. Before these become effective, however, Mr. Ormsby-Gore indicated that it would be necessary to deal with the question of the ‘squatters’, upon which he confessed frankly that he had not made up his mind. There are now, he pointed out, 150,000 natives in Kenya living on European farms under annual agreement. These hold from the farmer a house and land in return for 180 days labour per annum at a contract rate of pay. There are also other natives in the European area who are not squatters, but in course of time have acquired rights. Some of these have been dealt with already in accordance with the recommendation of the Morris-Carter report, and removed to an agreed location.
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Native Policy in Africa. Nature 138, 107 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138107a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138107a0