The Royal African Society: ANNUAL REPORT OF THE COUNCIL--1959

Sir Charles Arden Clarke, G.C.M.G., was elected Chairman ofCouncil at the Annual General Meeting, on April 29th, 1959,in succession to Lord Hailey. Sir Charles was the last Governorof the Gold Coast and the first Governor-General of Ghana.     

Indirect Rule--a Means to an End

Dr. Korsah is now working in this country as one of the threeAfrican members of the Elliot Commission on Higher Educationin West Africa. He is a barrister, a former member of the LegislativeCouncil of the Gold Coast, and a present member of the Governor'sExecutive Council. This article is a reprint of an address hegave, under the chairmanship of Sir Henry Galway, at a combinedmeeting of the Royal African and Royal Empire Societies on July26. Although Dr. Korsah confined himself to the fundamentalsof political organisation, which may be known to most membersof the Society, it is thought that his views are worth preservingin permanent form. An abstract of the discussion that followedis also annexed.     

The First Year of Federation

This is the text of an address given by Sir Gilbert Rennie beforethe Royal African Society and the Royal Empire Society on October7, with Sir Miles Thomas, D.F.C., in the chair. Sir Gilbertis High Commissioner for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasalandin London. He was Governor of Northern Rhodesia from 1947 tothe time of his appointment as Federal High Commissioner onApril 1, 1954. Sir Gilbert was Chief Secretary in Kenya from1939 to 1947. He held the post of Financial Secretary for theGold Coast before that. He served in the Ceylon Civil Servicesfrom 1920 to 1937, when he took up his appointment on the GoldCoast.     

Christiansborg

Built by the Danes in 1660, Christiansborg Castle at Accra isnow the official residence of the Governor of the Gold Coast;and what is more, as this article by a former member of itsstaff shows so vividly, a remarkable example of the interplayof Europe and Africa.     

The National Epic of the Adangme

The Adangme are a people about a million strong, who live inthe Volta Valley in the Gold Coast, where a scheme costing £room.for irrigation and bauxite development is being considered.The two main divisions are Krobo and Ada. A remarkable factabout this people is the part played by their national epic,Klama, in maintaining their identify, after their state wasdestroyed 450 years ago. The writer is at present working inthe School of African Studies, and the article was originallygiven in the form of a talk in the regional service of the B.B.C.,which will perhaps explain its form.     

The Secret of Akom: II

This concludes the study, by a Methodist Minister in Nzima,of the orthodox Gold Coast fetish religion.     

The Secret of Akom.I

This pioneer African study of the Gold Coast fetish-art is bya Methodist minister, at Manso-Atwere. He explains, in a preface,that his main informant was Opanin Kwaku Addae, who was convertedto Christianity after a life-time spent as a priest of Tannq,an orthodox obosom in Ashanti.     

THE CROSSING OF THE GYAMAN TO THE CROSS OF LORRAINE: WARTIME POLITICS IN WEST ARICA, 1941-1942

In January 1942 virtually the entire leadership of the Gyamankingdom of the Abron crossed the border into Ghana (then theGold Coast), seeking sanctuary from the Vichy controlled administrationof the Côte d'Ivoire. Leaving the cercle of Bonduku, theGyamanhene, joined by several thousand followers who riskedtheir lives and property, declared that ‘they had lefta dead flag’ and had come to ‘continue war untilvictory and the liberation of France, our dear mother country’.The migration occurred at a time when the Gold Coast was completelyencircled by hostile territory. This passage of the Gyaman courtinto Asante's North West Province is a little-known but extraordinarychapter in wartime politics in West Africa. This paper arguesthat the exodus involved a combination of ‘traditional’and ‘modern’ interests, as the Gyaman leaders skilfullymanipulated the colonial system and the wartime situation totheir own advantage. It reviews not only the sequence of events,but probes the role played by British intelligence organizationsin facilitating, if not encouraging, the migration.     

Gold Coast Information

Mr. Wilson is Government Information Officer—a title nowchanged to Public Relations Officer—in the Gold Coast,where he has had fifteen years of experience in education. Thearticle is abridged from an interview which he broadcast tothe West Indies in April with the Jamaican writer Una Marson,now on the staff of the B.B.C.     

Debt in Africa

The writer is attached to the London School of Economics, andhas worked in East Africa (on a Mombasa labour enquiry) andin West Africa (on the Gold Coast census) during the last fewyears.     

The Customary Oath in the Gold Coast

The new course in the Gold Coast should not conceal the complicatedstructure underlying the European system. This article illustratessome of the details of local custom. It is by a clerk from Nxima,with 28 years service in the Administration, and forms partof a longer study on Law and government.     

Two More Nigerian Poems

In our last number we printed two poems, selected, with no regardto their subject matter, as examples of the attempts that youngAfricans are making to express themselves. Crude though theyare, these poems appeared to us to be something more than merebad imitations of English verse. V/e now reproduce another two–onea romantic, almost Teutonic evocation of the forest, the otherresembling at least the spirit of the Latin songs of wanderingscholars in the Middle Ages. Eweka writes from the same townas Yesufu-Giwa, Sapele, where there seems to be a literary schoolthat might be worth investigating: at least the quality of itsverse, however uneven, ts much higher than any seen from "older"areas like Lagos or the Gold Coast. Is this due to the superiorimagination of the "new" Nigertan peoples, or to the fact thatthey have not yet learned enough to blight them by imitatinginappropriate English models? The answer may be a combinationof these reasons. The first of the present poems, by the way,comes from the Comet of Lagos, the second from the Spokesmanat Onitsha.     

Correction

A thorough-going protest has been made to the Uganda referencesin April (pp. 101–2) but on inquiry they boil down toan inadequate summary of the Kingdon report, which is acknowledgedwith regret. In the July number, the same correspondent pointsout that it is not the Police that has been expanded but thePolice Service Unit; while the special restriction on assemblyis limited to certain gazetted areas, at present 4 gombololasin Kyadondo County. Another mistake, pointed out by H. B. Thomas,is a reference on p. 283 to 5000 square miles being alienated,instead of 500. I have also been asked to say that the Rev.Michael Scott's passport has not been cancelled; the referencehere (p. 200) was based on a report of Dr. DQnges statementon the 27th April: "The question arose as to how the Governmentcould prevent the abuse of a cancelled passport as in the caseof the Rev. Michael Scott, who, when asked to hand in his passport,slipped over the border and took a plane from Rhodesia". Forhis part, Mr. E. B. Kirkman has complained of a reference toa transit welfare centre for miners in the Northern Gold Coast(p. 189). Although this was based on a statement by the Chairmanof a Mining Company, the opportunity is gladly taken of imputingno Macchiavellian intentions to the men who planned and builtthe centre.      

Rhodesia Looks Ahead

This article forms the major part of the new High Commissioner'sspeech in London at a meeting at the Royal Empire Society withthe Governor-Designate, Maj.-Gen. Sir John Kennedy, Late AssistantChief of the Imperial General Staff, in the chair. Mr. Goodenoughstarted with a historical résumé, which dividedRhodesian development into three periods; the pioneering period(1890-1923), the period of consolidation (1923-39), and theperiod of development in which we are now living.     

The U. N. Disposal of Eritrea

This forms the greater part of a lecture given on the 29th January,with Major-General Sir Richard Lewis in the Chair. In introducingthe speaker General Lewis said that Sir Duncan Cumming had beenone of the first to enter Eritrea when it was captured duringthe war and had been the last to leave in 1952. During, andafter, the war, Sir Duncan had been responsible for the civiladministration of all of the occupied Italian Colonies in theMiddle East, of which Eritrea was one. In 1949, he returnedto his own service in the Sudan and in February, 1951, whenhis predecessor retired from Eritrea owing to ill health, heconsented to undertake the difficult task of implementing theUnited Nations resolution on Eritrea. In eighteen months hehad to hold democratic general elections, in an area where suchthings were not well understood, to create a Government in accordancewith the provisions of the constitution and the resolution,to create a civil service, which entailed as a starting pointthe elementary education of selected literates, and to leavethe country with a balanced budget. Sir Duncan had not had aclean start at the job because at the time of his arrival inEritrea it was not possible to move about freely. The localbrigands had made unescorted movement unsafe: incidents occurreddaily and murders and atrocities were frequent. By the latesummer of 1951 he had made brigandage unprofitable and was ableto turn to his constructive task. In doing so, he won the confidenceand respect and, indeed, the affection, not of merely some ofthe conflicting interests but of them all.     

Corrections

There are a number of small corrections to be made, for themost substantial of which I have to thank Mr. K. MacNeill Stewartin the Gold Coast. P. 96. l.11. For 1946 read 1956. P. 100. I.17. For working period read probationary period. P. 103. l.11 from end. For V.H. read V.G. P. 173. L.20. For Omude read Ominde. P. 191. 1.16. For Syrian read Greek. P. 212. L.8. For 613,137 iea.d 413,137. P. 253. Title. Add 369 pages.      

Judicial Interaction on the Latham Court: A Quantitative Study of Voting Patterns on the High Court 1935-1950

This article examines voting patterns in two sub-periods of the Latham Court (1935-1940 and 1940-1950), where voting is defined as a decision (and associated judgements) by the Justices participating in the disposition of a particular case. There are two main findings. First, from 1935 to 1940 there was a clear four-Justice core consisting of Justices Sir George Rich, Sir Owen Dixon, Herbert Vere Evatt and Sir Edward McTiernan. Over this period, both Chief Justice Sir John Latham and Justice Sir Hayden Starke were outside the core. Second, with the retirement of Justice Evatt, and appointment of Justice Sir Dudley Williams in 1940, the decision-making structure of the Court changed. From 1940 to 1950 there was a loose five-Justice core consisting of Chief Justice Latham, Justices Rich, Dixon, McTiernan and Williams with Justice Starke on the outside. The article argues that observed voting patterns can be explained in terms of personal relationships and ideological differences between the Justices.     

A Turk of the West: Sir Edgar Vincent's Career in Egypt and the Ottoman Empire

This article examines the concept of the ‘gentleman capitalist’, as embodied by the career of Sir Edgar Vincent (1857–1941), arguing that a career as a financier was not incompatible with the status of a gentleman in Victorian Britain. From the 1830s, both the City of London and the British government agreed on free trade as the bedrock of British commercial policy, and the use of financial power as a means of extending both formal and informal empire. The life of Sir Edgar Vincent is discussed in detail, particularly his period in Egypt as Financial Adviser to the Khedive and in Constantinople as Director-General of the Imperial Ottoman Bank. The article concludes that Sir Edgar believed absolutely in Britain's civilizing mission in the Middle East, promoting her interests whenever possible, but equally that he had no qualms about using his official position for financial gain.     

Post‐war Iraq: an assessment

Sir Terence Clark is a Council Member of the Society. He retired from the Diplomatic Service after a distinguished career spent mainly in the Middle East, where he was Ambassador to Iraq and Oman. He is the author of many articles in specialist journals and co‐author of Oman in Time (2001). On 18 June 2003, Sir Terence, together with Sir Harold Walker, Chairman of the Society, spoke to the Society about the situation in Iraq as it then appeared. The following is an edited and updated version of Sir Terence's talk.     

The Story of Central African Archives

This article represents part of a lecture by the distinguishedhistorian at a joint meeting at the Royal Empire Society onthe 30th, June, with Sir Cecil Rodwell in the chair. After recallingfamous names connected with Central Africa, like Rhodes, Bothaand Coghlan, he turned to the organisation of this history inthe making, which is as recent as 9th June, 1947, when an amendmentwas passed to the Act of 1935 creating the Southern RhodesianArchives.