| Abstract: | 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. |
