Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T09:23:05.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Gambia, the Colonial Office, and the Opening Months of the First World War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

P. H. S. Hatton
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article deals with the reaction of the Colonial Office to the problems—commercial and military—posed for the Gambia by the outbreak of the First World War. It argues that in the Colonial Office discussions about these problems two distinctly different attitudes can be distinguished. The younger junior officials tended to advocate government intervention to ameliorate specific economic problems, while the political heads and senior officials remained firmly attached to the dogmas of laissez faire. Conversely, the former group did not share the doubts of the latter as to whether the dogmas of patriotic bravery should be made to apply to African natives.

The subject-matter—the dislocation of commerce consequent upon French failure to purchase her usual share of the groundnut crop, the ensuing financial difficulties of the Gambia government, defence problems revealed after the mis-identification of H.M.S. Highflyer—is based on material from the Colonial Office archives.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 7 , Issue 1 , March 1966 , pp. 123 - 131
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The general development of the Colony can be traced in Gailey, H. A., A History of the Gambia (London, 1964).Google Scholar Other histories include: Sir Gray, J. M., A History of the Gambia (Cambridge, 1940)Google Scholar, Hamlyn, W. T., A Short History of the Gambia (Bathurst, 1931)Google Scholar and Sir Prothero, G. (ed.), Gambia (Peace Handbooks no. 91, 1920).Google ScholarMcphee, A. provides a useful background to the economic aspect in The Economic Revolution in British West Africa (London, 1926). None of these make use of Colonial Office archive material for the period discussed here.Google Scholar

2 Figures calculated from the Gambia Blue Book, 1912.Google Scholar

3 This suspension is usually attributed to French fear of German commerce raiders: France does not seem to have had a scheme similar to that adopted by the Committee of Imperial Defence to compensate merchantship-owners for their losses through enemy action. The need for transports to take the French army from Algeria may, however, have played some part in causing the suspension.Google Scholar

4 Colonial Office series 87 (the Gambia original correspondence), volume 197, document no. 44038 of 1914, a despatch from the Governor of the Gambia, E. J. Cameron.Google Scholar

5 C.O.-87-198-46485/14 from the Foreign Office. Minute of Green on same.Google Scholar

6 C.O.-87-198-42732/14 from the Board of Trade.Google Scholar

7 Ibid. minute of Ellis on same; minute of Fiddes on document quoted in note 5 supra.

8 C.O.-87-197-44036/14 from the Governor. Minutes of Green and Fiddes on same.

9 For these negotiations see Gailey, op. cit. 81–96, 109–110.Google Scholar See also Foreign Office series 369, volume 327 (Africa-France 1913), file 24403 and Foreign Office series 371, volume 1700 (Pacific Islands, 1913), file 34144.

10 This policy was clearly decided upon when the Colonial Office secured disallowance of Gambia Ordinance number eight of 1913, which would have permitted alien landholding. C.O.-87-193-14240/13 from the Governor, Sir Henry Galway. Minutes on same. C.O.-87-195-28962/13 from the Foreign Office. Minutes on same.Google Scholar

11 C.O.-87-198-50700/14 from the Governor. Minute of J. A. Calder, a Second-Class Clerk in the West Africa Department, on same.Google Scholar

12 This contribution had been approved by the Colonial Office on 12 September, when Ellis still believed that a decline in the demand for groundnuts was unlikely, ‘unless the war goes much worse than anticipated’) C.O.-87-197-34615/14 from the Governor. Minute of Ellis on same).Google Scholar

13 C.O.-87-197-39280/14 from the Governor. C.O-87-197-44037/14 from the Governor. Minute of Green on same.Google Scholar

14 C.O.-87-197-39280/14 from the Governor. Minutes of Calder, Green, Fiddes and Anderson on same. C.O.-87-197-44O35/14 from the Governor. Minutes of Fiddes and Anderson on same. A private letter by Fiddes to the Governor dated 26 November 1914 attached to same.Google Scholar

15 The private letter cited in note 14 supra. Fiddes uses ‘our’ because at the time of writing he expected this money to be borrowed from the West Africa Currency Board.Google Scholar

16 C.O.-87-198-1402/14/15 (i.e. written in 1914, received in London 1915) from the Governor. The full figures given in this despatch are as follows:Google Scholar

17 Minutes of Ellis and Fiddes on the despatch cited in note 16 supra.Google Scholar

18 For the improvement of the financial position of the Gambia after 1914 see the figures in notes 26 and 27 infra.Google Scholar

19 C.O.-87-198-47943/14 from the Danish Consul-General in London. Minute of Davis on same.Google Scholar

20 C.O.-87-193-14259/13 from the Governor (Galway), C.O.-87-197-38908/14 from the Governor (Cameron). C.0.-87-197-44034/14 from the Governor (Cameron).Google Scholar

21 Cabinet papers series 11, number 109 (Revision of April 1913).Google Scholar

22 This refers to the formation of a squadron near the Cape Verde Islands under Admiral De Robeck. Highflyer was a part of this squadron. Its purpose was to meet Admiral von Spee's squadron if the latter tried to work its way homewards after his victory at Coronel. However, von Spee's squadron had been destroyed on 8 December by Admiral Sturdee's squadron at the battle of the Falkland Islands. This battle took place before Calder's minute was written.Google Scholar

23 This most probably refers to the shelling of Scarborough by German battle-cruisers on 16 December, as in extra-European waters German attacks appear to have been aimed at the shipping inside a port rather than at the ports themselves.Google Scholar

24 C.O.-87-198-50504/14 from the Governor. Correspondence between the Governor and van der Meulen enclosed in same. Original minutes of Calder, Green and Harcourt on same. Further minutes of Ellis, Anderson and Harcourt on same.Google Scholar

25 Churchill, Winston, The World Crisis 1911–1914 (London, 1923), 294.Google Scholar

26 Percentage of the Gambia's groundnut exports (calculated by weight) going, in the first instance, to: In 1913, 67,404 tons of groundnuts had been exported and had fetched £622,098; in 1914 (before the war) 66,885 t o n s for £650,461. The delay in exporting the beginning of the 1914–15 crop made the 1915 figures 96,152 tons for £400,435. The 1916 figures were 46,366 tons for £506,098. Figures for this note and for note 27 infra taken and calculated from: The Gambia Blue Book 1912, 1913, 1914, 1915 and 1916, and the Annual Report—Gambia i 012 (Cmd. 7050–8), 191 3 (Cmd. 7050–46), 1914 (Cmd. 7622–52), 1915 (Cmd. 8172–16) and 1916 (Cmd. 8434–23).Google Scholar

27 Customs revenue figures were: 1913, £97,691; 1914, £60,525; 1915, £65,593; I9'6, £75,417. The complete financial position was:

28 In 1916 the Gambian groundnut issue became connected with the more important Nigerian difficulties in the palm kernel trade because groundnuts were included in the terms of reference of a Committee on Edible and Oil Producing Nuts and Seeds. (Its report is Cmd. 8247.) Perham, M., in Lugard: the Years of Authority (London, 1960), 564–9Google Scholar, deals with the problems raised for Nigeria by the loss of the German market for palm kernels. The Nigerian groundnut position was not seriously affected by the war. In the period 1909–1913 Nigerian exports of this crop averaged only just over 5,000 tons a year, moreover nearly 60% of this went initially to Britain.