12 FOREIGN AFFAIRS mated that this legislation will cost the British taxpayer in all, excluding the debt remission, a sum equivalent to some $ 280,- 000,000. To supervise the work, two important committees have been set up: a Development Committee under Lord Moyne, who was chairman of the West India Royal Commission, and a Re­ BRITAIN'S COLONIES IN THE WAR search Committee under Lord Hailey. Preparatory work is being undertaken both at home and in the Colonies, though the full l prosecution of the task must necessarily depend upon the progress PAMPHLET OfflCE of the war. This legislation is in no sense to be regarded as a reward for BY W. E. SIMNETT good conduct, for it was drafted long before the outbreak of the war and is merely a necessary corollary of the British policy of trusteeship for colonial peoples. In the sphere of medical, educational and social development, and in economic enterprise, the British Colonies have benefited considerably from American help and cooperation. Such bodies as the Rockefeller Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation, the Phelps Stokes Fund, numerous missionary societies, as well as many commercial enterprises and private individuals, have all given liberally in money, expert advice and devoted personal service in such fields as medicine, public health, education and Reprinted from scientific research throughout Africa, in the West Indies, Malta, FOREIGN AFFAIRS Palestine, Malaya, and other territories. American capital and AN AMERICAN QUART ERLY REVIEW initiative have greatly aided the economic development of various colonies, especially Northern Rhodesia, Cyprus and Palestine. One instance of this help is the financing, largely by the Carnegie I . Corporation, of the monumental survey of Africa carried out by Lord Hailey, which will probably form the foundation of future development in that vast continent. The great extent and variety of this valuable cooperation is not sufficiently appreciated by the American people. 1 Many Americans still suspect the British of imperialism in the old and bad sense, and in general, the American public does not understand the implications of our present colonial policy. If, as Mr. Churchill has said, the destinies of our two nations are in the future to be increasingly bound together, as certainly L seems probable, it is highly desirable that the American people should fully understand, not only that the structure of the British Commonwealth is democratic, but that in this democratic system there is a place provided for the colonial peoples. dpri/ I94I BRITAIN'S COLONIES IN THE WAR By W. E. Simnett RITAIN'S Colonies, no less than the Dominions and FOREIGN AFFAIRS India, are contributing their share to the war effort of the AN A MERICAN QUARTERLY REVIEW B Commonwealth. The spectacular activities of the Cana­ APRIL 1941 dian airmen over Britain, of the Australians and New Zealanders in Libya, of the Indian division in Eritrea and of the South Afri­ The Myth of the Continents . ... .... ... .. .... Eugene Staley can troops in Ethiopia should not lead us to overlook the impor­ German Strategy: I 9I4 and I 9 4 0 . ... .. .. ... .......... .. X tant rele being played by the Empire's "junior partners" - the Food as a Political Instrument in Europe . .... .. .... Karl Brandt crown colonies, the protectorates and the mandated territories. Demosthenes Redivivus .. ....... ...... .. Frederick H. Cramer Liberalism in J apan . ............... .. ... ... Sir George Sanso m I New York Looks Abroad ... .... .... ... Hamilton Fish A rmstrong War by R adio . ... ... .... .. .... .. ... .. .. J ohn B. Whitton Before describing the part played by the British Colonies in the Our Heritage from the Law of Rome . ......... ... C. H . M el/wain war, however, I should like to explain briefly just what they are. The Mexican Army ...... .. .. .. .. .. .. Virginia Prewett I found during a recent tour of the United States that there was Stalemate in China . .. ...... .. .... ..... .. .. .. Owen Lattimore considerable vagueness about the Colonial Empire even in other­ The l.L.O. in Wartime and After .. .. ... .. .. ... John G. Winant The Industrial Power of the Nazis . ...... ... .. Louis Domeratzky wise well-informed quarters - which is perhaps not surprising, Britai n's Colonies in the War . ... .. .. ... .. .. ..... W. E. Simnett seeing that it is none too well known at home. Berlin to Baghdad Up-to-date . .... .. .... Philip W illard I reland The British Colonial Empire comprises some forty separate Marshal P etai n and the "New Order" . ...... ... ......... territories, large and small, at greatly varying stages of political, Recent Books on International Relations .... .. Robert Gale W oolbert social and economic development, scattered across the globe, Source Material . .. .. .. .... .. .. .. ..... Deny s P. Myers covering a land area of three million square miles (exclusive of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan) and containing a population - white, H AMILTON FI SH ARMSTRONG black, brown and yellow - of some sixty-five million people. The Editor whites are in a small minority, for most of the colonies are tropical Editorial Aduisory Board or sub-tropical and are therefore, unlike the Dominions, largely I SAIAH BOW MAN ST E PHEN DUGGAN EDWI N F. GAY unsuited for white settlement. GEORGE H. BLA KESLEE ALLEN W . DU LLES A. LAWRENCE LOWELL Let us for a moment make a bird's-eye survey of this variegated JOHN W. DAVIS H ARRY A. GARFIELD CHARLES SE YMOUR Empire. Turning first to the Western Hemisphere we find numer­ 45 E ast 65th Street ' New York, N. Y. ous colonies off the coast of North America or clustered in the Subscriptions, $5.00 a year, post fr ee to any address Caribbean - Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica. and the other •1 British West Indies, British Honduras and British Guiana - much in the news of late as a result of Britain's having granted the United States sites for naval and air bases on some of them. Further down in the South Atlantic lie Ascension, St. Helena, the Falklands - all useful points d'appui in Britain's control of the Copyright 1941, Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. sea - as well as Tristan da Cunha, "loneliest isle," and a section PRINTED I N U. S. A. of Antarctica. But it is the vast continent of Africa that contains the great 4 FOREIGN AFFAIRS BRITAIN'S COLONIES IN THE WAR 5 bulk of British colonial territory and population. In West Africa mutineers of the Bounty. In this part of the world are also the there are the Gambia, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast and Nigeria New Hebrides group, until l~tely an Anglo-French condominium, (which alone has a popµlation of over twenty millions), plus the and the phosphate island of Nauru, an Empire mandate. Not to two mandated areas in the former German colonies of Togoland be omitted is the interesting experiment of Canton and Ender­ and the ~ameroons. To the east lie the million square miles com­ bury Islands, where a joint Anglo-American administration is now posing the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, a "condominium" in which in force. the flags of Britain and Egypt fly side by side, though the practi­ Though this list completes the roster of British Colonies, it does cal job of administration is largely in British hands. Still farther not include territories belonging or mandated to Dominions, such east, near the "Horn of Africa," is British Somaliland, tempora­ as South-West Africa, Papua, New Guinea and Western Samoa. rilf .under Italian .o.ccupation. Below the Sudan comes a large Such a bare catalogue of names cannot, of course, give any hint Br1t1sh bloc comprising Kenya, Uganda, the mandated Territory of the rich diversity of the lands and peoples living under the of Tanganyika, Nyasaland, the Rhodesias, the island of Zanzibar British flag, or of their varied history. Any impartial study of this under its native Sultan, and, embedded in the Union of South history will, however, reveal that for the most part the Home Africa, the protectorates of Bechuanaland, Basutoland and Government, far from pursuing a policy of "grab," was often Swasiland, still under Imperial control. Southern Rhodesia, reluctant to assume responsibilities that were thrust upon it by incidentally, is a self-governing colony, though it does not rank the force of circumstances, by the enterprise of individuals, by as a Dominion. spontaneous and sometimes repeated requests for protection, or Along Britain's "short-cut" to the East through the Mediter­ by the consequences and necessities of sea power. Had it been ranean and Red Seas are strung the colonies of Gibraltar, Malta, otherwise, the Colonial Empire would have become far more Cyprus and Aden (in which latter is included Britain's protec­ extensi.ve than it is. Many opportunities for territorial expansion torate over the south coast of Arabia), as well as the mandated were refused or neglected, while in other cases the possessions of territories of Palestine and Trans Jordan. In the Indian Ocean lie other Powers taken as the prize of war, such as the Dutch East the islands of Mauritius, the Seychelles and, at the toe of India, Indies, were restored. Ceylon - the premier colony, today self-governing. Burma, In any event, the "imperialism" of the nineteen th century is in though politically quite separate and distinct from India, has the Britain a thing of the past, and has been superseded by the policy same status as its larger neighbor, and is therefore not a colony. of trusteeship. British Colonies are no longer regarded as "posses­ Farther east is British Malaya, a peninsula consisting of the sions" to be exploited primarily for the benefit of the mother Straits Settlements, with the great Singapore base, and the Fed­ country but as responsibilities or trusts held for the ultimate erated and non-Federated Malay States under their native rulers. benefit of the colonial peoples themselves. The objective towards Malaya is the most prosperous of all the colonial areas, its wealth which the "junior partners" are striving is that already attained being derived largely from its tin and rubber, for which the by the "senior partners" in the Commonwealth - self-govern­ United States is the principal customer.