This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
xvii
DETAILS OF ADMINISTRATION
403

they should not be paid members. This council would occupy a similar position in West African administration to that which the House of Commons occupies in English.

Under this Grand Council there should be two sub-councils reporting to it, one a joint committee of English lawyers and medical men, the other a committee of the native chiefs. Neither of these councils should be paid, but sufficient should be granted them to pay their working expenses. The members of these sub-councils of the Grand Council should be appointed—the medical and legal committee by say, the Lord Chancellor and the College of Physicians respectively, and the committee of African chiefs by the chiefs in West Africa.

I make no pretence at believing that either of these sub-councils for the first few years of their existence will be dove-cots—lawyers and doctors will always fight each other: but the lawyers will hold the doctors in and vice versa, and the common sense of the Grand Council will hold them both well down to practical politics. With the council of chiefs there will probably be less trouble, and this council will be an ambassador to the white government at headquarters capable of representing to it native opinion and native requirements.

Representing the Grand Council and nominated by it, subject to the approval of the Crown, as represented by the Chief Secretary for the Colonies and the Privy Council, there must be one Governor-General for West Africa: he must be supreme commander of the land and sea forces, with the right of declaring peace and war, and concluding treaties with the native chiefs; he must be a proved expert in West African affairs; he must be paid, say, £5,000 a year; he must spend six months on the Coast on a tour