The gist of the Labour proposal is an international control of Africa between the Zambesi and the Sahara.  This has been received with loud protests by men whose work one is obliged to respect, by Sir Harry, Johnston, for example, and Sir Alfred Sharpe, and with something approaching a shriek of hostility by Mr. Cunninghame Graham.  But I think these gentlemen have not perhaps given the Labour proposal quite as much attention as they have spent upon the details of African conditions.  I think they have jumped to conclusions at the mere sound of the word “international.”  There have been some gross failures in the past to set up international administrations in Africa and the Near East.  And these gentlemen think at once of some new Congo administration and of nondescript police forces commanded by cosmopolitan adventurers. (See Joseph Conrad’s “Out-post of Civilization.”) They think of internationalism with greedy Great Powers in the background outside the internationalized area, intriguing to create disorder and mischief with ideas of an ultimate annexation.  But I doubt if such nightmares do any sort of justice to the Labour intention.

And the essential thing I would like to point out to these authorities upon African questions is that not one of them even hints at any other formula which covers the broad essentials of the African riddle.

What are these broad essentials?  What are the ends that must be achieved if Africa is not to continue a festering sore in the body of mankind?

The first most obvious danger of Africa is the militarization of the black.  General Smuts has pointed this out plainly.  The negro makes a good soldier; he is hardy, he stands the sea, and he stands cold. (There was a negro in the little party which reached the North Pole.) It is absolutely essential to the peace of the world that there should be no arming of the negroes beyond the minimum necessary for the policing of Africa.  But how is this to be watched and prevented if there is no overriding body representing civilization to say “Stop” to the beginnings of any such militarization?  I do not see how Sir Harry Johnston, Sir Alfred Sharpe, and the other authorities can object to at least an international African “Disarmament Commission” to watch, warn, and protest.  At least they must concede that.

But in practice this involves something else.  A practical consequence of this disarmament idea must be an effective control of the importation of arms into the “tutelage” areas of Africa.  That rat at the dykes of civilization, that ultimate expression of political scoundrelism, the Gun-Runner, has to be kept under and stamped out in Africa as everywhere.  A Disarmament Commission that has no forces available to prevent the arms trade will be just another Hague Convention, just another vague, well-intentioned, futile gesture.