Theirs Not to Reason Why
Tour of Duty. By Sir Stewart Symes. (Collins. 12s. 6d.)
Barrisx administrators overseas may roughly be divided into two types. There are the " creative " men, exemplified by Lugard or Cromer, who leave an indelible impress among the societies which they serve ; and there are the " safe " men, who are mainly content to do useful service in obeying instructions laid down by Whitehall. If this arbitrary division be accepted, it is, to judge from this book, in the second category that Sir Stewart Symes must Le placed: Alike in his work, as related selectively here, as District Commissioner and Chief 'Secretary in the Palestine Administration, as Resident of Aden, as Governor of Tanganyika, and as Governor of the Sudan (from which he retired in 1940), he may be said to have pursued the line which, however hard the work involved, promised the smoothest running of the machine. One cannot expect
more of a man than he is, and one is unjustified in complaining that Sir Stewart broke little new ground in the territories in which lie unwearyingly worked. His outlook, admittedly liberal and 'tolerant, seems occasionally to smack of a complacency which sub- sequent events have shown to be ill-founded. = This soldier-administrator had the fortune to be trained, in Egypt and the Sudan, under that most far-sighted man whose merits historians will surely assess higher than haVe Contemporary Sir, Reginald Wingate. Wingate taught his subordinates the necessity, not only of firmness, but also of tact and patience, in dealing with Arabs. But Wingate always knew his own mind, and was never afraid to speak it. Some of his, pupils had all the tact and patience in the world, but if a policy were down, "theirs not to reason why." Inevitably the reflection ii inborne an one that if some of Wingate's proteges, while serving with the Palestine Goveinment in the earlier days of the Mandatechad unburdened their imnsciences fully to Whitehall, the position of the Holy Land mightj not be so distressing as it is today. The complacency of some British officials during the Samuel and Plumer regimes makes strange reading.'
In all the countries in which he served, Sir- Stewart was an advocate of hastening slowly. By no means alone in such an attitude, he did not allow his liberal upbringing to countenance sympathy with the demand for a faster tempo in the attainment of native freedom, either in Asia or Africa. Many would applaud his caution: others might say that, had he, in his time, identified British policy more closely with what are called; with loose accuracy, progressive elements, the outlook might be clearer. But that raises the old argument of whether Britain should endeavour to work with "moderate" men, who understand the spirit of British compromise, or tä 'strike out on new paths.
It is interesting to note that Sir Stewart had, on the whole, good words for the Germans wham he found in Tanganyika, and for Christian missionaries in Africa, and especially that he supports the notion of haVirig' in Whitehall a Minister for Africa. But his is the pen of sweetness ; neither gall nor even. sharpness ever is- near his ink-pot. Possibly discretion has moulded his chapters overmuch in any case, his pervasive optimism leaves one with the unfashion- able (or forgotten) feeling of having dallied with creme-de-menthe- a cloying sense unlessened by the author's trick of bespattering his sentences with feminine exclamation-marks.
Kamm WILLIAMS.
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