people who know._"

Unhappily I share the evident opinion of Labour that we are not blessed
with any profoundly wise class of people who have definite knowledge and
clear intentions about Africa, that these "_people who know_" are mostly
a pretentious bluff, and so, in spite of a very earnest desire to take
refuge in my "ignorance" from the burthen of thinking about African
problems, I find myself obliged, like most other people, to do so. In
the interests of our country, our children, and the world, we common
persons _have_ to have opinions about these matters. A muddle-up in
Africa this year may kill your son and mine in the course of the next
decade. I know this is not a claim to be interested in things African,
such as the promoter of a tropical railway or an oil speculator has;
still it is a claim. And for the life of me I cannot see what is wrong
about the Labour proposals, or what alternative exists that can give
even a hope of peace in and about Africa.

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