BOOK REVIEWS
| Published date | 01 January 1956 |
| Date | 01 January 1956 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1956.tb00515.x |
48
JOURNAL
OF
AFRICAN
ADMINISTRATION
institutions. The Ministers consider
that
initiative
and
aproper sense of
responsibility in this field can best be promoted by encouraging local authorities
to assume responsibility to
the
full
extent
of their powers, in
the
firm belief
that
opportunity
breeds
the
man. Accordingly, in discharging their responsi-
bility vis-a-vis local authorities Administrative Officers should as quickly as
possible disengage themselves from all direct executive action
and
participation
and
should slip into
the
background as willing
and
friendly advisers.
It
should
be borne in
mind
in this connection
that
efficiency is
not
the
only criterion by
which
the
development of Local Government institutions should be judged.
It
is often better, taking a long view, for things to be done by
the
people them-
selves, even perhaps indifferently,
than
for
them
to be done well on their
behalf.
9. Secondly, in order to free Administrative Officers for
what
the
Ministers
regard as their main
task
of
the
future,
that
of promoting effective local self-
government,
the
Government wishes
them
as soon as practicable to
hand
over
all functions hitherto undertaken on behalf of other
Departments
or because
there was no other officer to discharge
them
to suitable
departmental
officers
(i.e., as soon as there are suitable officers available to
take
them
on). Thus
there should be a progressive devolution to appropriate
departmental
officers
of all those miscellaneous functions not strictly belonging to
the
Provincial
Administration.
10. Finally,
the
Regional Government has decided to alter
the
title of the
Provincial Administration in order to conform more closclv with what is
1I0W
regarded to be
the
most
important
functions of AdministrZltive Officers in the
future
and
to emphasise
the
nature
of these duties. Although of necessity
the
Provincial Administration as
the
main agency of a Regional Government in
the
field will have to retain
many
executive functions,
the
titles of Resident
and
District Officer has become associated in
the
public mind with
the
system
of Government prior to the assumption of ministerial responsibility and may
therefore appear to suggest something of an anachronism in present circum-
stances. Accordingly it has been decided to change
the
titles of Resident and
District Officer to those of Provincial and Divisional Adviser.
BOOK
REVIE\VS
An
Introduction to the History
of
West Africa. by
].
D. Fage. Cambridge
University Press,
1955;
12s.
Gd.
; pp. 209.
Dr. Fage, who is the Senior Lecturer in History
at
the
University College of
the
Gold Coast, has produced an admirable synopsis of West African history
from
the
time of the establishment of the earliest of
the
great
empires of the
western
Sudan
to
the
present day. In his pages
the
several major influences
which have helped to form the West African peoples of
today
are described
and
analysed in a concise
and
clear manner. Beginning with
the
impact of
Berber
and
Arab culture
and
organization, Dr. Fage describes, in turn, the
Portuguese,
and
other,
trading
contacts with
the
Guinea
Coast;
the slave
trade
and
its implications;
and
the nineteenth
century
scramble for trade and
eventually for colonial territories. Inevitably the
treatment
of so diverse and
wide a range of subjects within so small a compass involves acertain degree
of compression
and
places limits upon
the
author. Dr. Fage has, indeed, called
his book an introduction
and
the
reader whose
appetite
has been whetted may
well hope
that
this book will serve as a prelude to future
and
more compre-
hensive studies.
To continue reading
Request your trial