Editor's Notes
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1958.tb01157.x |
| Date | 01 April 1958 |
| Published date | 01 April 1958 |
JOURNAL
OF
AFRICAN
ADMINISTRATION
Volume
X.
Number
2 . April
1958
Editor's Notes
IT is with great pleasure
that
we
draw
the attention of readers of this
Journal
to another
journal
which directs itself to Africa
and
in its first year of publication
has
attracted
a
great
deal of favourable comment
and
established itself with
authority in its own field. We refer to the
Journal
if
African
Lau» which is edited
by
Dr.
A. N. Allott, lecturer in law
at
the School ofOriental
and
African Studies
in London.
In
the
space of three numbers contributors have included
Lord
Justice
Denning, Sir
Kenneth
Roberts-Wray, Legal Adviser to the Secretary of
State for the Colonies,
and
Professor Anderson of the School of Oriental
and
African Studies,
and
the
Journal
is one which magistrates, lawyers
and
admin-
istrators in Africa, as well as academics interested in African law, would find of
great interest
and
value. We welcome the
Journal
and
wish it every success.
The
study of elections in British colonial territories is one which is receiving
an
increasing measure of attention in university circles in this country as well
as in government
and
other circles in colonial territories. As election by secret
ballot is being adopted as a
matter
of course in more
and
more territories so
experience grows in devising machinery suitable for holding elections in the
circumstances found in these countries with ahigh proportion of illiterate
voters, a shortage of trained electoral staff,
and
difficult communications.
It
was mentioned in the Editor's Notes in
the
October
number
of this
Journal
that
it was hoped
that
aresearch worker could be found to collaborate with Mr.
Bryan Keith-Lucas
of
Nuffield College, Oxford, in a detailed study of electoral
administration in British colonies,
and
towards. the end of last year
Mr.
T. E.
Smith, aformer Electoral Commissioner in Malaya, was appointed. He is
at
present working on
the
preliminary stages of the project, which is likely to take
ayear or eighteen months,
and
his published work is awaited with great
interest.
A
number
of electoral studies
and
reports were published in the
October
Journal
and
two further ones
are
included in the
current
number.
The
first is an
article on
the
Tiv
system of elections in the
Northern
Region of Nigeria by
Mr. Wallace,
an
Administrative Officer, who describes how a tribe has modified
its traditional system
of
selecting its spokesmen from among the clan elders in
rotation as a result
of
the
influence of national politics
and
election by secret
ballot.
The
second is a summary of a
report
on the 1956 elections to
the
Western House of Assembly in Nigeria written by
Mr.
Balmer,
the
Electoral
Commissioner. These elections were notable in
that
they were
the
first held on a
common roll with virtually universal adult franchise,
and
almost all
the
elec-
-_._--_
..
_--------------------------
1Published by Messrs. Butterworth &Co., Ltd., London. Annual subscription 42/- including
postage for three issues.
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