LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND THE MAINTENANCE OF LAW AND ORDER
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1953.tb00969.x |
| Date | 01 January 1953 |
| Published date | 01 January 1953 |
| Author | C. A. G. Wallis |
FORMATION AND
DEVELOPMENT
OF LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITIES
IN
AFRICA 11
their work local education authorities in Africa generally include representatives
of the churches and missions just as they do in England,
but
representatives
of the teachers, who generally serve on education authorities in England, have not
yet been generally included in a similar capacity in Africa.
This
is a process
which needs to be speeded up, for a share in administration will be very valuable
to African teachers in the development of initiative and responsibility, and the
advice of teachers will be particularly valuable to education authorities in much
of their work.
Mention has already been made of the eagerness of Africans to see really
effective education authorities established in close conjunction with African
district councils,
but
the Cambridge Conference should have reminded them
that
a measure of government control of local education authorities will always be
necessary, though this control can be made increasingly elastic as time goes
on. After all our years of experience in England local education authorities are
still controlled to a certain extent by the Central Government, which also assists
them financially. Local education authorities can never be wholly independent,
for their efforts must be co-ordinated and all must work together for the good
of the whole territory. In England the relationship between the Central
Government and the local authorities occasionally leads to friction even after
all our experience,
but
on the whole control by the Government of local education
authorities in England is exercised in a friendly, helpful and understanding
way, much more so in all these respects than it was 25 years ago.
The
growth
of local education authorities in Africa will no doubt produce examples of diffi-
culty similar to those in England,
but
if all parties keep their eyes on
the
ultimate objective which is, in Africa as in England, an educated democracy with
control based on partnership and mutual consideration, the difficulties will go
like passing clouds, and will ultimately be forgotten in the general satisfaction
which comes from doing the right thing in the right way, in the control of
education as in everything else.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND
THE
MAINTENANCE OF
LAW AND ORDER
By C. A. G. Wallis.
T
HE
maintenance of civil order in times of calm, as well as
the
suppression of
disorder in times of crisis, demands the actual or threatened use of force.
The
bodies of police which society employs for this purpose are rightly called Forces.
Force implies power and the purpose of this article is to discuss, in relation to
the British Colonies in Africa,
the
distribution of this power.
The
avowed policy of
Her
Majesty's Government is to lead these colonies
along the road to self-government. Self-government in the end might take any
of several forms,
but
the fact is
that
all the steps which have been taken in all
territories are along the road
that
leads to parliamentary democracy of the British
kind.
Many
honest doubts have been expressed about the suitability of the
British form of government for African territories,
but
the doubters are unable
to propound adifferent form and their case is therefore going by default. Hence,
in face of the gathering momentum of events, it is always useful to enquire
into what makes democracy work in Great Britain
and
to attempt to disentangle
principles of general validity from the incidents of local practice.
As Professor Wheare pointed out in his lecture to
the
Cambridge Summer
Conference in 1951, there are two possible ways in which a democracy can go
to
the
bad.
It
can become a dictatorship or it can become a bureaucracy. Con-
stant vigilance is therefore necessary even in an established democracy. Still
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