Studies in War-Time Organisation: (2) The Resident Ministry in West Africa

The Royal African Society

Studies in War-Time Organisation: (2) The Resident Ministry in West AfricaAuthor(s): Harold EvansSource: African Affairs, Vol. 43, No. 173 (Oct., 1944), pp. 152-158Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Royal African SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/718491 .

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I52 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

Lieut. W. N. Heaton, Lt. K. M. Knight, R.N.R., F/Lt. H. Macfarlane, R. Y. Rule, G. I. Scott, R. W. Steel and Miss M. F. Wilson.

Studies in War-time Organisation (2) THE RESIDENT MINISTRY IN WEST AFRICA

By HAROLD EVANS

One of the purest types of "functional" organisation, initiated for purely temporary furposes, and, with the alteration in the war situation, almost inevitably gravitating to more long-distance planning, is the Resident Ministry in West Africa. This article was written, at our invitation, by a member of Lord Swinton's Headquarters staff, who wishes it to be understood that he is writing in a purely private capacity.

EVERYONE enjoys telling a success story and this is a success story. No phase of the war effort in the four British territories in West Africa

has failed in its ultimate objective. Cataloguing is dull but to get the story into perspective I shall have to catalogue tasks and achievements before attempting to describe the organisation behind them.

If you were at a bullfight and someone suddenly pushed you into the ring you would know the kind of. predicament facing the West African Govern- ments in the summer of 1940. In May the war had been 5,000 miles away: in July it was on the frontiers. France had fallen, the Mediterranean had been closed, and the men of Vichy sat at Dakar. It was not only a question of improvising defences and devising new internal economies; it was also a question of providing sea and air bases vital (in the most deliberate use of the word) to British survival-and of doing it very largely without the tools. As if that were not enough, subsequent events 5,000 miles away in another direction-Malaya and the Dutch East Indies-reacted with equal force and unpredictability. This time the call was to replace as far as possible the minerals and tropical products lost in the East-the tin, the vegetable oils and the rubber. In particular, Britain's fat ration needed every ton of oil West Africa could produce.

Those, barely and broadly stated, were the tasks. What of the achievements?

Militarily, West Africa has done astonishingly more than look to its defences. Expansion of the Royal West African Frontier Force was a matter of urgency, but under the inspiration of General Sir George Giffard it was expanded as an instrument of offence not defence. Even in 1941 it sent brigades to Abyssinia. To-day, the R.W.A.F.F. is in India and Burma by the scores of thousand. West Africa fights in Asia, and in doing so writes a new page of Commonwealth history.

The air chain which led to Alamein began at Takoradi, Accra and Lagos, and stretched from corner to corner of Nigeria. There was no other way of



STUDIES IN WAR-TIME ORGANISATION 153

getting the aircraft to the battlefront in time. In Nigeria they had to expand or make 30 airfields of one kind and another, and the Public Works Depart- ment had to do the work. The convoys which took Auchinleck and Mont- gomery their tanks were shepherded through the South Atlantic narrows under cover of Sunderlands and Hudsons from Bathurst and with the aid of warships from Freetown, and at Freetown, still under air cover, they paused to re-group and to be watered. Later, had it not been for the airfields of the Gambia, no American heavy bombers could have fought in the first stages of the Allied invasion of French Africa.

All these are achievements belonging to the past. Strategically, West Africa no longer has key significance (though aircraft still fly in large num- bers along the trans-African route). But in production West Africa still has a key position. Because of wayward rains record plantings of groundnuts have not produced record harvests, but the overall production of vegetable oil has been good enough to ensure that Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Jones and Mrs. McGregor still draw the margarine ration they did three years ago. In rubber, since there were no great plantations, there was a limit to what could be done, but to-day West Africa's rubber exports are counted by the thousand instead ofby the hundred of tons. Urgent demands for West African timber-from home, from the United States, and even from the Allied army in Italy-have had a response no less complete; in addition immeasurably greater internal requirements (for works of construction, and for furnishing) have been met.

In minerals the emphasis has varied, but no target has been set for any mineral which has not been achieved. Nigeria exports almost twice as much tin as before the war. Gold Coast, a major producer of manganese before the war, has not only increased its output but added bauxite to the manganese (for initiative, energy and determination I recommend the story of the development of the bauxite deposits). Sierra Leone has gone on produc- ing hundreds of thousands of tons of iron ore. As for miscellaneous things like industrial diamonds, these have been taken in their stride.

Not all production has been for export, of course. When h& broadcast from London in August, Lord Swinton said that with one exception (salt) the territories had cut their imports of foodstuffs by 75 per cent. That almost incidental achievement is no less remarkable than those more spectacular.

So bald a recital can give no idea of the immensity and complexity of the labours involved-the assessment of priorities where everything was urgent and nothing adequately available. Men for the R.W.A.F.F., men for the mines, men and equipment to build the airfields, camps, roads and oil installations, men and equipment to develop the railways, harbours, water supplies and anti-malarial schemes; and yet sufficient men remaining on the land and in the forests to grow the groundnuts, harvest the palm kernels, collect the rubber and grow more food than ever before. The right cargo at the right place at the right time, without margin for error. Production drives-the distribution of seed, the setting up of collecting stations, the organisation of transport, the adequate and equitable distribution of induce-



154 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

ment goods, the fixing of fair prices and ensuring that the money went to the producer. The calculation and screening of imports to give a bare suffi- ciency and to meet the limits set by the Joint Boards. The negotiation of lease-lend supplies and reverse lease-lend. The organisation of information services so that the people should know why this restriction was necessary, why that commodity was not available, why there must be more palm kernels and less cocoa, and why victory had to be so painfully won. And the organisation of welfare services for the men of the R.W.A.F.F. overseas, and of payment of separation allowances to their wives.

All this, moreover, has had to be undertaken in the main by administrative and departmental services sorely depleted by the need to furnish the R.W.A.F.F. with men understanding and understood by the African. Half as many men have had to do three or four times as much work, and to do it they have had to extend their tours to lengths medically unwise: for the most part, too, they have had to live apart from their families and often they have had to take their leaves anywhere except the United Kingdom. Tribute has very rightly been paid to the loyalty and response of the African population. It has not yet been adequately paid to the European personnel serving in the territories.

Yet if success would have been impossible without the individual efforts of these men, it would have been no less impossible without planning and organisation on a scale not before attempted in the West African colonies.

Unlike East Africa, where the contiguity of the territories had for a decade made a Governors' Conference a practical proposition, West Africa began the war with no more than the shadow of a regional organisation. With each territory separated from the others, with two of the capitals as far apart as London and Athens, and with no regular air services, this was hardly surprising.

Nevertheless, great as were the physical difficulties, the threat of war in 1939 made so apparent the need for concerted action on common isues and for pooling of ideas and experience, that a special effort was made to overcome them and the four Governors met at Lagos in August. From that meeting grew the West African Governors' Conference, but the conception of a regional secretariat in permanent existence remained on paper for another 18 months. By then the fall of France and developments in the French African Colonies had introduced so strong an element of urgency, and so sharp an increase in the business to be handled regionally, that a central secretariat came into being at the beginning of 1941. The Secre- tariat had its headquarters at Lagos, as seat of the senior Governor, and at its head was appointed one of the almost legendary figures of the Coast, Mr. W. J. A. ("Kibi") Jones, now Sir Andrew Jones, whose appointment carried the office of Deputy Chairman of the Governors' Conference.

In its early days the Secretariat was of the "one man and a boy" variety, but as something experimental it had necessarily to grow to the extent and in the form dictated by circumstances. The most significant of those circumstances was the fall of Singapore and the sudden, frantic demand that followed for almost everything West Africa could grow and mine.




Supply and production problems became a paramount concern of the four territories, and to meet the new situation one member of the Conference Secretariat was appointed to handle supply problems exclusively. The choice was R. de S. Stapledon, a Nigerian administrative officer who had been seconded to the Secretariat at its inception. From this appointment there emerged at the beginning of 1942 the West African Supply Centre.

Hitherto there had been no call for governments to intervene in the peacetime organisation of buying and selling, importing and exporting, which was the concern of private business firms. Now, however, the Governments had to take full responsibility for the economic life of their territories, and in doing so it was clear that they would have to have the co-operation, volun- tarily or compulsorily, of the firms. In the event, the firms (through the Association of West African Merchants) offered full co-operation, and agreed to second Commercial Delegates to the Supply Centre and to the Nigerian and Gold Coast Governments.

So, by the middle of 1942, a regional machine had been created, though its efficient operation was hampered in important ways. The physical difficulties of travelling between the territories remained. Nor could the Conference maintain really effective liaison with the three Services whose headquarters were variously sited-the Army at Accra and the Navy and R.A.F. at Freetown. Then there was the necessity to submit recommenda- tions to London for agreement, with all the delays inevitable on remote control. Finally, it was difficult for the Governors to arrive at decisions involving broad policy without having immediately available the advice of a higher and disinterested authority with a full perspective of the war situation.

Meanwhile, the strategic and economic importance of West Africa had become of such stature that in June, 1942, the Cabinet at home decided that it warranted the appointment of a member of the Cabinet to be resident in the territories. The announcement of Lord Swinton's appointment said that his task would be "to ensure the effective co-operation in the prosecution of the war of all Services, civil and military, through3ut the British colonies in West Africa". It was further stated that he would be able to settle on the spot, without reference to Whitehall, any matter within the British Government's general policy. In effect, Lord Swinton was to become a Cabinet of one, a projection into West Africa of all departments of H.M. Government with the power to make decisions on the spot on behalf of any of them.

No one could have brought to the task experience more valuable. Primarily it involved a thorough understanding of colonial policy and administration, of the problems of supply and production, and of air affairs- and Lord Swinton had been Secretary of State for the Colonies, President of the Board cf Trade and Secretary of State for Air. Moreover, he was Chairman of the United Kingdom Commercial Corporation which had unique experience in wartime business organisation. Finally-an all- important "imponderable"--he knew intimately both the government machine at home and the men who made its wheels go round.

The Minister arrived in West Africa early in July, 1942, and established



156 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

his headquarters in a segment of Achimota College. The choice of headquarters was determined by geography and climate-geography because the Gold Coast was the most central of the territories, and climate because the Accra plain has, on the whole, the most tolerable weather on the Coast. There were the further advantages that military headquarters was already established at Achimota, and that Accra was the air junction principally favoured as first African stop for aircraft en route from the United States (it has since become headquarters of an important American command).

As first step towards ensuring "effective co-ordination in the prosecution of the war", Lord Swinton formed a West African War Council-the four Governors and the three Service commanders. At first the Governors' Conference continued in theoretical existence as an independent body to handle such regional affairs as might not have relation to the war effort. In practice it became clear that no dividing line could be satisfactorily determined, and that there was little activity not bearing on the war effort in some degree. In these circumstances the existence of two parallel bodies was anomalous and it was agreed that for the time being the functions of the Governors' Conference should be absorbed by the Civil Members' Com- mittee of the War Council. This Committee (the Minister and the four Governors) was one of three Standing Committees set up by the War Coun- cil-Civil Members', Services' and Supply and Production-each having the full authority of the Council in its respective sphere.

Under the chairmanship of a Cabinet Minister, to whom considerable powers had been delegated, and with full representation of both civilian and Service interests, the War Council could not fail to become a dynamic body. The physical difficulties of meeting were overcome in the early days largely by use of the Minister's personal aircraft. To-day, when the territories are linked by regular air services, it is not easy to cast back to the recent past when, if an exaggeration may be permitted, the planning of West Africa's war effort depended very largely on one R.A.F. Hudson. Lord Swinton has said that the only proviso he made to acceptance of his West African post was that an aircraft should be allocated exclusively for his use. That aircraft has paid remarkable dividends. Apart from its usefulness in ferrying Governors and their staffs to and from War Council meetings, it has carried the Minister to every corner of the four territories and enabled him to study on the spot any given problem with the help of the men in the field. It has enabled him, moreover, to establish invaluable personal contacts in French West and Equatorial Africa, in the Belgian Congo, and, further afield, in Cairo, in South Africa and East Africa.

There were four distinct elements in the office organisation set up by the Minister at Achimota.

First, a small and compact Secretariat comprising officers on secondment from the home Civil Service, from the Colonial Office and from the Colonial Governments-an excellent blend of backgrounds. A home Civil Servant, F. H. Sandford, "on loan" from the Air Ministry, came from Montreal to become Chief of Staff: his services had been specially requested by Lord Swinton to whom for three years at the Air Ministry he had been Private




Secretary (he had, in fact, been Private Secretary to five successive Air Ministers). To the staff proper was also attached an Engineer Adviser (Colonel C. B. R. Macdonald). The Secretariat was self-contained, with its own cypher and registry facilities, for the most part staffed (most efficiently) by wives of Gold Coast government officers.

Secondly, the West African Supply Centre moved from Lagos to become, in effect, the economic branch of the Office. At its head was Sir Andrew Jones who, in addition, became Joint Secretary to the War Council (with Mr. Sandford). Its staff comprised R. de S. Stapledon, to whom reference has already been made, one administrative officer seconded by the Gold Coast Government, two statisticians, and three Commercial Delegates. It was not a policy-making body, of course, its functions really being to assemble the facts and keep the records. At the same time there was no failure to produce ideas, and the idea of production teams working in the field originated in the Supply Centre.

Third element comprised representatives of those home Ministries with important interests in the West African war effort-War Transport, Informa- tion, Fuel and Power and Aircraft Production. Also represented were the Directorate General of Aircraft Production (Ministry of Works), and the Civil Aviation Department of the Air Ministry. Not all these representatives were based at Achimota. The representatives of the Ministry of Aircraft Production and the Directorate General of Aircraft Factories, for example, were solely concerned with the development of bauxite deposits in the Gold Coast, and both had offices in the mining area. Again, the representatives of the Ministry of Fuel and Power and of the Civil Aviation Department of the Air Ministry each had his headquarters at Lagos. Also "living out" was the Chief Security Liaison Officer, the officer responsible under the Minister's direction for co-ordination of security acitivities in West Africa, while the Censorship Adviser (Mr. W. T. Fox) was based in Nigeria, where he was Imperial Censorship Representative, and the Legal Adviser (Mr. R. H. Browne) was Solicitor-General, Gold Coast. At Achimota, on the other hand, the Ministry of War Transport Representative was joined by a representative of the U.S. War Shipping Administration, a peculiarly happy and successful arrangement.

Finally, to maintain effective liaison with the Office, Navy and Air Force headquarters at Freetown each appointed a liaison officer to be resident at Achimota. A similar appointment for military headquarters was, of course, unnecessary in view of the immediate proximity of General Headquarters.

This, then, was the organisation set up at Achimota and now known to the Coast as "Resmin". It has the commendable quality of compactness. Executives have never numbered more than could be seated at a conference table. Departmentalism has been powerfully discouraged. Every incoming and outgoing telegram is circulated for information to all senior members of the staff. Everyone knows the full picture.

Teamwork is further stimulated by the fact that the senior staff lives as well as works together. Indeed, the friendly informality of the Minister's Mess has been a very real factor in promoting good understanding with



158 AFRICAN AFFAIRS

visitors who have come for conferences or for information, as well as those who, in transit, have been the Minister's guests. In particular one thinks of Allied personnel-the Americans, the French and the Belgians, with whom the most cordial relations have been maintained. Also conducive to neigh- bourly feelings have been the visits of Lord Swinton to French and Belgian territory, and, recently, the appointment of a French Mission of Liaison to the Minister.

The siting of the Office has been another factor contributing to its effective- ness. Apart from the advantages of climate and geographical convenience, the selection of Achimota removed any fears by the smaller territories that the regional organisation would be "swamped" by Nigeria, while at the same time, by remaining outside the Gold Coast capital, the Office has avoided any possibility of becoming unduly "Gold Coast minded".

But any attempt to assess the qualities of the Office must begin by recog- nising that first and foremost stands the dynamic driving power of Lord Swinton-a driving power derived from his own personality and from his status and the sweeping powers given to him. How any future regional organisation could be effective without a similar driving force is perhaps the biggest of the question marks.

Already there has been a considerable reorientation of activities. The extent to which planning for the future is replacing the emergency tasks of war is apparent in the growing agenda of the Civil Members' Committee. So, too, the changing emphasis is apparent in the constitution of the Minister's Office. Naval and R.A.F. Liaison Officers are no longer considered necessary, the post of Engineer Adviser lapsed some time ago, and the Ministry of War Transport has ceased regional representation. Meanwhile, there have been two important and significant new appointments-those of Mr. Noel Hall as Development Adviser, and of Mr. Maxwell Fry as Town Planning Adviser. Both are members of the Minister's staff, and their functions are to advise the Minister and the four governments. These are appointments concerned essentially with post-war problems. Already and inevitably the Minister's office had become the focal point for all activities on a regional scale even though those activities might have only an indirect connection with the war effort-tsetse, medical and labour conferences, for example, and the forma- tion of a West African Institute of Cocoa Research. Further, it has been the good fortune of those directing the war effort in West Africa that much of their work has lasting value, so that the problems of peace are constantly in mind. Meanwhile, the labours of the Supply Centre continue unabated, and the framework of the Secretariat remains largely unaltered (except for changes of personnel, notably the return of F. H. Sandford to the Air Ministry at the beginning of this year, and the appointment of Sir Andrew Jones as Chief of Staff).

What of the future? To meet the emergencies of war West Africa has made a strikingly successful experiment in regional planning. The biggest barrier to common effort-the physical barrier imposed by distances-is now largely down. Can it be doubted that regional planning has come to stay in West Africa ?



Studies in War-Time Organisation: (2) The Resident Ministry in West Africa

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