The Ormsby-Gore Commission was a Parliamentary Commission, with the official title The East Africa Commission. Its chairman, William Ormsby-Gore, later the fourth Baron Harlech, was appointed in June 1924 together with two other Member of Parliament as commissioners. The terms of reference for the commission, which was appointed by the short-lived First MacDonald ministry, included to report on measures to accelerate economic development, to improve the social conditions of African residents, to investigate employment practices and to secure closer cooperation between the five British dependencies in East and Central Africa.
The commission recommended that transport and other infrastructure should be improved as a precondition of possible later administrative union. It expressed concern over issues of land ownership and the conditions of Africans living on European owned estates, and suggested that promoting commercial agriculture by Africans could be a solution to the problem of labour migration. By the time the commission reported in April 1925, the MacDonald ministry had lost power and, although Ormsby-Gore had become Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies in the new government, little action was taken on its proposals. In 1926, the Hilton Young Commission on Closer Union of the Dependencies of East and Central Africa was appointed. Its report in 1929 re-examined and supported the closer union of Kenya, Uganda and Tanganyika, but this was not acted on owing to financial constraints.Kalinga (2012), pp. 193, 389
Background Following the indecisive general election of December 1923, which created a hung parliament, the Conservative government of Stanley Baldwin remained in office until January 1924 and was then replaced by the Labour government of June to November 1924. J. H. Thomas, the Secretary of State for the Colonies created an East Africa Committee, also known as the Southborough Committee, composed of sixteen members including parliamentarians and business representatives, to promote economic development and African advancement in that area.Gupta (1975), pp. 54, 73-4
Only a minority of East Africa Committee members represented the interests of Africans and, after it appointed the Ormsby-Gore Commission, and following the resignation of the First MacDonald ministry and the publication of that Commission's report, the Southborough Committee was disbanded in June 1925 as being no longer required.Dilley (1966), pp. 18, 165Gupta (1975), p. 75 Baldwin's Conservative government which replaced MacDonald's ministry took little action on the Ormsby-Gore Commission's report, but appointed the Hilton Young Commission in 1926 to look into the possible closer union of the British territories in East and Central Africa. The later commission placed less emphasis on African advancement and more on a possible closer union of the British colonies and protectorates.Dilley (1966), pp. 70, 203Gupta, (1975) pp. 129, 280
The commission In June 1924, the Parliamentary Commission officially named "The East Africa Commission" was appointed with the mandate:-
"To visit Northern Rhodesia, Nyasaland, Tanganyika Territory, Uganda, and Kenya with a view to obtaining as much information as possible in the time available on all subjects covered by the terms of reference to the East Africa Committee, and to report to the Secretary of State on any facts which they may consider have a bearing upon the above matters."
The terms of reference to the East Africa Committee were:— "To consider and report:—
(a) on the measures to be taken to accelerate the general economic development of the British East African Dependencies and the means of securing closer co-ordination of policy on such important matters as transportation, cotton-growing, and the control of human, animal, and plant diseases;
(b) on the steps necessary to ameliorate the social condition of the natives of East Africa, including improvement of health and economic development;
(c) on the economic relation between natives and non-natives with special reference to labour contracts, care of labourers, certificates of identification, employment of women and children;
(d) on the taxation of natives and the provision for services directed to their moral and material improvement".Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), p. 3
The commission visited the Africa territories named in its mandate between August and December 1924. However, it reported that, owing to transport difficulties, its visits to Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland were short, and it was unable to visit any of North-Eastern Rhodesia, northern Nyasaland, southern Tanganyika or the Lake Tanganyika area. Two members of the Commission also visited Zanzibar, although this was not within its original terms of reference.Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), pp. 3-4
The commissioners Ormsby-Gore, the commission's Chairman was the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Stafford from 1910 to 1938 and Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1922 to 1929, except during the period of the MacDonald ministry from June to November 1924. He was regarded by Robert Coryndon, then governor of Kenya, as being sympathetic to African peasant production and opposed to European settler demands both for control over more land for self-determination, conceding only limited suffrage to Asians and Africans.Dilley (1966), p. 172Youé (1986), pp. 179, 191-2 By the time he was appointed to head the commission, Ormsby-Gore was more supportive of a dual policy of Europeans producing the more valuable export crops while Africans produced food and those cash crops that did not compete with European growers,Youé (1986), p. 192 but he never accepted the political aspirations of the settlersDilley (1966), p. 192
Besides Ormsby-Gore, a Conservative MP, the commission included A.G Church, a Labour MP and F. C. Linfield, a Liberal MP, with a senior Colonial Office civil servant as secretary. Church's main interest was promoting trade between Britain and its colonial Empire and, as a result of his visit to East Africa, he supported the political ambitions of white settlers for internal self-government on the model of Southern Rhodesia, in defiance of official Labour Party policy.Gupta, (1975), pp. 68, 77 Linfield also had a strong interest in colonial development and suggested the creation of an Imperial Development Board largely financed by the British exchequer.Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), p. 190 He also advocated that the African people should have sufficient land to grow both food and economic crops, rather than expanding European land ownership.Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), pp. 186-89Kuczynski, (1948). p. 633
By the time the commission returned to Britain, the 1923 United Kingdom general election had taken place and Stanley Baldwin had returned at the head of a Conservative ministry in which Ormsby-Gore was again Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. Church and Linfield both lost their parliamentary seats in the election.
Report The commission's report contained five topic sections, the three most important being on Transport and Communications, Native Policy and Trade and Commerce; sections on the six territories visited, including Zanzibar, a Conclusion and a supplementary memorandum by Linfield. Much of the information contained in the report was prepared by the colonial administrations of each territory in advance of the visit.Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), p. 4
Transport and Communications The commission noted that the economic development of large areas of East and Central Africa was hampered by limited transport facilities and high transport costs. It stated that the development of railways, and to some extent lake transport, should be preferred to roads as the main solution".Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), pp. 10-11, 16-17 It suggested a rail link from North-Eastern Rhodesia and Northern Nyasaland to the existing Tanganyika Railway Central Line. Although the Hilton Young Commission endorsed this proposal, no comparable link was completed before the TAZARA Railway in 1975.Hilton Young and others (1929), pp. 252-64, 269 74Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), p. 11
The report also supported the building a Zambezi Bridge, and a detailed report proposing what became the Dona Ana Bridge was published in 1929.Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), pp. 12-13Hammond (1929), pp. 21-3 The commissioners realised it was unlikely that major infrastructure projects such as railways and improvements to ports would be undertaken without substantial British government investment, and recommended that, where railways were in private hands, they should be brought under state control.Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), pp. 18-19
Native Policy This longest section, almost one-third of the whole report, restated the principles of the Devonshire Declaration of 1923, that the Africans in Kenya and Uganda were as much under British government "Trusteeship" as those in Tanganyika were under its League of Nations mandate, and that African interests must be paramount in Kenya.Dilley (1966), pp. 171-2 It also considered the Devonshire Declaration should apply to all British dependencies in East and Central Africa, defining "Trusteeship" as including both the social and educational development of African people and development of the economic resources of those dependencies.Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), pp. 21-2 The commissioners accepted Indirect rule should continue where it already existed and was effective, particularly in Uganda. However, the commission considered that it was in decline elsewhere and that, where direct rule by British administrators had replaced the power of chiefs, the latter should only be used to assist these administrators.Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), pp. 47-9
In most of the territories, systems of land tenure included land recognised as belonging to their African peoples (native land) which was dealt with under customary law, land alienated to non-natives as freehold or leasehold land, and a residual category of Crown land, capable of being declared native land or alienated to Europeans. This last category included forests and game reserves. The commission suggested that land policy should evolve to promote individual ownership of agricultural land by Africans, that Crown land, where suitable for cultivation or pastoralism should be reserved for African use unless manifestly surplus to expected future requirements, and that African tenants on European owned-estates should be protected from exploitation.Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), pp. 24-5, 27-31
The commission also recommended that cultivation of food resources and economic crops by Africans should be encouraged and pastoralism discouraged, except in drier areas unsuited to crop cultivation. It suggested that colonial agricultural departments should be strengthened, and the production of suitable exportable crops in each territory should be promoted.Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), pp. 32-3, 35-6 The supply of African labour for public works and on European owned-estates competed with encouraging African production, but the commission believed the shortage of labour would be reduced if the large numbers of adult males who were currently labour migrants outside their home territory were repatriated and redeployed in productive agricultural work on native land or estates, and if local employers offered better pay and conditions.Ormsby-Gore, Church and Linfield (1925), pp. 36, 38-9 Education was also seem as the path to African economic development.