904
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE:
North
Borneo,
which also became
a crown
colony
in this
year
by
transfer
from
the
ruling
company,
and
the
Brunei
protectorate
all
three
inhabited
by
people
of the same
stock
as the
Malays
of
the
peninsula.
12
This
larger
combination
has
actually
existed
in
shadowy
form
since
the end of
the
war,
when
the
high
office
of the
Commis-
sioner
General
in
Southeast
Asia
was
created.
He
resides in
Singapore
and has
general
supervision
over
the administration
of
all
these
territories.
Turning
to
the black man's
continent,
we see
a serious
movement
for
self-government
in
British
East
Africa,
Central
Africa,
and
West
Africa,
and
an
effort
to
develop
each
as
a
potential
dominion.
But
first
it
should
be observed that in
each
of these
three
groups
of
British
dependencies,
as in
other
parts
of
the
colonial
empire,
there
was
a
simultaneous economic and
social
revolution that
was
essential
for
their
political progress.
Until
1940
the
colonies were
expected
to
bear the
cost of
their
own
administration,
a
condition
that
weighed heavily
upon
them.
Though
Joseph
Chamberlain had done
much
for
them,
they
continued
to be
"undeveloped
estates"
with
meager
revenues that
provided
little or
no
margin
for
expenditures
that
might
bring
social and
economic
improve-
ment.
Such
an
investment offered
too little
security
and too
distant
returns for
private capital, especially
during
the
depression
years,
when
the
plight
of the colonies became rather
desperate
and
provoked
native
disturbances here and there. At
last the
British
government
decided
to
go
to
the
rescue,
and in
1940,
just
after the
fall of
France,
the
Colonial
Development
and
Welfare
Act
was
passed.
It
provided
5,000,000
a
year
for
"any
purpose likely
to
promote
the
development
of
the resources of
any colony
or the
welfare
of its
people."
In
1945,
when
the end of the war
was in
sight,
another
act
of
the
same
name
multiplied
the
amount,
and
the
process
was
repeated
afterward.
Some
of
the
money
was
wasted
in
hasty
and
extravagant
ventures,
such
as
the abortive scheme
for
large-scale
mechanized
cultivation
of
ground-
nuts
(peanuts)
in
Tanganyika,
but
the
waste
may
be
compared
to
the water
spilled
by
an
eager
hand
priming
a
pump.
The
important
thing
is that
the
pump
was
primed.
In
British Central and
East but not
West
Africa,
physical
conditions
favored
white
settlement,
and
a
white
society
had
been
planted
amid
a
12
So too
are most of
the
inhabitants
of
Indonesia,
whose
postwar
independence
has
had a
marked
effect
on the outlook of the
peninsular
Makys.