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MENTAL HEALTH IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Lobotomy Nation
The History of Psychosurgery
and Psychiatry in Denmark
Jesper Vaczy Kragh
 Mental Health in Historical Perspective

Series Editors
Catharine Coleborne, School of Humanities and Social Science,
University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia
Matthew Smith, Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare,
University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK
Covering all historical periods and geographical contexts, the series
explores how mental illness has been understood, experienced, diagnosed,
treated and contested. It will publish works that engage actively with
contemporary debates related to mental health and, as such, will be
of interest not only to historians, but also mental health professionals,
patients and policy makers. With its focus on mental health, rather than
just psychiatry, the series will endeavour to provide more patient-centred
histories. Although this has long been an aim of health historians, it has
not been realised, and this series aims to change that.
The scope of the series is kept as broad as possible to attract good
quality proposals about all aspects of the history of mental health from
all periods. The series emphasises interdisciplinary approaches to the field
of study, and encourages short titles, longer works, collections, and titles
which stretch the boundaries of academic publishing in new ways.

More information about this series at

http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14806
 Jesper Vaczy Kragh

Lobotomy Nation
The History of Psychosurgery and Psychiatry
in Denmark
Jesper Vaczy Kragh
Centre for Health Research
in the Humanities
University of Copenhagen
Copenhagen, Denmark

ISSN 2634-6036 ISSN 2634-6044 (electronic)

Mental Health in Historical Perspective
ISBN 978-3-030-65305-7 ISBN 978-3-030-65306-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65306-4

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer
Nature Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc.
in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for
general use.
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tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither
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Cover image: © Lennart Nilsson/TT Nyhetsbyrån

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature
Switzerland AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Preface

This book tells the story of one of medicine’s most (in)famous treatments:
the neurosurgical operation commonly known as lobotomy. The book itself
is the serendipitous result of a series of more or less random events that
occurred some years ago, at a time when I knew nothing about high-risk
neurosurgical practices on psychiatric patients. Back then, I was studying
a group of Danes who claimed to commune with the dead—the spir-
itualists from the twentieth century—and the history of psychiatry was
unknown territory to me.1 Nevertheless, I made my way, via a some-
what circuitous route, from spiritualism to psychiatry. It turned out that
early-twentieth-century psychiatrists had taken a keen interest in the spiri-
tualists’ conversations with the dead. In order to gain insight into the link
between the two groups, I started searching for information about the
evolution of psychiatry. It was not easy to find. The history of psychiatry
in Denmark has only been sparingly and sporadically recorded. I decided it
was worthy of closer study, and I was fortunate enough to secure funding
for a research project in 2002. To this day, my interest in psychiatry has
remained undiminished.
In the course of my research, I was particularly drawn to the somatic
treatments in psychiatry. In the early twentieth century, Danish psychi-
atrists all seemed to agree on the use of therapies like Cardiazol shock,
insulin coma therapy, electroshock and lobotomy on patients admitted
to the big mental hospitals. Accounts ranged from miraculous healing to
severely adverse side-effects, from sky-high recovery rates to zero effect.

v
vi PREFACE

The popularity of the last of these physical treatments, lobotomy, came

as a particular surprise to me. A picture started to emerge of a Danish
lobotomy tradition. In fact, evidence suggests that more lobotomies were
performed in Denmark than any other country, an unofficial world record
that I was surprised to find had failed to make its way into the history
books. Indeed, even in works on the history of Danish medicine, there
was not one word about the thousands of people who had undergone
this surgical procedure to their prefrontal lobes. Why the silence? Why did
Danish psychiatrists so enthusiastically embrace this method? Lobotomy
became the focal point of the project, and the question of its widespread
use in Denmark became the starting point for my studies.
In search of potential explanations for the widespread use of lobotomy,
I turned to the international literature on the subject but discovered
no unambiguous answers. In fact, I found only a few in-depth studies,
and even the most illustrious works offered explanations that pointed
in different directions. As a consequence, I started to relate the Danish
example to theories in international research and follow other paths not
covered in the literature.
One such path led me to contemporary perspectives on methods
of physical treatment in twentieth-century psychiatry. For many Danish
psychiatrists, somatic treatments—not just lobotomy, but also elec-
troshock and others—represented a turning point in the history of their
discipline. The intriguing idea that these kinds of treatments, which would
be so harshly criticised by posterity, were revolutionary for so many psychi-
atrists opened up for other questions: How did lobotomy and other
somatic therapies fit into the bigger picture of the way both psychiatry
and society were developing in the early twentieth century?
This book is the result of those studies. The story begins in 1922 and
ends in 1983—at least, in so far as it can be said to end at all. The debate
about lobotomy rumbles on, and to this day, psychosurgery is still a topic
of debate in many parts of the world. In the recent past, neurosurgeons
and psychiatrists have stressed that this new form of surgery is a rapidly
evolving discipline, and plans to reintroduce psychosurgery have been on
the agenda in several countries—including Denmark. The most recent
innovation is Deep Brain Stimulation, which has created high expectations
in many circles. This, on the other hand, has encouraged other researchers
to express concern about repeating the mistakes of the past. My book
represents a contribution to that discussion.
 PREFACE vii

A note on terminology. In this book, the terms “leucotomy” and

“lobotomy” are both used for the procedures performed from 1935 to
1955, and “psychosurgery” is used as an umbrella term that encompasses
both the early lobotomy/leucotomy and later forms of surgery (stereo-
tactic, etc.) that took off in the late 1950s and used slightly different
techniques. In the UK, leucotomy is often used as a generic term for
all psychosurgical operations, i.e. prefrontal lobotomy (American term)
would be called prefrontal leucotomy in the UK. In this book, I primarily
use the term “leucotomy” to describe the operation invented by Egas
Moniz (who coined the term) and lobotomy to describe the later surgical
procedures introduced by Walter Freeman and James Watts.
Without external funding, this book would not have been possible. In
particular, I would like to express my gratitude to the Povl M. Assens
Foundation. I also received a great deal of help from other institutions
and individuals, whom I will thank properly in the postscript. But now to
the topic at hand.

Copenhagen, Denmark Jesper Vaczy Kragh

Note
1. On psychiatry and spiritualism, see Jesper Vaczy Kragh, “Mellem religion og
videnskab. Spiritismen i Norden i 1800 og 1900-tallet,” Scandia. Tidskrift
for historisk forskning, 68 (2002), 53–75; Kragh, “History of spiritualism
in Denmark, 1853–2011,” in: Christopher Moreman (ed.), The Spiritu-
alist Movement. Speaking with the Dead in America and Around the World
(California: Praeger, 2013), 73–82.
 Contents

1 White Incisions and Black Butterflies 1

Part I Towards Lobotomy

2 State Mental Health Services—Danish Hospitals
and the Directorate, 1922–1952 31
3 Malaria and the Interwar Years—Malaria Fever
Therapy and Other Innovations in Psychiatry,
1922–1937 47
4 Shock and Coma—Insulin and Cardiazol Shock
Therapy, 1937–1942 69
5 Psychiatric Cooperation—Shock Treatment,
Diagnoses and Psychiatric Textbooks, 1938–1942 93

Part II The Heyday of Lobotomy

6 Something Different—Lobotomy, Electroshock
and Plans for Psychiatry, 1939–1947 121
7 The First of Many—Lobotomy and the State Mental
Hospital in Vordingborg, 1940–1947 149
8 The Apostles of the Knife—Lobotomy, the Directorate
and the General Public, 1946–1956 171

ix
x CONTENTS

9 Last Resort?—Selecting Patients for Lobotomies

in Vordingborg, 1947–1956 219
10 Women and the Problem of Psychopathy—Gender
and Control in Vordingborg, 1947–1956 263

Part III The Demise of Psychosurgery

11 A Question of Consent—Coercion and Consent
to Lobotomy, 1946–1958 291
12 Lobotomia Sequelae—The Side-Effects of Lobotomy,
1955–1983 337
13 The Final Cut—Summary and Conclusion 393

Postscript 425
Appendix I: Diagnoses 427
Appendix II: Lobotomy Patients, Vordingborg State
Mental Hospital 431
Appendix III 441
Author Index 443
Subject Index 449
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 The psychiatric map of Denmark in 1952, with a list of all
psychiatric hospitals, wards and units. The term “branch
institutions” covered the county hospitals that operated
under the state mental hospitals and took in elderly
patients. These county institutions were not authorised
to provide actual treatment and were primarily for elderly,
placid or able-bodied patients (Medical Museion) 40
Fig. 3.1 Chief physician Axel Bisgaard to the left and staff
doctor Sigurd Hansen rightmost. Nurse Lise Madsen
in the middle with the first two patients with dementia
paralytica just before departure to Vienna in 1922
(Medical Museion) 53
Fig. 4.1 Insulin coma therapy at the Danish State Mental
Hospital in Augustenborg in 1943 (Psychiatric Museum
Augustenborg) 76
Fig. 5.1 So-called pyknic body type from a Danish psychiatric
textbook (Medical Museion) 100
Fig. 5.2 On the left, the astenich or “leptoform” body type
that was typical for schizophrenia, according to Danish
psychiatrists. On the right side, angular profile (Medical
Museion) 102

xi
xii LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 6.1 Participants at the third International Neurological

Congress in Copenhagen, 1939. Walter Freeman can
be glimpsed as number two from the left, wearing
a light-coloured jacket and tie. On the opposite side
of the picture by the lamp post, Ugo Cerletti can be seen
wearing a light-coloured jacket, holding paper and his hat
(Medical Museion) 128
Fig. 6.2 Electroshock therapy at the state mental hospital
in Augustenborg in 1943. The photographs were
taken when Billed-Bladet visited in March to make
“a unique report of the most modern treatments
of the mentally ill.” Billed-Bladet presented
the “talked-about electro-convulsive method that has had
so many good results that the psychiatric hospitals
do not need to suffer from a lack of beds as before”
(Augustenborg Psychiatric Museum) 135
Fig. 6.3 One of the large wards in Augustenborg where the beds
were positioned close together. On the picture,
a screen used in connection with electrohock therapy
can be seen. The electro-convulsive devices were
on trolleys that the doctors could push around the wards
(Augustenborg Psychiatric Museum) 139
Fig. 7.1 Architectural plans for the mental hospital in Vordingborg,
1857. The hospital was designed by the architect Gottlieb
Bindesbøll (Heidi and Henning Gøtz) 154
Fig. 7.2 Aerial view of the hospital in Vordingborg in the 1940s.
On the left are the pavilions. Further back, on the right,
the main building towers above the others in the complex
(Medical Museion) 155
Fig. 8.1 Richard Malmros rightmost performing surgery
at the neurosurgery ward in Aarhus in the late 1940s (Ib
Søgaard) 193
Fig. 9.1 The State Mental Hospital in Middelfart on aerial
photograph from the 1940s (Medical Museion) 225
Fig. 9.2 Map of the state mental hospitals’ catchment areas
in the 1950s (Medical Museion) 229
Fig. 9.3 Patient in a straitjacket and cotton-drill mittens, which
could be strapped to the bed, in a ward for unruly
patients in Augustenborg in 1943. Patients wearing these
gloves had to be hand-fed (Augustenborg Psychiatric
Museum) 234
 LIST OF FIGURES xiii

Fig. 9.4 Indication I and II. Total number of indications for male
and female lobotomy patients from Vordingborg (N =
285) 250
Fig. 9.5 Time spent in hospital, lobotomy patients, Vordingborg.
All patients, men and women, before lobotomy (N =
313) 252
Fig. 9.6 Total time spent in hospital before lobotomy
and the general patient population in Vordingborg
01/01/1947. Lobotomy patients in blue, general patient
population 1947 in red 253
Fig. 9.7 All diagnoses for male and female lobotomy patients
from Vordingborg (N = 345) 254
Fig. 11.1 Aerial photo of the Neurosurgery Department
at Tagensvej in Copenhagen (Medical Museion) 313
Fig. 12.1 Stereotactic device for precision surgery. The technique
was invented by the American neurosurgeon Henry
T. Wycis in 1947. The image shows device used
at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, a so-called Leksell
frame, invented by the Swedish neurosurgeon Lars Leksell
(Medical Museion) 364
 List of Tables

Table 9.1 Other treatments used before lobotomy, women

and men. Cardiazol, insulin, electroshock, summation
and other (i.e. hormone treatment, sulfosin,
narco-analysis, psychoanalysis) (N = 285) 251
Table 12.1 Type of injury as a percentage of all lobotomy patients
in Vordingborg (N = 285) 358
Table 12.2 Number of psychosurgery operations performed
in Denmark, 1944–1979. The total is based
on information from a combination of contemporary
sources and later studies128 375
Table A.1 Gender distribution 431
Table A.2 Marital status 431
Table A.3 Patients with children, gender distribution 432
Table A.4 Schooling, evaluation of school abilities 432
Table A.5 Schooling, secondary education/higher education 432
Table A.6 Patients’ occupation 433
Table A.7 Diagnosis, females and males 434
Table A.8 Length of stay before lobotomy 435
Table A.9 Lobotomy patients age 435
Table A.10 Other treatments before lobotomy 436
Table A.11 Indication I 436
Table A.12 Indication II 437
Table A.13 Assessment of lobotomy, observation time 0–2 years 437
Table A.14 Assessment of lobotomy, observation time 3–20 years 438
Table A.15 Length of stay after lobotomy (all years) 438
Table A.16 Readmissions after lobotomy 439

xv
 CHAPTER 1

White Incisions and Black Butterflies

Prologue
On 11 November 1935, a 63-year-old woman with a psychiatric diagnosis
of involutional melancholia was admitted to the neurology ward at Santa
Marta Hospital in Lisbon, Portugal.1 She had been suffering from severe
anxiety attacks, insomnia and auditory hallucinations, and was convinced
that her neighbours and the police were hounding her. She had spent
three years as a patient at the Manicome Bombarda asylum, where the
psychiatrists described her as depressed, restless and prone to tears. She
was transferred to Santa Marta to find out whether a special new form
of treatment—as yet unnamed, but later known as frontal leucotomy—
would help. She would be the first patient to undergo the experimental
procedure devised by 61-year-old Professor of Neurology Egas Moniz
and carried out the next day by his assistant, the neurosurgeon Almeida
Lima. The veteran professor, who had previously enjoyed a successful
political career and gained international recognition for his neurological
research, was unable to operate due to chronic arthritis. However, Lima,
thirty years his junior, was accustomed to assisting Moniz in the oper-
ating room. The operation would be the first time in history that deep
incisions were made in the front parts of the brain of a psychiatric patient,
but Lima had no qualms: Moniz was his superior and needed his hands.2
The night before the operation, the patient’s hair was shaved off. The
next morning, her scalp was disinfected with alcohol. She was laid out

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2021
J. V. Kragh, Lobotomy Nation, Mental Health in Historical Perspective,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65306-4_1
2 J. V. KRAGH

on an operating table and given an injection of Novocaine as an anaes-

thetic, as well as adrenaline to reduce bleeding during the operation.
Using a scalpel, Lima then made two incisions, three centimetres from
the midline of the skull, either side of the crown, exposing a narrow
strip of bone. Two holes were then drilled so that the surgeon could
operate on the front of the two halves of the woman’s brain. Moniz
had asked Lima to operate on an area in the frontal lobes with a high
density of white nerve fibres, which connected the front of the brain
to its centre.3 Moniz had considered various methods of severing the
neural pathways. Ultimately, he decided to use pure alcohol, which, when
injected in small amounts, would destroy selected areas of the brain. On
12 November, Lima inserted a needle through the holes in the patient’s
skull and administered a total of four injections.
About four hours after the operation, the patient had recovered suffi-
ciently well for Moniz to start asking her simple questions. He began by
asking where she lived and how many fingers he had on his hand. She
named the city and, after a brief hesitation, answered “five” to the second
question. However, when asked her age, she had difficulty remembering
it. On the question about the name of the hospital, she fell silent.4
After the surgery, the woman still had a fever and a tendency to
burst into tears, but Moniz nevertheless observed what he considered
to be improvements in her condition. When her temperature returned to
normal, she was sent back to Manicome Bombarda. Two months later,
the psychiatrists there described her as less anxious, restless and paranoid,
but still depressed. Moniz referred to the outcome of the treatment as a
“cure,” even though the woman never left the hospital again.5
While the psychiatrists at Manicome Bombarda were assessing the first
patient’s condition, Moniz forged ahead with his experiments. Within five
weeks, Lima had performed the same procedure on six other patients.
However, for the eighth operation, Moniz introduced a new technique
that would give the treatment its name. He had commissioned a custom-
made surgical device for the purpose from a specialist in Paris—a thin,
tubular, 11-cm-long instrument that would function as a knife. Pressing
a plunger on it released a sharp wire loop that extended from the bottom
of the narrow instrument. As the surgeon rotated the instrument, the
wire excised a round section, approximately one centimetre in diameter,
from the white matter of the brain. Moniz called the treatment “leuco-
tomy,” after the Greek words for white (leukos ) and cut (tomia)—hence
 1 WHITE INCISIONS AND BLACK BUTTERFLIES 3

its colloquial name in Danish (det hvide snit ), which translates as “the
white incision.”6
The instrument, which Moniz dubbed a “leucotome,” was first used
on 27 December 1935 on a 47-year-old female patient who had been
transferred from Manicome Bombarda to Moniz’s hospital. “The patient
was admitted to our ward at Santa Marta in a highly troubled state,”
Moniz wrote. “She screams, never sits still, and begs not to be hurt.”
The patient refused to be photographed and had to be held down by two
nurses so that Moniz could take a pre-op photograph for the treatise he
was writing on the treatment.7
The woman was prepared for surgery and anaesthetised the same day.
Lima inserted the leucotome four centimetres into the woman’s brain
before pressing the plunger and releasing the wire loop. He then rotated
the instrument and made the first incision. Lima then completed the oper-
ation by making another three incisions. No post-op complications were
recorded, but Moniz noted that “the patient complains of headaches” and
tried to remove her bandages, so he administered an appropriate dose of
the sleeping drug Veronal (barbital).8
However, Moniz had to acknowledge that this operation was not
an unqualified success; she was cured of her anxiety but still seemed
depressed. She also became apathetic—a symptom she had not previ-
ously displayed. In his final notes, Moniz considered a second operation
in order to achieve “a more complete result.”9
After the first leucotomy, the number of incisions increased to six over
the next few operations. In the first series of surgery, which lasted until
February 1936, 20 patients with various psychiatric diagnoses underwent
the procedure at Santa Marta Hospital. In his assessment of the results,
Moniz reported that seven had been cured, seven had improved consid-
erably, and six remained unchanged. According to Moniz, the best results
were in patients with affective disorders, such as involutional melan-
cholia and manic-depressive psychosis. Patients with schizophrenia did
not appear to show much improvement.10
Moniz worked quickly, and very few of his patients were kept under any
form of observation for more than two months after their operations. He
wrote a steady stream of publications about the treatment. In 1937, he
completed a major book about leucotomy and had 13 articles published
in scientific journals in six countries. His peers abroad sat up and took
notice, and within a few months of the publication of the book in 1936,
4 J. V. KRAGH

doctors in the United States, Italy, Romania, Cuba, France and Brazil had
begun to experiment with the new treatment method.11
The speed at which leucotomy was adopted outside Portugal bore
witness to the fact that Moniz’s procedure was not an entirely new idea.
Nor was he the first doctor to consider neurosurgery as a cure for various
forms of human disorders. Trepanation—cutting holes in the skull—is
an ancient practice used in an attempt to cure health problems. One
of the oldest archaeological finds is a 10,000-year-old trepanned skull
from Ukraine. In Denmark, examples have been found dating to the
early Neolithic period, i.e., 4000–3200 BCE. However, it is doubtful
whether this practice was used to treat what we would call mental disor-
ders today.12 Actual surgical intervention—not just opening the skull but
removing specific parts of the brain in order to treat mental disorders—
was first recorded in the late nineteenth century. The earliest operation of
this kind took place in Switzerland.13
In 1888, the Swiss doctor Gottlieb Burckhardt performed the first six
neurosurgery operations on patients with mental disorders, believing it
better to try something new than do nothing at all. He also believed
that mental illnesses arose in specific parts of the brain and that removing
selected areas of the patients’ cerebral cortex might ameliorate or cure
their conditions. Burckhardt was the head of a small psychiatric hospital
in Préfargier, Neuchâtel, and had no real surgical experience. One patient
died after an operation, while others suffered serious injuries. Nonethe-
less, Burckhardt claimed that three of the patients showed signs of
improvement, which led him to think that there was a future for this
kind of treatment. He presented his findings at a major medical congress
in Berlin in 1890.14 But his arguments did not go down well. In fact,
most of the doctors who attended the congress were shocked by the
risks involved and predicted that the idea would soon peter out. Critical
voices were also raised when news of Burckhardt’s experiments reached
Denmark. A report in Hospitalstidende (Hospital Times) in 1892 noted
that “provisionally, surgical treatment for mental disorders, as proposed
by Burckhardt at the most recent International Congress, lacks any basis
in science.”15 The prominent Danish psychiatrist Knud Pontoppidan
also wrote about the Swiss doctor’s experiments. Pontoppidan failed to
discern any glorious future for the treatment and asserted that “apart
from the operation’s uncertainty and danger, the theoretical reasoning
that it is supposed to justify it is far from unassailable.” He concluded,
“given the imperfect state of our knowledge of the topography and
 1 WHITE INCISIONS AND BLACK BUTTERFLIES 5

mechanics of mental processes, the requisite scientific basis for surgery

to treat mental illnesses does not seem to have been established.” Most
doctors concurred, and over the next few years, surgical experiments on
psychiatric patients were very rare.16
By the 1930s, Egas Moniz felt that he had established a solid scientific
foundation for his treatment. “We did not perform random surgery on
the mentally ill,” he explained in a 1936 article. “We were led by theory,
which seems to prove that we were right.”17 Like Burckhardt, Moniz
believed that mental disorders had physical causes. His supposition was
that the brain’s frontal lobes were the seat of “mental activities,” and
that thoughts and ideas were stored in neural pathways. Mental illness
was the result of thought processes that had become “fixed,” and these
fixed ideas were maintained by neural pathways in the frontal lobes.18
According to this logic, it made sense to sever the pathways in order to
eliminate abnormal thoughts and behaviour. Moniz also believed that his
theory was supported by experiments on monkeys and observations of
patients with damaged frontal lobes.19 He was particularly interested in
reports of World War I veterans who had suffered gunshot wounds to
the front of the brain. Studies showed that soldiers with damaged frontal
lobes suffered from mood swings and lack of initiative, but that their
memory and intellectual capacity were rarely negatively affected.20
Moniz’s theories of “fixed ideas” and surgical intervention in the
frontal lobes did not escape criticism. Doctors in his homeland voiced
their displeasure from the outset. Nor was the new treatment immediately
rubber-stamped abroad. Some critics were horrified by the insubstan-
tial nature of his theory, which they dubbed “brain mythology.” Others
accused leucotomy of being a “destructive operation.”21 However, even
among critics, the results caused a stir. Moniz’s claims of cures and
improvements in up to 70% of patients indicated a success rate unpar-
alleled in 1930s psychiatry. Other doctors began to express an interest in
trying it out, none more enthusiastically than the American neurologist
Walter Freeman.22
Freeman first read about leucotomy in May 1936 was fascinated by
the idea and contacted his Portuguese colleague right away. “Here was
something tangible, something that an organicist like me could under-
stand and appreciate. A vision of the future unfolded,” wrote Freeman.23
He soon persuaded the surgeon James Watts to test the method on Amer-
ican soil. The two doctors quickly put a plan into action and ordered
leucotomes from Moniz’s supplier in Paris. George Washington Hospital
6 J. V. KRAGH

allowed them to practise with the new instruments on the heads of dead
people. In July that year, Freeman found the first patient for the new
treatment—a depressed 63-year-old housewife who had just been referred
to his practice in Washington. In September 1936, Freeman and Watts
performed a leucotomy on the woman—the first procedure of its kind in
the United States. More soon followed, as the duo sought to improve on
Moniz’s technique. Rather than enter the brain via the top of the skull,
they went in from the side, by boring holes in the temple region on both
sides of the head. A blunt instrument resembling a paperknife was then
inserted horizontally into the frontal lobes, and a fan-shaped incision was
made in the white matter. Operating from the side reduced the risk of
severing blood vessels in the brain, but it also meant that the surgeon
could not see where precisely in the brain they were making the incisions.
Freeman and Watts named the surgery “lobotomy,” after the Greek words
for lobe (lobos ) and cut (tomia).
Like Moniz, the American duo quickly published a series of arti-
cles on the new procedure. In 1942, they published a 300-page book
with numerous illustrations and photographs of patients before and after
surgery. The title page featured an image of a skull with boreholes from
a lobotomy, out of which flew four black butterflies. It was a reference to
the French term for depression: “I have black butterflies” (J’ai des papil-
lons noirs ), for which the frontal lobotomy was thought to be the cure.24
The book was favourably received by the American press and helped to
draw worldwide attention to lobotomy in the 1940s.25
Freeman spent the next few years refining the method. In 1945, he
began to promote a simplified operation that did not require major
surgical equipment or preparations. The process was quick and straight-
forward, but also controversial. The anaesthesia consisted of a series
of electroshocks, administered in quick succession. An instrument that
looked like an ice pick was then inserted along the bridge of the nose and
up through the tear duct.26 It was hammered through the thin part of the
skull at the eye socket, further into the frontal lobes, and wiggled from
side to side in order to cut a part of the brain’s white matter. The proce-
dure took less than ten minutes. Freeman liked the simplicity, but Watts
got cold feet after happening upon Freeman performing the procedure
on an unconscious patient in his office. Watts was shocked that Freeman
found it acceptable to perform brain surgery outside the hospital, and
told him he wanted no part in the trials of this new technique.27
Another random document with
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hardly capable of dealing with more than 500 tons per annum. I
found complaints rife as to the alleged favouritism shown by the
company in its management of the transport, but I failed to discover
any specific facts justifying them. Of course the company enjoys a
complete monopoly of that road, even the Government, it seems,
having to apply to the company for carriers; and a monopoly is
always undesirable in theory and sometimes very irritating in
practice. (Apparently the same situation has come about in regard to
the Riga-Chikum road.) But it is difficult to see how any tin at all
could have been got down, or machinery and stores got up, to and
from the river if it had not been for the company’s enterprise and far-
seeing methods. Certainly the loudest of its local critics would have
been quite unable to have coped with the problem.
Something remains to be said of the Bauchi province. The
province consists of the Bauchi and Gombe Emirates, the Ningi
Division, an independent community half Muslim, half pagan, of
erstwhile noted freebooters and fighters, and the purely pagan
section, of which the Hill Division is the most important. The total
population is about half a million. In no part of Africa probably is
there such a conglomeration of different tribes—Angass, Sura,
Tangali, Chip, Waja, Kanna, Bukurus, etc., etc.—as is to be found in
the pagan division of Bauchi which, for centuries, has been the
refuge of communities fleeing from Hausa, Fulani and Beri-Beri
(Kanuri) pressure. No fewer than sixty-four distinct languages—not
dialects—are said to have been noted within it. The men are an
upstanding race, lithe rather than muscular, great archers and in
many cases daring horsemen, riding bare-backed, covering
immense distances in a phenomenally short space of time and
shooting accurately (with the bow) while mounted. Most of them go
about absolutely naked but for a sanitary adornment of special
character. For a picture of primitive man commend me to the
spectacle of a naked Bauchi pagan carrying a bow in his hand, on
his back a quiver of arrows; on his head, its horns sticking out on
either side, the gory and newly severed head of an ox—the “Boar of
the Ardennes” in variation and in an African setting of rugged
mountains and dying sun! I observed this sight one evening riding
into Naraguta from a distant mining camp, passing, ten minutes later,
a gorgeously attired Mohammedan Sariki in his many coloured robes
on a richly caparisoned horse. Northern Nigeria is a land of
extraordinary contrasts, which to some extent no doubt is the secret
of its fascination. The women’s clothing is also of the scantiest,
consisting of a bunch of broad green leaves fixed round the waist
and falling over the hips and lower abdomen. Their chastity is
proverbial even among the dissolute camp-followers.

SCENE IN THE BAUCHI HIGHLANDS.

Among these people many customs of great anthropological

interest must linger, many religious practices and philological secrets
that might give us the key to much of which we are still ignorant in
the history of the country, and assist us in the art of government. It
seems a pity that their gradual Hausa-ising, which must be the
outcome of the pax britannica, should become accomplished before
these facts have been methodically studied and recorded. The
pagan division of Bauchi is a unique corner of Africa, and it would be
well worth the while of Government and of some scientific body at
home to prosecute research within it. The Administration has no
money to spare. But it is really a misfortune that public opinion in
England is so lax in these matters. We wait in order to understand
the ethnological lore of our African dependencies, until German
scientists have gone through them and told us what they contain of
anthropological value, incidentally sweeping the country bare of its
ethnological treasures. In these things we appear to have no national
pride whatever. If any British scientific body should be stung by these
mild remarks into some sort of action, I would advise its
communicating with Captain Foulkes, the Political Officer until
recently in charge of the Hill Division, who is keenly interested in the
people and their customs which he has more knowledge of than any
one else.
The soil of the province is supposedly poor, but I observed it to be
covered in many places with millions of casts of virgin soil flung up
by earthworms, and these must, when the rains come, enrich its
recuperative properties. The province would probably grow wheat.
The pagan cultivation is very deep and remarkably regular, and
these communities, for all their primitiveness, weave grass mats of
tasteful finish, colouring and design; grow cotton which they
manufacture and sell, and tobacco which they smoke, and snuff, and
smelt iron. They are also readily taking to the rubber trade and
learning how to tap the rubber trees which, in some parts, are to be
met with in every village, without destroying the tree. In the plains
there are large herds of cattle, which form the principal wealth of the
inhabitants, and an abundance of good grazing land. The Fulani
herdsman, ubiquitous as ever, may be seen tending his beasts.
On all hands the Bauchi plateau is looked upon as an eventual
sanatorium where officials can recoup, and thanks to which the term
of service may be ultimately prolonged, which, with the keenness
which distinguishes this service, they all seem to want—the
Politicals, I mean. Even now they play hide-and-seek with the
doctors, and keep uncommonly quiet when the time comes round for
furlough, lying low like Brer Rabbit. I hesitate to strike a discord
where so much unanimity prevails. No doubt it is a generally
accepted maxim that the bracing air of a mountainous region, its cool
nights and mornings, have recuperative effects upon the system
undermined with malaria and other ills, and it may well be—I
devoutly hope so—that in course of time the plateau will become the
Nigerian Simla and may also contain a population of white settlers
engaged in stock-raising and, perhaps, agriculture. But the period
within which these things can come about strikes me as still remote.
If they are to be, it will mean the expenditure of much money, and,
under existing circumstances of transport and housing, the climate of
Bauchi has been over-praised. You have always the tropical African
sun to reckon with, and there appears to be some subtly dangerous
quality about it which even men who have lived in other tropical
lands find very trying.
 CHAPTER XVII
THE NECESSITY OF AMALGAMATING THE TWO PROTECTORATES

No interested student of Nigerian affairs can fail, I think, especially

after an examination of the problem on the spot, to arrive at the
conclusion that the present dual system of administration, with its
artificial territorial boundaries, its differing methods, and its inevitable
rivalries, has served its turn and should be brought to an end as
speedily as possible. The situation, as it obtains to-day, is
incongruous—in some respects almost absurd; and the absence of a
sense of proportion in estimating responsibilities and acknowledging
public services is conspicuous. No comprehensive scheme of
development and, what is more important, no unity of principle in
public policy is possible while it lasts. Moreover, just as each
Administration settles itself more firmly in the saddle and pursues its
own aims with increasing determination, so will differences in the
handling of great public issues accentuate themselves and eventual
adjustment on a common basis of principle be attended with
additional perplexity. It is not only quite natural, but under the
existing circumstances it is right that the Administration of Southern
Nigeria should work for the interests of Southern Nigeria and the
Administration of Northern Nigeria for the interests of the latter. But
Nigeria is geographically a single unit, and Imperial policy suffers
from a treatment which regards the interests of one section as not
only distinct from, but in certain cases antagonistic to the interests of
the other. It is not suggested that administration should everywhere
be carried out on the same pattern. No one would contend that the
problems of government in the Northern Hausa provinces can, for
instance, be assimilated to the problems of government in the
Eastern Province of the Southern Protectorate. But that the main
principles of government should be identical, and that the governing
outlook should be directed to a consideration of the interests of
Nigeria as a whole, can hardly be disputed. Take, for example, the
question of direct and of indirect rule. The tendency in Southern
Nigeria, as the Secretariat gets stronger and the initiative of the
Commissioners decreases, is towards direct rule, especially in the
Western Province. Northern Nigeria has resolutely set the helm in
the contrary direction. Take the question of taxation. North of the
imaginary line which separates the two Protectorates the native pays
a direct tax to the Administration, and tribute from the people to their
natural Chiefs and to the Government is assured on specific
principles. South of that line the native pays no direct tax to
Government, and in the Western Province the Central Administration
doles out stipends, apparently suspendable, to the Chiefs, while the
paying of native tribute to the Chiefs, where it has not altogether
ceased, exists only by the internal conservatism of native custom.
Take the question of education. The Southern Nigerian system is
turning out every year hundreds of Europeanized Africans. The
Northern Nigeria system aims at the establishment of an educational
system based upon a totally different ideal. In Northern Nigeria the
land question has been settled, so far as the Northern Protectorate is
concerned, on a broad but sure foundation; but the Southern
Nigerian native is an alien in Northern Nigerian law. In Southern
Nigeria there is no real land legislation, and the absence of such,
especially in the Western Province, is raising a host of future
complications. Every year the gulf widens between the two ideals,
and its ultimate bridging becomes a matter of greater difficulty. While
on the one hand the Northern Nigeria Administration has had the
priceless advantage of “starting fresh” and has been compelled to
concentrate upon political and administrative problems, British rule in
Southern Nigeria has been the slow growth of years, advancing here
by conquest, there by pacific penetration, here by one kind of
arrangement with native Chiefs, there by another kind of
arrangement. Politically and of necessity British rule in Southern
Nigeria is a thing of shreds and patches. The last two Governors,
both very able men in their respective ways, have had, moreover,
strong leanings in particular directions; sanitation was the load-star
of the first; road construction, clearing of creeks and channels,
harbour improvements and commercial development the chief
purpose of the latter. It is no reflection upon either (the material
advance of the Protectorate under Sir Walter Egerton’s
administration has been amazing) to say that, between them,
questions vitally affecting the national existence of the people, the
study and organization of their laws and courts and administrative
authority, have been left somewhat in the background. In criticizing a
West African Administration it must always be borne in mind that no
broad lines of public policy are laid down from home. None of the
Secretary of State’s advisers have ever visited Nigeria, and however
able they may be that is a disadvantage. There is no West African
Council composed of men with experience of the country, as there
ought to be, which would assist the Permanent Officials in advising
the Secretary of State. The result is that each Governor and each
Acting-Governor “runs his own show” as the saying is. One set of
problems is jerked forwards by this Governor, another by another.
The Governor’s position is rather like that of a Roman Emperor’s,
and the officials responsible for large districts, never knowing what a
new Governor’s policy is going to be, look upon every fresh change
with nervous apprehension, which has a very unsettling effect. A
vast wastage of time as well as many errors would be avoided if we
had clear ideas at home as to the goal we are pursuing, and laid
down specific principles by which that goal could be attained. This
could be done without hampering the Governors. Indeed, the very
indefiniteness of the home view on all these problems is often a
serious handicap to a Governor who, for that very reason, may
hesitate to take action where action is required, fearing, rightly or
wrongly, the influence which Parliamentary questions may exercise
upon the Secretary of State, and who may also find himself
committed by an Acting-Governor, in his absence, to actions of
which he personally disapproves. In other instances the existence of
definite plans in London would act as a salutary check upon sudden
innovations by a new and inexperienced Governor. Frequent
changes of Governors there must be until the conditions of life in
Nigeria are very much improved; but the inconveniences arising
therefrom would be largely mitigated if there were continuity of a
well-thought-out policy at home.
This digression is not, perhaps, altogether irrelevant to the subject
under discussion.
 The position of Northern Nigeria is very anomalous. A vast
Protectorate shut off from the seaboard by another less than four
times its size; having no coastline, and the customs dues on whose
trade are collected by the latter. Southern Nigeria enjoying a very
large revenue; its officials decently housed and catered for; able to
spend freely upon public works and to develop its natural resources.
Northern Nigeria still poor, a pensioner upon the Treasury, in part
upon Southern Nigeria; unable to stir a step in the direction of a
methodical exploration of its vegetable riches; its officials housed in
a manner which is generally indifferent and sometimes disgraceful,
many of them in receipt of ridiculously inadequate salaries, and now
deprived even of their travelling allowance of five shillings a day. The
latter measure is so unjust that a word must be said on the subject.
The reason for the grant of this allowance [which the Southern
Nigerian official enjoys] was frequent travelling, expensive living, and
mud-house accommodation. As regards the two first, the arguments
to-day are even stronger than they used to be. The safety of the
roads and the increased pressure of political work compels the
Resident and his assistants to be more or less constantly on the
move if they are worth their salt. When travelling about the country,
4s. to 5s. a day and sometimes a little more is an inevitable
expenditure; at present, a clear out-of-pocket one. As to living, it is a
commonplace that the price of local food supplies is very much
higher than it was seven years ago, while the price of goods
imported from abroad have not all appreciably decreased. So far as
the mud-houses are concerned, probably more than half the officials,
except at places like Zungeru and Kano, live in mud-houses to-day.
The Resident at Naraguta, for instance, lives in a leaky mud-house,
while the Niger Company’s representative at Joss, five miles off, has
a beautiful and spacious residence of brick and timber. A good mud-
house is not to be despised, but the money to build even good ones
is quite inadequate. I could give several examples where officials
have spent considerable sums out of their own pockets to build
themselves a decent habitation of mud and thatch. Some of the
juniors have to be content with grass-houses, draughty, bitterly cold
at night and in the early morning, and leaky to boot. Moreover, many
of the brick-houses supplied are an uncommonly poor exchange for
£90 a year. They are made of rough local brick, which already show
symptoms of decay, and the roof is often so flimsy that in the
verandah and supper-room one has to keep one’s helmet on as
protection against the sun. I am not at all sure that the real official
objection to all but leading officials bringing out their wives is not to
be sought in the assumption that married officials, other than of the
first grade, would no longer put up with the crude discomfort they
now live in, and would be a little more chary of ruining their health by
touring about in the rains—at their own expense. That Northern
Nigeria is not under present conditions a fit place for other than an
exceptional type of woman I reluctantly admit; but that the constant
aim of Government should be to improve conditions in order to make
it so I am fully persuaded. Our women as well as our men have built
up the Empire and made it, on the whole, the clean and fine thing it
is, and what a good woman, provided she is also a physically strong
one, can accomplish in Northern Nigeria is beyond calculation. It is
not too much to say of a very extensive region in the eastern part of
the Protectorate, that the moral influence of one such woman is
powerfully felt throughout its length and breadth. Other aspects of
this question will obviously suggest themselves, and they ought to be
boldly tackled; but the national prudery makes it difficult to discuss
such matters openly. The salaries paid in Northern Nigeria fill one
with astonishment. The salary of a first class Resident appears to
vary from £700 to £800; that of a second class Resident from £550
to £650; that of a third class Resident from £450 to £550. Kano
Province when I visited it was in charge of a third class Resident,
admittedly one of the ablest officials in the country, by the way; that
is to say, an official drawing £470 a year was responsible for a region
as large as Scotland and Wales, with a population of 2,571,170! The
Bauchi Province was in charge of a second class Resident, drawing
£570 a year; it is the size of Greece, has a population of about three-
quarters of a million, and additional administrative anxieties through
the advent of a white mining industry. These two instances will
suffice. The men saddled with these immense responsibilities are
really Lieutenant-Governors and should be paid as such. It is
perfectly absurd that an official in whom sufficient confidence is
reposed to be given the task of governing a huge Province like Kano
should be paid the salary of a bank clerk, when, for instance, the
Governor of Sierra Leone, with half the population,[12] is drawing
£2500, exclusive of allowances. A comparison of the Northern
Nigeria salaries with those paid to the Governors of the West Indian
Islands gives furiously to think. The Governorship of the Bahamas,
4404 square miles in extent, with a population of 61,277, is
apparently worth £2000; that of the Bermudas, with an area of
twenty-nine square miles and a population of 17,535, £2946; that of
Barbados, 166 square miles and a population of 196,498, £2500.
 CHAPTER XVIII
RAILWAY POLICY AND AMALGAMATION

SCENE ON THE SOUTHERN NIGERIA (EXTENSION) RAILWAY.

 PLATE-LAYING ON THE NORTHERN NIGERIA RAILWAY.

To all these incongruities must be added the series of events

which have led to the creation of two competing railway systems,
and, consequently, to open rivalry between the two Administrations
in the effort to secure the traffic from the interior, a rivalry which is
certainly not lessened by the circumstance that the method of
railway construction followed in one Protectorate differs radically
from that pursued in the other. This rivalry, needless to say, is
perfectly honourable to both sides, but it is deplorable, nevertheless,
and not in the public interest, and were the two systems placed
under one management before the amalgamation of the
Protectorates, i.e. if Southern Nigeria took over the Northern line,
which it very naturally wishes to do, having lent the money for its
construction, and not appreciating the rôle of milch cow without
adequate return, friction between the railway management and the
Political Staff would be inevitable owing to the fundamental
divergence of method already referred to. Moreover, the results
achieved by Mr. Eaglesome and his staff in laying the Baro-Kano
railway have been of so revolutionary a character as to suggest the
advisability of reconsidering the whole policy of railway construction
in British West Africa, such as has been pursued hitherto. I will refer
briefly to this method in a moment. Meanwhile the position of the
competing lines is roughly this. Southern Nigeria has built—or rather
is building, for the last section is not quite finished—a railway from
Lagos which crosses the Niger at Jebba, proceeds therefrom to
Zungeru, the capital of Northern Nigeria, and onwards to a place
called Minna.[13] Northern Nigeria has built a railway from Baro, a
spot 407 miles up the Niger to Minna, where the junction is effected,
and thence to Kano. Southern Nigeria, which looks upon the
Northern Protectorate as its natural hinterland, wishes to attract the
trade of the north over its line to Lagos, and desires that the through
rates it has drawn up should be accepted by Northern Nigeria, and
claims the right of fixing the rates on the section of its railway from
the point where it enters Northern Nigeria territory (Offa) to the point
of junction. The Northern Nigeria Administration, which does not in
the least regard itself as the natural appanage of Southern Nigeria,
desires to feed the Baro-Kano railway in conjunction with the Niger,
and declares that the through rates proposed by Southern Nigeria
are so manipulated as to ensure the deflection of the northern trade
to Lagos and thus to starve the Baro-Kano line, which would tend to
reduce a considerable section of it, apart from its very definite
strategical importance, to scrap iron. That was the position when I
left the country, and I do not gather that it has greatly advanced
since. There has been a conference, but it has not resulted, and
could not result, in agreement as to the question of what line is to get
preferential treatment; and that, of course, is the main question
which should be decided by an impartial authority, having regard to
the interests of Nigeria as a whole. Now a word as to the two
systems. So far as governing principles are concerned, it would
probably be regarded as a fair description to state that the Southern
Nigerian method is less concerned with capital expenditure and with
rapidity of construction, as with the advisability of securing
permanently good construction and putting in permanent work
throughout, including stone ballast, fine stations and so on. The
Northern Nigerian method, on the other hand, aims at keeping down
initial capital expenditure and interest, exercising strict economy in
the matter of buildings, both for the public and for the staff, combined
with rapidity of construction and improving the line as the traffic
grows. These ideas represent two schools of thought, and beyond
the general remark that a rich Administration may be able to afford
what a poor one certainly cannot, the non-expert had best not
venture upon an expression of opinion lest peradventure he be
ground between the upper and the nether millstone. But as regards
the respective systems under which these principles are carried out,
it is impossible to resist the conclusion that Northern Nigeria has
demonstrably proved its superiority so far as actual construction is
concerned. The Southern Nigeria line has been, and is being,
constructed on the old model. Consulting engineers in London are
employed by the Colonial Office, and appoint the staff in Africa. They
are unchecked, for the Colonial Office has no independent railway
adviser for tropical Africa, no railway board, or department, or
anything of that kind. Thus there are two distinct staffs concerned, a
staff appointed by and responsible to the Consulting Engineers in
London, and the General Manager’s Staff in the Dependency. Where
the responsibility of one begins and the other ends, both would
probably find it difficult to define; and no one who knows West Africa
can fail to appreciate the divided counsels, the friction, the waste of
time and money which such a system must inevitably entail, even
though every human rivet in the machine were endowed with
superlative qualities. It is very difficult to arrive at a clear idea as to
what the average expenditure of the Southern Nigerian railway has
been per mile, but it does not appear to be disputed that the cost of
construction of the first section of 120 miles to Ibadan, plus the
capital expenditure incurred on the open line and the working capital
for stores, was enormous, viz. £11,000 per mile. The expenditure
upon the remaining sections will probably be found to work out at an
average of between £5000 and £6000 per mile, exclusive of railway
stock and maintenance. Contract labour has been employed except
in the later stages, when the line entering Northern Nigeria territory
has come under the system of political recruiting which will now be
described.
 LANDING-PLACE AT BARO.

GROUP OF RAILWAY LABOURERS—BARO.

 The great advantage which the Northern Nigerian system
possesses over that of Southern Nigeria is unity of direction. But the
vital difference between the two systems is this: Northern Nigeria
has shown that it is possible to construct a railway without the
services of Consulting Engineers in England at all. Now this is a fact
which cannot be too pointedly emphasized; because Consulting
Engineers are most expensive luxuries if they are not necessities.
The logical deduction is, either that Consulting Engineers can be,
and if they can be should be, dispensed with for any future railways
in West Africa; or that the Baro-Kano railway, without them, is a
failure. It appears to me that the Baro-Kano railway has been a
marvellous success from the point of view of construction. What are
the facts? The Administration, i.e. its Public Works Department, with
the help of a few Royal Engineer officers lent by the Home
Government, has been its own builder. The absence of any foreign
body has reduced friction to a minimum. In fact, there has been no
friction whatever, because the Railway Staff has co-operated in
every way with the Political Staff, and the exercise of the Political
Officers’ legitimate duties in protecting the interests of the natives
has not been resented or looked upon in the light of vexatious
interference by the railway management. I should be the last to wish
to minimize the excellence of the individual work performed by the
engineers in charge of the Southern Nigeria line, which I was able to
admire, and from whom I received the greatest hospitality and
kindness at various stages in my journey; but the nature of the
system there followed precludes that enthusiastic co-operation of all
the elements concerned which is the predominating characteristic of
Northern Nigerian methods. And, as already stated, there is a very
considerable item of expense to be considered through the
employment of Consulting Engineers in London. In the Northern
Protectorate every one, from the Governor—the Baro-Kano railway
owes, of course, its inception to Sir Percy Girouard—down to the
foreman, has been, as it were, a member of a single family. In fact,
one might almost say that the line has been built on the communistic
principle. In no direction does the system show better results than in
the organization of labour. It has proved to demonstration what is the
right way of dealing with native labour in West Africa, viz.: that the
labourer on public works shall be drawn from the neighbourhood
where the public works are situate, that he shall proceed to the
scene of his labours accompanied by his own Village or District
Headman, the native authority to whom he owes allegiance, and
whom he knows and trusts; that he shall perform his duties in the
presence and under the supervision of that Headman, and that for
the conduct of the Headman himself, and for the whole proceedings
under which recruitment is carried on and labour performed, the
Political Officer shall be responsible. In other words, it shows the
right procedure to be that of recruiting through and with the co-
operation of, and by the orders of, the natural authorities of the
people under the supreme control of the Resident, combined with a
form of payment which shall ensure the wage being placed in the
wage-earner’s own hand, not in somebody else’s hand. By this
system alone can the labour of the country employed in agricultural
and industrial pursuits be capable of bearing an additional burden for
public purposes, without injustice, without ferment, without
dislocating the whole labour system of the region. Persuaded of this
truth, the Political Officers of Northern Nigeria, aided by the ready
willingness of the Railway Staff, have achieved a veritable triumph of
organization which should ever remain a model to follow. And in that
triumph can be read a deep political lesson. That such organization
has been possible in Northern Nigeria is due, primarily, to the
existence of a native political organization to which we could appeal
and upon which we could rely. The principle adopted on the works
themselves has been to give to each foreman his own set of
Headmen, with their own gangs to look after, and to so regulate the
labour that no individual should work more than eight hours per
diem. Built under conditions such as these, the Northern Nigeria
railway, constructed under great difficulties with wonderful rapidity
and at a cost of well under £4000 per mile, rolling-stock and stores
included, is not only in itself a striking performance—with, I believe, if
free conditions of development are assured to it, a bright economic
future—but a political and educational work of permanent value. It
has helped to bring the Political Officers into closer personal touch
with the population. It has increased the confidence of the people in
the honesty of their alien overlords, and has imbued them with a
personal interest and friendly curiosity in the railway. It has taught
them many things which they did not know before, things which will
be useful to themselves in their own social life. It has brought
previously hostile tribes together into the same trench, effacing tribal
barriers and burying old feuds. It has largely increased the use of
silver coinage, and stimulated commercial activity. The same system
is being followed in the construction, now proceeding, of the branch
line towards the tin-fields; but many more railways will be required to
develop the commercial potentialities of Northern Nigeria, and the
fact constitutes one more argument to those already given in favour
of an amalgamation of the two Protectorates, and the evolution of
one set of governing ideas.

VILLAGE HEAD-MEN.
 VILLAGE HEAD-MEN.

I cannot leave the question of railway construction in the Nigerias

without expressing regret that in authorizing the construction of the
new line, the Colonial Office should have been led to break the
gauge, and to decide upon a 2 feet 6 inch line instead of the 3 feet 6
inch standard. Apart from other objections, which can be urged more
fittingly by experts, it is obvious that this departure necessitates a
complete equipment of new rolling stock, and the erection of special
engineering shops to deal with it. Every freshly constructed line is
bound to have a surplus of rolling stock. The Baro-Kano railway is no
exception to the rule, and its surplus stock could have been utilized
on the new branch line. It is a penny wise and pound foolish policy,
and, in all probability, the ultimate result will be that this 2 feet 6 inch
line will cost very little, if at all, less than a 3 feet 6 inch would have
done.
 CHAPTER XIX
AN UNAUTHORIZED SCHEME OF AMALGAMATION

An effort was made in the previous chapter to depict some of the

disadvantages and drawbacks arising, and likely to become
accentuated with time, from the dual administrative control now
obtaining in Nigeria. For the following suggestions as to the
character amalgamation could assume, the writer claims no more
than that they may, perhaps, constitute an attempt, put forward with
much diffidence, to indicate a few constructive ideas which might
form the basis for expert discussion.
The objects an amalgamation might be expected to secure, apart
from the inconveniences needing removal, would, in the main, be
four in number. (a) Financial management directed not only to
meeting present needs but to making provision for the future. (b) The
right sort of man to fill the important and onerous post of Governor-
General. (c) The division of the territory into Provinces corresponding
as far as possible with natural geographical boundaries and existing
political conditions, involving as few changes as possible. (d) A
comprehensive scheme of public works.
These various points can, in the limits of a chapter, be best
examined collectively.
In the accompanying map Nigeria is divided into four great
Provinces. I. The Northern or Sudan Province, comprising the
regions where a Mohammedan civilization has existed for many
centuries, and where the majority of the people, except in Kontagora,
are Muslims. The ruling families in Kontagora are, however, so
closely related with those of Sokoto that it would probably be found
expedient to incorporate the former into the same Province, which
would, therefore, consist of Sokoto, Kano, Bornu, the Zaria Emirate
and Kontagora. Its headquarters would be Kano. II. The Central
Province, comprising the pagan section of the present Zaria
province, i.e. Zaria outside the limits of the Emirate proper, and the
Nassarawa, Bauchi, Niger, Yola, and Muri (north of the Benue)