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CHAPTER IV
THE CENTRAL AND EASTERN PROVINCES
In connection with the internal government of the Protectorate it may be advisable to refer briefly to the House Rule Ordinance of 1901 which has recently given rise to some controversy. The House Rule Ordinance is a measure designed by the late Sir Ralph Moor to prevent social anarchy from ensuing when slavery was abolished by the British Government. It gives force of Law to House Rule. House Rule is, in reality, the native form of government, which has existed in Southern Nigeria for many centuries. In recognizing the former the Administration acknowledges the existence of the latter for which it can provide no substitute. Native society, as already stated, is in the patriarchal state. The foundation of it is the “Father,” whether of the family, of the community, or of the tribe. The members of the House are, in a measure, apprentices. Under native law there are obligations on both sides. It is a transitional stage, and should be regarded as such, and allowed to reform itself from within. The one difficulty, in this respect, is lest the Ordinance should tend to prevent a gradual internal evolution towards a higher state by sterilizing any healthy influences making for modification. A much greater danger would be any sudden change which would throw the whole country into absolute confusion. In the Western Province and in the Bini district, where native rule has developed more rapidly than in the Eastern and Central, the Father of the House is subject to the Father of the district, and he in turn is subject to the Paramount Chief of the whole tribe—the Supreme Father. There is, therefore, a check upon despotic abuses by the head of the House. In the bulk of the Central Province and in the whole of the Eastern Province, the head of the House is virtually the head of the community, the higher forms of internal control not having evolved. Any hasty and violent interference which domestic “slavery,” as it is termed, in a country like the Central and Eastern Provinces should be strenuously opposed. It would be an act of monstrous injustice, in the first place, if unaccompanied by monetary compensation, and it would produce social chaos. But there seems to be no reason why the House Rule Ordinance should not be amended in the sense of substituting for Paramount Chieftainship therein—which is virtually non-existent—the District Commissioners, aided by the Native Councils, as a check upon the now unfettered action of the heads of Houses. To destroy the authority of the heads would be to create an army of wastrels and ne’er-do-weels. Native society would fall to pieces, and endless “punitive expeditions” would be the result.