Page 119 - Afrika Must Unite

104 AFRICA MUST UNITE

a less developed society there are several impediments to in­
dustrialization, quite apart from the lack of requisite capital
accumulations, technical skills, scientific knowledge and in­
dustrial enterprise, which, unless they are eliminated, will
stultify our efforts at advancement. For they have their cumu­
lative effect precisely in the lack of these requisite reserves.
Customs which extol the virtues of extended family allegiance
sustain nepotic practices, and regard the giving and taking of
‘presents’ as implicit and noble, because they promote the family
welfare. They encourage indolence and bribery, they act as a
brake upon ability, they discourage that deeper sense of in­
dividual responsibility which must be ready in a period of active
reconstruction to accept obligation and fulfil trust. Above all,
they retard productivity and oppose savings, the crucial factors
in the rate of development. Polygamy donates its quota to these
retarding influences, while our laws of succession and in­
heritance stifle the creative and inventive urge.
It is certainly not accidental that the industrial revolution
came first to England, where the law of primogeniture entailed
the inheritance of estates to the eldest son and made it necessary
for the younger ones to follow pursuits which increased capital
wealth. The historian, G. M. Trevelyan writes:

A distinguishing feature of the English gentry, which aston­
ished foreign visitors as early as the reign of Henry VII, was their
habit of turning their younger sons out of the manor-house to
seek their fortunes elsewhere, usually as apprentices to thriving
merchants and craftsmen in the towns. Foreigners ascribed the
custom to English want of family affection. But it was also,
perhaps, a wise instinct of ‘what was best for the boy,’ as well
as a shrewd calculation of what was best for the family fortunes.
The habit of leaving all the land and most of the money to the
eldest son built up the great estates, which by steady accumu­
lation down the years, became by Hanoverian times so marked
a feature of English rural economy.

The younger son of the Tudor gentleman was not permitted
to hang idle about the manor-house, a drain on the family
income like the impoverished nobles of the Continent who were
too proud to work. He was away making money in trade or in