The Gambia the colonial office, and the opening months of the first World war

This article deals with the reaction of the Colonial Office to the problems—commercial and military—posed for the Gambia by the outbreak of the First World War. It argues that in the Colonial Office discussions about these problems two distinctly different attitudes can be distinguished. The younger junior officials tended to advocate government intervention to ameliorate specific economic problems, while the political heads and senior officials remained firmly attached to the dogmas of laissez faire. Conversely, the former group did not share the doubts of the latter as to whether the dogmas of patriotic bravery should be made to apply to African natives.|The subject-matter—the dislocation of commerce consequent upon French failure to purchase her usual share of the groundnut crop, the ensuing financial difficulties of the Gambia government, defense problems revealed after the mis-identification of H.M.S. Highflyer—is based on material from the Colonial Office archives.