Note 155 — Chapter XIX · LAND TENURE AND LABOUR IN WEST AFRICA

The amended Lagos Bill exempts from its operation native customary rights and defers to the authority of the Native Councils of the hinterland. Its working depends largely, therefore, upon the interpretation placed by the Colony’s Governor for the time being on the nature of the relationship between those Councils and the Administration. Sir W. MacGregor has passed a Bill (the Native Councils Bill) which, he thinks, will strengthen the position of the Councils. But it is safe to say that, in all matters affecting land legislation in West Africa, the procedure for safeguarding native rights, and in their main lines those rights themselves, should be laid down as clearly as possible in the Act itself.