BADEN-POWELL ROBERT: (1857-1941) British Lieutenant-General, the founder and first Chief Scout of the world-wide Scout Movement. An interesting, lengthy A.L.S., Robert Baden-Powell, four pages, 8vo, n.p., 1^st April 1927, to Lieutenant-Colonel [Edwin] Smedley Williams, on the printed stationery of the Union-Castle Line R.M.M.V. Carnarvon Castle. Baden-Powell informs his correspondent that he has sent Mansergh a final appeal 'to reconsider his view against decentralisation in the distant ports of the Cape Province and against the making (of) a Central Coordinating executive for the Union', adding that Mansergh responded with a further definite refusal, and continuing 'I have pointed out in letters and conversations and, in what his executive committee termed “homilies”, to them how essential such reorganisation is to progress and how it is asked for by the four other Provinces and by the three northern districts of the Cape Province. I explained that if the Scout spirit prevailed at Cape Hd. Qrs. they would as members of our team sink their own local prejudices or even interests for the good of the whole. All they did was to move a resolution not quite complimentary to me. I could not help thinking new Scouters would laugh if they saw it! At any rate I did - as I felt inclined to explain to them that our brotherhood is not a Parish Council and we don't move resolutions against people - least of all against “poor bloody old me” as General Tucker would say', further adding 'I am glad however to have seen for myself the entire absence of the Scout spirit at C P. H Q. and thus, if the Union Council ask Imperial Hd. Qrs. in England for powers to alter the Constitution so as to admit of decentralisation and coordinating executive we shall know how to act', concluding by remarking that he is pushed for time as the ship is departing and that he wishes for Strickland and Raftery at Kimberley to see his letter 'to show them how matters stand and that I am entirely in sympathy with your desire to go ahead and expand this movement to do big work for the country, under personal touch of leaders through a completed organisation of compact districts under Dist. Commissrs'. Some light foxing to the upper edges of the page and with a couple of paperclip rust stains to the upper left corner, otherwise about VG

 

In September 1926 Baden-Powell had travelled to South Africa, where he was to remain for six months, in an effort to iron out the radical tensions in the fledgling scouting movement there, Originally, it was proposed that Indians be allowed to become Scouts, but in segregated troops. If this worked, then blacks and 'coloureds' would be formed into troops. However, this was unacceptable to Scouts in the Transvaal, where a separate movement for non-whites, called 'Pathfinders', had been instituted. For some, Scouting was to be a whites-only privilege. In 1927, Natal refused to start a 'Pathfinder' group and began to register Indians as Boy Scouts. Similarly, the provincial commissioner for Cape Colony, C. L. Mansergh, decided to ignore a separate organisation for 'coloureds' called 'Paladins' on the grounds that if he recognised them, the Boy Scouts would remain an all-white preserve. Clearly, Baden-Powell faced a difficult situation with each side lobbying for his support. The Chief Scouts efforts at compromise proved futile as, in 1931, the South African government created a youth movement for boys of Dutch descent - the Voortrekkers.