Local administration and the difficulty of transferring power

Would greater involvement of local people in colonial administration have made independence more democratic and less revolutionary?

Local participation was already an intended direction in this account, but its pace and the uneven distribution of authority created a difficult inheritance.

Greater local participation is described as an intended direction from the late nineteenth century, pursued at different speeds in different parts of the Empire. The pace did not meet local demands for change. A further problem was the concentration of training and authority in one section of society without adequate counterweights. Those imbalances could not be corrected immediately. The coloniser's own administrative failures would not provide a persuasive case for extending its rule.