 During the First World War Watkins set up the Carrier Corps  ,and strove to organise an effective force while at the same time protecting the hundreds of thousands of African porters conscripted into the force from the excessive demands of the British Military.After the first war, as acting Kenya Chief Native Commissioner his active stance in protecting the land rights of the native Kenya tribes against the encroachments of white Kenya Settler interests earned him the enmity of the governor Sir Edward Denham.At the outbreak of the second world war, he used his knowledge of Swahili to broadcast and edit Baraza, a sister paper to the East African Standard, started with a subsidy from the Colonial Government to bolster the British war effort in East Africa.