many scourges swept down on the unhappy land--the dreaded rinderpest
came from the North, and despite every precaution that could be taken to
prevent its spreading, it destroyed over 90 per cent. of the cattle in
the country, and played like havoc among the wild game. It is difficult
for one who was not in Rhodesia at the time to realise the magnitude of
this misfortune. As this was a land then entirely dependent upon oxen
for transport, a stoppage was put to agricultural and mining operations;
and the cattle-owning native population suffered greatly. Before the
rinderpest broke out the average price of an ox in Rhodesia was £6, and
now, though it is over five years since the rinderpest was stamped out,
the price is about £28. Transport rates rose from 10s. to £5 per 100
lbs., and all the necessaries of life went up to famine prices. These
figures, which will be found in an interesting pamphlet written by Mr.
P. S. Inskip of the British South Africa Company's service, will convey
some idea of the situation. Absolute ruin faced the settlers; it is
wonderful that the bulk of them did not abandon the country in despair,
but pioneers are not easily disheartened, and they stubbornly struggled
on, taking every possible measure to mitigate the effect of the plague.
[Illustration: RHODESIAN NATIVES WASHING CLOTHES]
But misfortune followed on misfortune. The rinderpest was raging when
the Matabele rose, and the Rhodesians had to suppress a formidable
rebellion, which was rendered the more difficult to cope with by the
scarcity of oxen. The white settlers were massacred in outlying
districts; there were heroic rescues, the rising spread to Mashonaland,
and it was not until 1897 that the rebellion was crushed and peace for a
little while came to the troubled land. Our total casualties were 690;
and of the white settlers in the country alone 390 were killed and 150
were wounded, that is, 10 per cent. of the population. The Company spent
£360,000 in compensating the settlers for the losses the rebellion had
brought upon them.
It had fortunately been discovered that the rinderpest could be stamped
out by inoculation, but no sooner had this plague been conquered by
science than a terrible outbreak of red-water decimated the remaining
cattle. Locusts, too, came in unwonted numbers to devour the crops, and
horse sickness was very destructive. Then, on the top of all Rhodesia's
troubles, came the but just concluded Boer war cutting off this inland
territory from its communications with its commercial and military bases
on the coast, retarding its development, and once more calling on its
manhood to abandon industry and take up arms for their country. The
Rhodesians responded well to the call; twelve and a half per cent. of
the population fought in the war, and it will be in the memory of all
how well they acquitted themselves in the defence of Bechuanaland and
the relief of Mafeking. Thanks to the foresight of Cecil Rhodes,
Matabeleland was ours. Had it not been so, the Boers when defeated in
war would have trekked north into the rough country--through which it
would have been almost impossible for us to follow them--there to form
new independent states, to intrigue against us as before. It would have
been the old story over again; and after a few years we should have been
plunged into another Boer war. But Rhodes had hemmed in the two Boer
Republics. The quarrel had to be fought out within their boundaries.
There was no outlet for them into the wilderness this time.
[Illustration: THE OUTLET BELOW VICTORIA FALLS, ZAMBESI RIVER.
After Photo by G. W. Wilson, Aberdeen.]
Notwithstanding these successive disasters the Chartered Company and the
settlers had done much during those few troublous years to develop the
country. The rinderpest and the native rebellion made it all the more
urgent to complete the railway system that was to open communication
with the coast. The Company hurried on the construction. In November
1897 the line had been extended from Mafeking to Bulawayo, and in 1899
the line from Salisbury to Beira was completed. Then the line from
Bulawayo to Salisbury was pushed on; this connection has just been
completed, and one can now travel by rail without changing carriage from
Capetown to Beira _viâ_ Bulawayo and Salisbury. Another line is being
constructed through the Wankie coalfields which will cross the
Zambesi near the Victoria Falls. How short a time ago it seems since the
man who had visited the Falls was regarded as a great explorer! Other
branches, too, will shortly open communication to the various
goldfields.
[Illustration: MACHECKIE RAILWAY BRIDGE ON THE SALISBURY LINE,
MASHONALAND RAILWAY]
It is worthy of notice that Rhodesia, though the most remote from the
coast, was the one State in South Africa whose industries were kept
going during the war, so that the conclusion of peace found her ready
for an immediate expansion of her trade. This was due to the wise policy
of the Company. Early in 1900 it was represented to the Administration
that unless communication, which had been interrupted at the
commencement of the war, was soon restored, work could not proceed on
the mines; the native labourers would have to be discharged, and the
mines would have to be closed down. The Administration realised that it
would not only be disastrous to throw so many Europeans and natives out
of work, but that the closing down of the mines would convince the
Matabele that there was truth in the report which the Boer agents were
diligently spreading to the effect that the English were being driven
out of the country, and that the opportunity for rebellion had arrived.
The Administration therefore came to the assistance of the mining
community by making arrangements for the importation of sufficient
necessaries for six months through Beira, at a fixed transport rate of
£25 per ton from Port Elizabeth. The Company found itself about £5 a ton
out of pocket by this arrangement, but great distress was saved. At the
opening of the war the price of grain and meal rose 100 per cent.; but
the Hon. Sir Arthur Lawley, the then Administrator of Matabeleland,
warned the Chamber of Commerce at Bulawayo that if the cost of
necessaries rose too high he would open the Government Stores--in which
a large reserve of supplies had been laid up at the outbreak of the
war--and sell to white men at a reasonable rate. This had the desired
effect for a time, but later on the merchants took an unfair advantage
of the situation, whereupon the Administrator carried out his threat,
and so brought prices sharply down again. The result of this policy was
excellent; the development of the mines proceeded, even if slowly; the
crops were sown and there was a good harvest; the natives remained quiet
and readily paid their hut-tax, which amounted to a larger sum than had
been raised in any previous year.
Considering all the disasters, from the rinderpest down to the Boer War,
that have befallen the country, it is indeed wonderful that so much has
already been done towards the development of the resources of Rhodesia.
There are critics at home who maintain that the country is valueless,
that there are no payable gold reefs in it, else the mines would by this
time have been working at a profit. People in the old days spoke in the
same way of the Rand. Now, it was not until 1897, when the railway
reached Bulawayo, that the real development of the mines commenced, and
since then the country has produced gold to the value of a million and a
quarter sterling, and this with a very limited number of stamps running.
The gold belt extends for about 500 miles. Out of the 114,000 claims
that have been pegged out, only 737 have been worked at all. Some of the
mines have already paid dividends. The future possibilities of these yet
practically untouched goldfields no one can estimate.
It had been naturally expected that so soon as the opening of the
Rhodesian railways lowered the cost of transport rapid progress would be
made in the working of the mines, and critics at home express their
wonder that more has not been done; but the enormous increase in the
cost of local transport due to the rinderpest has cancelled the
advantage gained by the low railway rates from the south. Before the
railway was constructed or the rinderpest appeared, the transport from
Mafeking to Bulawayo, a distance of 500 miles, was ten shillings per 100
lbs. It costs as much as that now to transport mining machinery by
ox-waggon from the Bulawayo railway-yard to a mine only 50 miles
distant; and some of the mines are as far as 200 miles from a railway
station. The branch lines that are being constructed will bring many of
the mines within easy reach of the railway, but no great general
progress can be made throughout Rhodesia until cattle become plentiful
and cheap again. The Chartered Company is taking active steps to restock
the country. The importation of cattle on a large scale, both by the
various companies and by individuals, is now proceeding. Cattle of an
excellent breed, suitable to the climate, are being brought from
Angoniland, and will be crossed with Kerry or Jersey bulls. Importers of
stock intended for breeding purposes can carry them over the Rhodesian
railways at considerably reduced rates. Moreover, the Administration
advances money to farmers on easy terms, on the security of their farms,
to enable them to purchase cattle. With regard to the rinderpest,
inoculation has proved successful, and the Government should be able to
subdue any fresh outbreak by using the serum which is now manufactured
at Kimberley.
Now that peace has come to South Africa, all that Rhodesia wants to
enable her to make rapid progress is cheap transport, which she will
shortly have, and abundant and efficient native labour; for surely the
sore trials of her youth, which she so pluckily endured and survived,
are over at last. The gold is there; the majority of the reefs are
permanent, and to quote from the report of the Chartered Company's
Resident Consulting Engineer:--"What the future may hold it is
impossible to say, but the most grievous pessimist must surely admit
that the experimental stage has been safely passed, and that Rhodesia
has been proved to be a valuable gold-mining country of which the
possibilities are enormous." The recent discovery of valuable coal
deposits will greatly assist the development of the country's resources,
more especially benefiting the gold-mining industry, for the timber is
becoming exhausted in the vicinity of the mines, and the price of wood
fuel is ever advancing. A careful examination of one small section of
the Wankie bed shows that it will yield 1000 tons a day of coal of
excellent quality for the next hundred years. It is too early yet to
discuss the value of the iron, copper, and other ores which exist in
Rhodesia.
To turn to agriculture. There seems to be no production of the temperate
and sub-tropical zones that does not flourish on the favoured,
well-watered soil of Southern Rhodesia. The area under cultivation is
rapidly extending. The one great drawback is the locust. However,
farming pays well despite occasional bad seasons. Here is a story that
exemplifies the tenacity, under disaster, of the Rhodesian settler. In
one year, when the successive locust swarms ate up the land, a certain
farmer sowed his farm with mealies. The locusts devoured the crop:
undiscouraged, he sowed his fields a second time: again he lost his
crop. Yet a third time he sowed, and got his harvest in safely. Despite
the two failures, he now realised a handsome profit. Happily, in the
season of 1898-99 locusts almost entirely disappeared, and apparently
they have never since invaded the country in their former numbers. It is
claimed that this is due to the extensive use of toxine, with which for
the last few years a campaign of extermination has, with apparent
success, been carried on against these scourges of the land. The toxine
has been distributed among the white farmers and the native chiefs, with
instructions for its use, and satisfaction with the results has been
generally expressed. An energetic farmer does well in Rhodesia, and
finds among the mining communities an ever-increasing market for his
produce. At present the principal products are mealies, barley, wheat,
oats, forage, and potatoes, and excellent crops are raised. Market
farming and dairy farming in the vicinity of the towns are industries
that require little capital, and are exceedingly profitable. Boer
tobacco is produced in large quantities, and experiments that have been
tried with American seed have proved the suitability of soil and climate
for the cultivation of the superior qualities of tobacco. Oranges,
peaches, walnuts, apples, bananas, figs, cherries, vines, and other
fruits do very well in Rhodesia. In the yet uncolonised north of this
vast territory wild rubber of high commercial value covers large tracts
of country. The Chartered Company is taking steps to protect the plant
against the destructive native methods of extraction, and to make it a
source of wealth to Rhodesia as well of revenue to itself. In several
districts the cultivation of coffee and tea promises to prove
successful.
[Illustration: THE WANKIE EXPEDITION]
As elsewhere in South Africa, the chief difficulty in the way of the
development of the country is the disinclination of the idle natives to
work on the mines or elsewhere, all the more so now that so many have
been spoilt by the excessive wages paid to them by the military
authorities during the war. The native of Mashonaland, for example,
living in a country blessed with a fruitful soil and splendid climate,
protected by our rule from the raids that used to devastate his lands,
reaping his crops in security, assisted by the Administration in hard
times of rinderpest or locust scourge, is now more than ever loth to
work. He can earn as much as £3 a month with food and lodging. But for
the protection which he enjoys, and which enables him to wax rich, he
only contributes to the expenses of Government his hut-tax of ten
shillings. An increase in his hut-tax might induce him to work for a few
weeks in the year. If nothing will overcome his deep-rooted indolence,
other labour must be imported. Arabs from Aden are already working in
some of the mines.
The pay of the skilled white miner is 30s. a day. Throughout Rhodesia
the artisan earns good wages, the blacksmith and the bricklayer, for
example, receiving respectively 30s. and 35s. a day in Salisbury.
Detractors of Rhodesia are constantly asserting that the white
population is outrageously taxed, each settler, they state, having to
pay £40 per annum to the Chartered Company in the shape of taxes; and a
well-known politician, beloved of Little Englanders, has publicly
declared that this is the case. It appears that these ingenious people
arrived at this conclusion by dividing the amount of the Company's
revenue, £440,000, by the number of Europeans in the country, namely,
12,000, which certainly does give a result of nearly £40 per head. It is
thus assumed that all the Company's revenue is derived from the taxation
of the settlers. Now, in the first place, out of this £440,000 of
revenue, £113,000 represents the amount of the native hut-tax, and is
therefore not contributed by white people at all. Another £23,000 is
derived from the sales and rent of land, the Company's property; and
another £58,000 from the telegraph and postal services, which up till
now have been worked at a loss. No one can maintain that these items
fall under the head of taxation. To go further, another £86,000 of the
Company's revenue is paid directly by the mining companies that have
been floated--that is, by the shareholders in England, not by the people
of Rhodesia. These figures added up amount to £280,000, which leaves a
balance of £160,000--the taxation laid on the settlers, that is, about
£13 per head. To go still further, of this £160,000, £73,000 is derived
from the duties on wines, spirits, and tobacco. Therefore if one puts
these luxuries out of the calculation the taxation amounts to only £7
a head per year, which is anything but high when one bears in mind that
there are no paupers in Rhodesia, that women and children are few, and
that the large bulk of the population are adult males in the prime of
life earning high wages.
[Illustration: RHODESIAN MINING. THE DOBIE MILL]
The climate of the Rhodesian plateau is undoubtedly healthy and well
suited to British colonists. It is a land where the white man can work
in the fields. The British children reared here are as rosy of cheek and
as sturdy of limb as those at home. There is, of course, malaria in the
lowlands, but that will disappear before occupation and civilisation,
even as it has done in once unhealthy districts of the Transvaal and the
Cape Colony. It is the same with the diseases that affect domestic
animals: thus horse-sickness once prevailed far to the south, and
gradually has been driven north before advancing civilisation. The
dreaded tsetse fly too, fatal to horses and cattle, can only exist where
the larger wild beasts abound, and vanishes with the latter wherever the
white man establishes himself. The rinderpest, in killing off the wild
buffalo, did one good service: the tsetse disappeared with the buffalo,
and now only frequents remote and unfrequented regions.
From every point of view the future of Rhodesia now looks hopeful. The
young State suffered from every calamity that can befall a new country,
but was too vigorous to succumb. The Company and the Rhodesian community
have displayed pluck, energy, and patriotism in the hour of Britain's
danger, and every loyal Englishman must sincerely wish Rhodesia
prosperity. As regards the prospects of the Chartered Company itself, I
will conclude by calling attention to one point. Up till now the Company
has been compelled to maintain a large and expensive military force,
costing £276,000 a year. Now that the Boer war has been brought to a
conclusion, the necessity for so large a force has ceased to exist, and
Mr. W. H. Milton, the Senior Administrator of Southern Rhodesia, has
recommended, as sufficient to meet the requirements of the country, the
maintenance of a force of 400 Europeans and 400 natives, with a simple
organisation on the lines of the Cape Police. The cost of this, he
maintains, should not exceed £100,000 per annum. If his proposal is
accepted, the revenue of the Chartered Company should balance its
expenditure, and the corner will be turned.
PROBLEMS AND POSSIBILITIES
BY JAMES STANLEY LITTLE
_Author of "South Africa," "The Progress of the British Empire in the
Nineteenth Century," "The United States of Britain," &c. &c._
The magnificent vagueness of the subject the editor of this volume has,
in his wisdom, thought fit to apportion to me might have its
conveniences, were it not that such pregnant matters as emigration,
federation, education, irrigation, and half-a-dozen subjects besides,
all of which bristle with problems and possibilities of the most clamant
kind, are ruled out of this paper, in that their consideration has been
entrusted to highly competent and patriotic writers, upon whose
preserves it would be unbecoming to poach. Nevertheless, it must be
obvious to everybody that it will not be possible to attempt a
comprehensive analysis of the problems and possibilities of the future,
and to keep entirely clear of these all-important factors in the case;
seeing that every political, ethnical, financial, and economic problem
impinges on these special subjects of which one and all are a part.
[Illustration: THE RESETTLEMENT OF THE TRANSVAAL A BOER FAMILY RETURNING
TO THEIR FARM.
Drawing by Chas. M. Sheldon.]
As to the political situation to-day, it seems scarcely to be
apprehended in this country that the lines of cleavage between parties
and factions at the Cape, and indeed in the new colonies, are by no
means simple ones. In South Africa generally it is not merely a case of
Briton _versus_ Boer; it is not in Cape Colony simply a case of Dutch
Africander _versus_ British loyalist. In the Transvaal the problem is
not solely how to bring the Boers and English together, or how to
conciliate and retain the loyalty of those men, largely of British
origin, formerly known as Uitlanders. A labour party, championing a
programme practically identical with that with which all students of
later-day politico-social questions are familiar, is coming into
existence, and is, I think, certain to make itself a power in the land
as time advances. It has been frequently, if somewhat hastily, assumed
that in South Africa generally parties will follow the lines of division
common to most civilised communities, and range themselves in camps, the
composition of which will be determined respectively by the place of
residence and occupation of the units of the people; the interests,
sentiments, and aspirations of the town dwellers being at variance with
those of the rural inhabitants. In a sense, we may take the people of
Johannesburg to represent what passes for the urban population of
old-settled countries. Roughly speaking, the citizens of the older
established and smaller towns were dependent for their existence, and
are likely to continue to be so dependent, on the agriculturists, since
outside the Rand the Transvaal had no industries, no manufactures worth
considering: for some time to come she is not likely to have any. So the
Rand stood and stands for the towns, and the Uitlanders for the
townsmen. The rest of the State stood and stands for the country, and,
the agriculturists being mainly Dutch, the Boers stand for the
countrymen. In the future, however, the race question, which has
practically overruled any dividing lines drawn on the basis of townsmen
and countrymen in Cape Colony, should cease to govern, in quite the old
way, the political antagonisms of the inhabitants of the Transvaal; in
any case, if the various schemes for settling British farmers in the
land are crowned with reasonable success, it will no longer be possible
to regard the rural Transvaalers as simply Boers, and the townsmen as
simply Britishers. At present in the Transvaal there exists, of course,
the great and principal division of its people, the British and
philo-British _versus_ the Dutch and philo-Dutch. But the interests of
the great mining companies are not now, and never can be, on all-fours
with those of the operatives; while the traders are likely to find their
ideals at variance with those of the mining magnates and operatives
alike. Obviously there will be no immediate community of interest and
aim between the old Boer farmers and the new British elements introduced
on to the land. The differences of the townsmen are likely to be more
strictly economic than political; but they must necessarily take a
political complexion in the process of their devolution. It would be
rash to attempt anything in the shape of a precise forecast; but it
certainly seems to me quite unlikely that the future divisions into
parties of the citizens of the Transvaal can take the simple form of
Briton _versus_ Boer. No doubt the existence of the two races, living
side by side, with the remembrance of a century's differences between
them, will continue to give a decided tincture to the parties to be
formed in the future. It depends entirely on the kind of statecraft
Great Britain brings to bear on the settlement of the new colonies and
on its results, whether the progressive elements in the existing
population--the population waiting for the gates to be opened to it may,
for the purposes of this argument, be considered as entirely
progressive--range themselves on the side of British imperialism, or
whether they will join themselves to those forces, already existing,
which openly or secretly aim at the establishment of a republican
régime. It is quite a mistake to suppose that these forces--republican
sympathies, that is to say--are at the moment entirely to be sought for
in the Boer camp. It is, or it ought to be, common knowledge that the
internal movement for reform on the Rand, and for the elimination of the
Dopper-Hollander dominance of Pretoria, was not exactly inspired or
sustained by men who wished to see the Transvaal an integral portion of
the British Empire. At the same time, it is not denied that a great many
sympathisers with this movement, and not a few of its active
supporters--the late Mr. Rhodes, for instance--were above all things
anxious that when the Transvaal flag was hauled down the Union Jack
should be run up.