THE VICTORIA AND ALBERT RAILWAY
My journey is at an end, the tale is told, and the reader who has
followed so faithfully and so far has a right to ask what message I
bring back. It can be stated in three words. Concentrate upon Uganda!
Over the greater part of the north-east quarter of Africa, British
influence or authority in one form or another is supreme. But when I
turn my mind over all those vast expanses, excluding only Egypt, there
is no region which offers prospects to compare in hopefulness with
those of the Protectorate of Uganda. The Soudan is far greater in
extent and importance, and Great Britain is at no charge in respect to
it. But the Soudan is clearly inferior in fertility. The East African
Protectorate possesses not only enormous coast-lands of great value,
but noble plateaux where the air is as cool as an English spring. But
we already spend on East Africa--and upon the needs of its expensive
white settlers--more than the whole revenue of Uganda; and yet the
promise is not so bright. Northern Somaliland is a desert of rocks and
thorn bushes peopled by rifle-armed fanatics, on which we spend nearly
half as much as the whole annual grant-in-aid of Uganda. And between
Somaliland and Uganda there is this contrast presented in its crudest
form--a barren land with dangerous inhabitants; and a fruitful land
with a docile people. What is least worth having, is most difficult to
hold: what is most worth having, is easiest.
The union under scientific direction in Uganda (and I include in this
popular name Usoga, Unyoro, Toro and Ankole, etc.) of unequalled
fertility with a population of high intelligence and social quality,
in a region of extraordinary waterways, must, unless some grievous
error or neglect should intervene, result in remarkable economic
developments. Already more than half the traffic which passes down the
railway to Mombasa comes from beyond the lake. Yet scarcely any money
has ever been spent on Uganda. No European roads exist, no railways
have been built, no waterfalls are harnessed, no public works of any
serious description have been undertaken. A poor little grant-in-aid
has barely supported the day-to-day cost of European administration,
and practically nothing in cash or credit has been available for the
development of the country. But it is alive by itself. It is vital;
and in my view, in spite of its insects and its diseases, it ought in
the course of time to become the most prosperous of all our East and
Central African possessions, and perhaps the financial driving wheel
of all this part of the world. It is far from my desire to disparage
the East African Protectorate, or to suggest diminution of activity or
support. Both Protectorates are necessary to each other and should
advance together; but in view of their relative positions, and looking
at the situation as it is to-day, my counsel plainly is--"Concentrate
upon Uganda!" Nowhere else in Africa will a little money go so far.
Nowhere else will the results be more brilliant, more substantial or
more rapidly realized.
Cotton alone should make the fortune of Uganda. All the best qualities
of cotton can be grown in the highest perfection, a hundred thousand
intelligent landowners occupying twenty thousand square miles of
suitable soil are eager to engage in the cultivation. An industrious
and organized population offers the necessary labour. Merely at the
request of the Government cotton has been planted experimentally on a
considerable scale throughout Uganda. The figures of production--though
of course they are only the first beginnings--show a surprising
expansion. Great care is required, and steps have already been taken
to secure that the quality of cotton exported from Uganda is not
deteriorated or its reputation prejudiced by hasty or untutored
action, that only the seeds which yield the best results should be
distributed, and that no indiscriminate mixture should be permitted.
The Government must control the culture. Experts must watch the
ginneries and educate the native cultivator. Roads must be made to
enable the crop to be marketed. The scientific organization of the
cotton-growing resources of Uganda has now been definitely undertaken.
A special grant of £10,000 a year will in future be devoted to this
purpose, and the whole process will be supervised by European officers
in close touch through the Colonial Office with the highest
Manchester authorities and the British Cotton-Growing Association. In
the opinion of the ablest observers the next five years will see a
very remarkable development in cotton production, even though the
means available to foster it continue to be slender.
But cotton is only one of those tropical products for which the demand
of civilized industry is almost insatiable, and which can nowhere in
the world be grown more cheaply, more easily, more perfectly than
between the waters of the two great lakes. Rubber, fibre, cinnamon,
cocoa, coffee, sugar may all be cultivated upon the greatest scale;
virgin forests of rare and valuable timber await the axe; and even
though mineral wealth may perhaps never lend its hectic glory to
Uganda, the economic foundations of its prosperity will stand securely
upon a rich and varied agriculture. A settler's country it can never
be. Whatever may be the destinies of the East African Highlands, the
shores of the great lakes will never be the permanent residence of a
white race. It is a planter's land, where the labours of the native
population may be organized and directed by superior intelligence and
external capital. For my own part I rejoice that the physical
conditions of the country are such as to prevent the growth in the
heart of happy Uganda of a petty white community, with the harsh and
selfish ideas which mark the jealous contact of races and the
exploitation of the weaker. Let it remain a "planter's land." Let the
planters, instead of being the agents of excited syndicates with minds
absorbed in the profits of shareholders thousands of miles away, be
either Europeans of substance and character who have given proofs of
their knowledge of natives and their ability to deal skilfully and
justly with them, or better still--say I--let them be the
disinterested officers of the Government, directing the development of
the country neither in their own, nor any other pecuniary interest,
but for the general good of its people and of the Empire of which it
forms a part.
But if the immediate inflexion of British policy in Eastern Africa
should be, without prejudice, but with precedence of other provinces,
to accelerate the economic and social development of Uganda, what are
the first steps to take? I might have much to say of Forestry and
Agriculture; of an extended system of technical education similar to
that given at the Gordon College at Khartoum, here perhaps in part to
be achieved through grants in aid of the existing missionary schools;
of road-making, indispensable to progress, of motor-transport, and of
water-power. But let me make my message brief and unclouded, and as
before expressed in three words, "Build a Railway."
The clusters of colonial possessions which have been acquired on the
east and west coasts of Africa, so rapidly and with so little cost or
bloodshed, will unquestionably prove an invaluable, if not indeed a
necessary feature of the British Empire. From these vast plantations
will be drawn the raw materials of many of our most important
industries; to them will flow a continuous and broadening train of
British products; and in them the peculiar gifts for administration
and high civic virtues of our race may find a healthy and an
honourable scope. Some of these great estates, like Southern Nigeria
on the west coast, are already so prosperous as not only to be
self-supporting, but able to assist with credit and subvention the
progress of neighbours less far advanced. Others are still a charge
upon our estimates. We are annually put to the expense of
grants-in-aid more or less considerable for Northern Somaliland, the
East African Protectorate, Nyassaland and Uganda. Heavy upon the
finance of all the East Coast hangs the capital charge of the Uganda
Railway. In no way will these charges be eased or removed except by
the rise of one or more of the territories concerned to economic
buoyancy, or by the growth of railway traffic down the Uganda trunk
consequent upon development. Under present conditions the progress
made from year to year is steady and encouraging. The charges upon the
Colonial Estimates diminish regularly every year. Every year the
administration of the different Governments increases in elaboration,
in efficiency and consequently in cost. The extra charge is met ever
more fully by the returning yield of a grateful soil. Except for the
chances of war, rebellion, pestilence, and famine which brood over the
infancy of tropical protectorates, but which may be averted or
controlled, it would be easy to calculate a date--not too remote--by
which all contribution from the British tax-payer would be
unnecessary. The movement of events is encouraging; but there is one
method by which it can be made far more sure and far more swift, by
which all adverse chances are minimized, and all existing resources
stimulated and multiplied--railways.
I would go so far as to say that it is only wasting time and money to
try to govern, or still more develop, a great African possession
without a railway. There can be no security, progress, or prosperity
without at least one central line of rapid communication driven
through the heart of the country. Where, as in Northern Somaliland,
the land itself is utterly valueless, a mere desert of rocks and
scrub, or where the military dangers are excessive and utterly
disproportioned to any results that can ever be reaped--withdrawal and
concentration are the true policy. But if for any reason it be decided
to remain and to administer, a railway becomes the prime of absolute
necessities. Till then all civilized government is extravagant and
precarious, and all profitable commerce practically impossible. These
considerations have lately led a British Government to sanction the
extensive railways, nearly 600 miles long, now being rapidly
constructed in Northern and Southern Nigeria; and the same arguments
apply, though in my view with increased force, to the Uganda
Protectorate.
It is not usually realized that the Uganda railway does not pass
through Uganda. It is the railway _to_ Uganda and not _of_ Uganda. It
stops short of the land from which it takes its name, and falls
exhausted by its exertions and vicissitudes, content feverishly to lap
the waters of the Victoria Nyanza. Uganda is reached, but not
traversed by steam communication in any form. Yet the extension of the
railway from the western shores of the Victoria to the Albert Nyanza
would not only carry it through much of the most valuable and fertile
country within its radius, but as I shall show could far more than
double its effective scope.
It may be accepted as an axiom that in the present state of
development in these African protectorates, it is scarcely ever, and
indeed I think never, worth while to build railways in competition
with waterways. Railways should in new countries be in supplement of,
and not in substitution for, lakes and navigable rivers. No doubt
direct through-routes of railway, where bulk is not broken and all
delays and changings are avoided, show an imposing advantage in
comparison with a mere alternation of water stages and railway links.
There could be no doubt which was the better if only you leave out
the question of cost. But it is just this question of cost which
cannot be left out, which clamorously dominates the proposition from
the beginning. For first-class countries may afford first-class
railways and _trains de luxe_, but second-class countries must be less
ambitious, and young new jungle-born countries are satisfied, or ought
to be, if they get any railway at all. The differences between the
best railway in the world and the worst, are no doubt impressive; but
they become utterly insignificant when contrasted with the difference
between the worst railway in the world and no railway at all. For
observe, the comparison is not with perfect lines of European
communication, nor with anything like them, nor even with a waggon on
a turnpike road. It is with a jogging, grunting, panting, failing line
of tottering coolies, men reduced to beasts of burden, that the new
pioneer line must be compared--that is to say, with the most painful,
most degrading, slowest and feeblest method of transportation which
has ever disgraced the world. And compared with that, any line of
steam-communication, however primitive, however light, however
interrupted, is heaven.
I am endeavouring to guide the reader to a positive proposal of a
modest and practical character, I mean the construction of a new
railway which might be called "The Victoria and Albert Railway,"
although it would virtually be an extension of the existing Uganda
line. This railway should traverse the country between the great
lakes, and join together these two noble reservoirs with all their
respective river connections. The distance is not great. Two hundred
and fifty miles would exceed the largest computation; and perhaps a
line of one hundred and fifty miles would suffice. If the cost of this
railway were estimated, as I am informed is reasonable, at a maximum
figure of £5,000 a mile, the total sum involved would be between
£1,250,000 and £750,000.
The supreme advantage of making a railway debouch upon a great lake,
is that every point on the lake shore is instantly put in almost equal
communication with railhead. Steamers coast round on circular tours,
and whatsoever trade or traffic may offer along the whole
circumference, is carried swiftly to the railway. Lakes are in fact
the catchment areas of trade, and it is by tapping and uniting them
that the economic life of Central Africa can be most easily and
swiftly stimulated.
Two routes present themselves with various competing advantages by
which the Victoria and Albert Railway may proceed. The first, the most
obvious, most desirable and most expensive, is straight across the
Highlands of Toro, through the best of the cotton country, from a
point on the Victoria Lake in the neighbourhood of Entebbe, to where
the Semliki river runs into the southern end of Lake Albert. The
second would practically follow the footsteps recorded in these pages.
It does not offer a direct line. It does not pass during the whole of
its length through cultivated and inhabited country. It does not reach
the Albert Lake at the most convenient end. But it is far cheaper than
the other. It is only 135 miles long instead of nearly 250. It
connects not only the two great lakes, but also Lake Chioga with all
its channels and tributaries, in one system of unbroken steam
communication.
Briefly this latter project would consist of two links of railway: the
first about sixty miles long from Jinja (or Ripon Falls) to Kakindu,
the first point where the Victoria Nile becomes navigable: the second
about seventy-five miles long from the neighbourhood of Mruli to the
Nile below the Murchison Falls and near its mouth on the Albert. By
these two sections of railway, together only 135 miles in length, a
wonderful extent of waterways would be commanded; to wit: 1. Thirty
miles of the Victoria Nile navigable from Kakindu to Lake Chioga. 2.
Lake Chioga itself, with its long arms and gulfs stretching deeply
into the whole of the fertile regions to the south-west of Mount
Elgon, and affording a perimeter of navigable coastline accessible by
steamers, of certainly not less than 250 miles. 3. All that reach of
the Victoria Nile navigable from Lake Chioga to Foweira when the
rapids ending in the Murchison Falls begin again--70 miles. 4. Thirty
miles from below the falls to the Albert Lake. 5. The whole of the
Albert Lake shores--250 miles. 6. The Semliki river navigable (once a
sandbar has been passed) for sixty miles. 7. The glorious open reach
of the White Nile from the Albert Lake to Nimule--120 miles. Thus by
the construction of only 135 miles of railroad, swift modern
communication would be established over a total range of 800 miles: or
for an addition of one-fifth to its length and one-eighth to its cost
the effective radius of the Uganda railway would be more than doubled.
Such railway propositions are few and far between.
I do not prejudge the choice of these two routes. Both are now being
carefully surveyed. The advantages of the longer and more ambitious
line across Toro are perhaps superior. But the cost is also nearly
twice as great; and cost is a vital factor--not merely to the
government called upon to find money, but still more to the commercial
soundness of an enterprise which is permanently crippled, if its
original capital charges are allowed notably to exceed what the
estimated earnings would sustain. The question is one which will
require severe and patient examination, the nicest balancings between
competitive advantages, the smoothest compromises between the
practical and the ideal.
But let us now look forward to a time--not, I trust, remote--when by
one route or the other the distance between the Victoria and Albert
Lakes has been spanned by a railway, and when the Mountains of the
Moon are scarcely four days' journey from Mombasa. The British
Government will then be possessed of the shortest route to the
Eastern Congo. The Uganda railway will be able to offer rates for
merchandise and railway material with which no other line that can
ever be constructed will ever be able to compete. The whole of that
already considerable, though as yet stifled trade, which feebly
trickles back half across Africa by Boma to the Atlantic, which is
looking desperately for an outlet to the northward, which percolates
in driblets through Uganda to-day, will flow swiftly and abundantly to
the benefit of all parties concerned down the Uganda trunk, raising
that line with steady impulse from the _status_ of a political railway
towards the level of a sound commercial enterprise. In no other way
will the British tax-payer recover his capital. The advantages are
great and the expense moderate. Larger considerations may postpone,
and the imperative need of the fullest surveys will in any case delay
construction; but I cannot doubt that the Victoria and Albert railway
is now the most important project awaiting action in the whole of that
group of Protectorates which Sir Frederick Lugard used proudly to call
"our East African Empire."
But let us proceed one step further in the development of the
communications of north-east Africa. When an extension of the Uganda
railway has reached the Albert Nyanza, only one link will be missing
to connect the whole of the rail and waterway system of East Africa
and Uganda with the enormous system of railways and riverways of Egypt
and the Soudan, to connect the Uganda with the Desert railway, to join
the navigation of the great lakes to the navigation of the Blue and
White Niles. Only one link will be missing, and that a very short one;
the distance of 110 miles from Nimule to Gondokoro, where the Nile is
interrupted by cataracts. Of the commercial utility of such a link _in
itself_ I have nothing to say; but as a means of marrying two gigantic
systems of steam communication, it will some day possess a high
importance; and thereafter over the whole of the north-east quarter of
the African continent under the influence or authority of the British
Crown, comprising a total mileage by rail and river of perhaps 20,000
miles, uninterrupted steam communication will prevail.
The adventurous and the imaginative may peer out beyond these compact
and practicable steps into a more remote and speculative region.
Perhaps by the time that the junction between the Uganda and Soudan
rail and water systems has been effected, the Rhodes Cape to Cairo
railway will have reached the southern end of Lake Tanganyika: and
then only one comparatively short hiatus will bar a complete
transcontinental line, if not wholly of railroad, at least of steam
traffic and of comfortable and speedy travel.
Then, perhaps it will be time to make another journey; but as the
reader, who will no doubt take care to secure a first-class tourist
ticket, will no longer require my services as guide, I shall take this
opportunity of making him my bow.
* * * * *
Transcriber's note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.