THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY
It must not be concluded from what has been written about the blunders
of the colonial administration in dealing with the native people that
little or nothing has been done in the way of developing the country’s
resources, for many solid achievements stand to the credit of Germany.
While many and grievous mistakes have been made, it must be remembered
that success in the difficult sphere of colonial enterprise rarely, if
ever, comes save with experience. To provide in South-West Africa a
home for German emigrants and a market for German trade, considerable
effort and large sums of money have been expended, and that success is
not more marked is partly due to the fact that so much energy has been
devoted to warlike operations rather than to the task of colonisation.
For purposes of administration the country was divided into fifteen
districts (excluding Ovamboland and the Caprivizipfel), Grootfontein,
Omaruru, Outjo, Okahandja, Karibib, Windhoek, Gobabis, Rehoboth,
Gibeon, Maltahoehe, Bethanien, Keetmanshoop, Warmbad, Luderitzbucht,
and Swakopmund. There are no very large towns in existence, but the
few small towns and villages compare very favourably with those
of similar size in the Union of South African, while several of
them are considerably in advance as regards public buildings and
modern improvements. The principal towns are Windhoek, Swakopmund,
Luderitzbucht, and Keetmanshoop. Windhoek has a picturesque situation
in the best part of the territory, 180 miles from Swakopmund in a
direct line. As the seat of Government and the military headquarters,
it has long been the most important town in the country. About a
thousand Europeans resided here, and 800 natives. The principal
thoroughfare is a wide street nearly two miles in length. There are
substantial churches, a park, a public library, a museum, Government
buildings, clubs, fort, barracks, a fine marble monument to the
soldiers who perished in the native wars, and the inevitable brewery.
Houses nestle among the trees in pleasing fashion, and there are many
well-cultivated gardens.
Swakopmund, at the mouth of the Swakop River, is the principal port,
and for some years it has been the busiest town in the country, but it
has a poor harbour, lying as it does on the open Atlantic seaboard.
Immense sums of money have been spent in order to provide good landing
accommodation, but Swakopmund has too many natural disadvantages to
make it a safe and satisfactory harbour. Thousands of tons of sand
are deposited yearly in the bight by the Benguella current, and the
pounding of the big Atlantic waves would destroy any but the strongest
and most massive jetty. A new jetty was nearing completion when the
war broke out. Some very fine Government buildings have been erected,
as well as hospitals and churches and business establishments; the
streets are wide, with wood-paved footpaths, and the town has an air
of solidity and neatness quite unusual to a young colonial township.
But the natural entry into the country is the spacious and sheltered
harbour at Walvis Bay, twenty-five miles to the south of Swakopmund,
which though undeveloped has enormous possibilities as a naval base,
and a port for the hinterland. A good railway from Walvis Bay to
Swakopmund will go far to solve the problem of the future of a town
which is a good monument to German industry and enterprise.
Luderitzbucht was formerly nothing more than a dilapidated trading
station for the interior, but with the discovery of diamonds in the
vicinity the settlement grew into a town with almost magical swiftness.
It had a white population of 800 in 1914. Many substantial and even
handsome buildings have been erected. The town has a fine harbour, an
electric power station, a powerful plant for condensing sea-water, and
a good telephone system, but the roads are merely tracks in the sand,
and when the wind blows; as it often does, the sand is everywhere,
indoors and out. Goggles are a necessity for every one.
Keetmanshoop was the capital of the southern territory, and was
important on account of its position as a military headquarters. The
town is small, but well laid out, and has a church, a Government
school, a number of hotels, stores, and some neat residences.
Other centres of population, of more or less importance, are Karibib,
some 125 miles from Swakopmund, a busy railway centre, which has grown
very rapidly since 1901; Omaruru, about 150 miles from Swakopmund,
with rich grazing lands; Okahandja, north of Windhoek, noted for its
good water supply; Gobabis, the chief town on the eastern border;
Grootfontein, in North Damaraland, founded by Boer settlers in the
’eighties of the last century; Tsumeb, the centre of the valuable
copper mining industry; Outjo, a military station in the Kaokoveld;
Bethanien and Warmbad, old mission stations in Great Namaqualand; and
Gibeon, the centre of some good farm lands.
Recent years have seen marked progress throughout the country, mainly
owing to the extension of the railways. It is true that the railways
have been built with a view to their strategic importance, and
altogether in advance of the population, but they have been a most
important factor in increasing the economical value of the territory. A
line from Swakopmund, managed by the Otavi Mining and Railway Company,
connects the port with the copper mining districts at Otavi and Tsumeb,
and is some 419 miles in length. It is of approximately two-foot
gauge. A branch extends from Otavi to Grootfontein. A second railway,
managed by the State, extends from Swakopmund almost parallel with the
narrow-gauge line to Karibib, then curves south to Windhoek, from which
place it proceeds due south to Keetmanshoop and Kalkfontein.
From Luderitzbucht a line of the standard South African gauge, 3 feet
6 inches, worked by the Lenz Company, has been laid to Keetmanshoop
via Seeheim, so all the important districts have been linked up. A
branch line, 66 miles in length, runs parallel with the coast, from
Kolmanskuppe to Bogenfels, and intersects diamondiferous country
practically all the way. The locomotives on this line are driven by
electricity generated on the engines. In all there are some 1,400 miles
of railways, 780 of which are narrow gauge, while the rest are of Cape
gauge.
Kalkfontein is 172½ miles from Upington, in the Cape Province, and
since the war broke out the two places have been linked up by rail as a
result of magnificent record construction work by the engineers and men
of the Union Railways. From De Aar to Windhoek it is now 876 miles by
rail, and 1191 from Luderitzbucht to Johannesburg.
Roads have been improved between some of the larger centres of
population, but in many places they are nothing more than mere tracks
across the country. In regard to the telegraph and telephone service,
the colony is well in advance of many parts of the Union of South
Africa, since many of the farm settlements are linked up with the
villages and towns, and many of the military stations and police posts
are similarly joined. At Windhoek, a high-power wireless station,
consisting of five towers, 360 feet high, was erected in 1914, to
form a link in the chain of stations between Germany and her overseas
possessions, stretching from Nauen to East Africa. Wireless stations
were also erected at Swakopmund and Luderitzbucht. There are seventy
post offices in the country, and fifty of these are also telegraph
offices. The schools for European children have increased of late, but
the medium has been compulsory German, even for the children of the
Dutch settlers. Numerous wells have been sunk, dams made, irrigation
work undertaken; and it is estimated that in addition to the natural
springs, there are now 1,613 wells, 130 dams, and 59 water-boring
holes. The Windhoek district is favoured with no less than 12 springs,
231 wells, 35 dams, and 20 water-boring holes.
Trade has shown some advance, and the traffic of the two ports has
steadily increased. In 1913 the imports were valued at £2,171,200, and
they consisted mainly of foodstuffs, liquors, coal, building materials,
textiles, galvanised iron, and rails. No less than 81 per cent. of
the imports came from Germany, while less than 1 per cent. came from
England, and about 12 per cent. from British South Africa. Far more
coal came from Germany than from the coalfields of South Africa. The
exports for 1913 were valued at £3,515,100, but the diamond production
was responsible for no less than £2,945,975. Other exports were
copper, £396,436; tin, £31,568; wool, £5,500; cattle, small stock,
meat, hides, skins, and ostrich feathers. Germany received 83 per cent.
of the articles.
The finances of the colony show improvement. The revenue, accruing
mostly from railways, harbours, and taxes on minerals, showed a surplus
for 1913; and in budgeting for the year 1915, revenue and expenditure
were estimated to balance at £2,081,157. Public works of some
importance were contemplated for 1914-15.
MINERALS
One of the immediate results of the German occupation was an influx
into the country of mining prospectors who were eager to secure
concessions. Mineral rights over large areas were bought from native
chiefs, and prospecting was actively carried on. The concessions were
in many instances transferred to third and sometimes fourth parties,
until at length the mining rights of the whole country were held by
the following: The Deutsche Kolonial Gesellschaft, the Kaoko Land und
Minen Gesellschaft, the South-West Africa Company, the Otavi Minen und
Eisenbahn Gesellschaft, the Hanseatische Land und Minen Gesellschaft,
the Gibeon Schuerf und Handels Gesellschaft, the South African
Territories Company, and the Government. For some years each of these
parties kept to its own laws, which regulated or prohibited prospecting
operations. The Government recognised the need for greater uniformity,
and in 1913 the various companies, with the exception of the South-West
Africa Company, entered into agreements with the Government. The
royalties payable to the different companies were fixed by these
agreements.
Next to the valuable diamond fields, the copper mines rank in
importance. The rich deposits in the Otavi district were known to South
Africans some years before the German occupation. They were worked by
the Bushmen, who quarried and smelted the metal, using as a flux the
ash of a tree, and by the Ovambos, who adorned themselves with heavy
copper ornaments. The fine outcrop at Tsumeb was discovered in 1892.
The Otavi Company is a German concern with issued capital which has
been fully paid up in cash, of £1,000,000 in 200,000 £5 shares. The
Company took over from the South-West Africa Company 1,000 square miles
of mining rights and 500 square miles of freehold rights contained
therein, in order to work the group of copper mines in the Otavi area,
but by virtue of its shareholding the South-West Africa Company holds
an interest in the Otavi Company of about 55 per cent. This holding
is the chief asset of the South-West Africa Company. The ore mined is
divided into a high-grade copper product, principally copper glance,
which has been exported to America, and lead ores, largely galena, and
low-grade carbonate copper ores, which have been smelted at the mine.
Since the completion of the Company’s railway from Swakopmund in 1908,
the yearly output has averaged 36,000 tons. Other deposits are found
at Grootfontein, Grossotavi, and Gochab, while recent discoveries
include finds in the Bobos Mountains in the Tsumeb district, and at
Okatumba, north-east of Windhoek. The Khan mine has been opened up
to a considerable depth, and development work was proceeding in other
promising mines when war was declared.
TIN
Large deposits of tin ores have been found, mostly in alluvial
deposits, situated in the neighbourhood of outcrops of pegmatite and
quartz, which occur in the hinterland of Swakopmund.
MARBLE
There are immense layers of good quality marble in the Karibib
district. The quarrying rights are held by the Afrika-Marmor-Kolonial
Gesellschaft.
Gold has been found at several places in the South-West Africa
Company’s territory, and occasional nuggets have been unearthed in the
Neineis tinfields, but as yet there are no discoveries of the precious
ore in payable quantities. Coal has not been found.
AGRICULTURE AND LIVE STOCK
There is a surprisingly small proportion of the land of the country
under cultivation, since only 13,000 acres have been treated.
Four-tenths of this total is in the well-watered Grootfontein district,
while the Windhoek region has another three-tenths. Mealies, potatoes,
lucerne, vegetables and melons are the principal articles grown, but a
good beginning has been made with fruit and tobacco.
There are 1,330 farms, and they cover an area of over 32,000,000 acres;
they vary in size from 6,000 to 50,000 acres. In 1913 they carried
205,643 cattle, 53,691 woolled sheep, 17,171 Persian sheep, 472,585
Afrikander sheep, 485,401 goats, 13,340 Angora goats, 18,163 half-bred
Angoras, 15,916 horses, 13,618 mules and donkeys, 7,772 pigs, 709
camels, and 1,507 ostriches. All these figures, with the exception
of those relating to the camels, show a considerable increase on the
preceding year, and while they may be of no value in estimating the
quantity of stock in the country at the close of the war, on account
of the inevitable slaughter following on a siege, they serve to show
how much advance has been made in pastoral development, in spite of the
rinderpest of 1896-7, the droughts of more recent years, and diseases
such as anthrax and lamziekte.
Great improvements have been made in the stock since the German
occupation. The cattle owned by the natives, while hardy and useful,
were of little value as sources of milk, and the meat was of an
inferior quality. Goats and fat-tailed sheep were the other animals
possessed by the natives. But the Germans have imported stock of the
best quality and of every description.
Cattle and horses have come from Germany and the Argentine, Karakul
sheep from Russia, merino sheep from Australia, and Angora goats from
Cape Colony. Animals purchased abroad by farmers have been imported at
the expense of the Government, and considerable encouragement given
to stock-rearing. Much good work was expected from an Agricultural
Advisory Board organised at the end of 1913, and a staff of Government
experts had been collecting information on such matters as water
laws, fencing rights, and animal diseases; these experts were to have
assisted the members of the Board in drafting useful measures. A Land
Bank with a capital of £500,000 was established in 1913, and some
advances were made to farmers in the following year. The object of
the Bank was to supply the farmer with capital at a reasonable rate
of interest under a bond which could not be called up as long as the
interest and other charges were duly paid, and to provide easy terms
for repayment of the principal. The Bank was also expected to assist
in providing fresh capital for effecting farm improvements, making the
increased value of the farm security for the advances made, to foster
the establishment of co-operative societies for the sale of produce
and the purchase of certain articles in bulk. It would appear that the
first grants were made to the farmers in one particular area, and the
farmers in other parts were highly incensed at what they affirmed to be
favouritism. Shortly before the war broke out the Bank was notified
from Berlin that the proposed remittance of one and a half million
marks for advances had been cancelled.
Among other industries are those connected with sealing, guano export,
whaling, and brewing. The export value of seal skins has averaged about
£2,000 per year for several years, but in 1913 little profit was made
by the sealers on account of the low price received for the skins.
Whaling has not yet been a great success. The breweries at Windhoek and
Swakopmund have proved highly lucrative; and they have been successful
in driving imported beer out of the market.
Then it should be remembered that much valuable research work has
been done in the country, and that the characteristic German virtue
of thoroughness has been manifest in the systematic labours of such
men as H. Hahn, Rath, Schenck, G. Hartmann, Lotz, Range, Schinz,
Schultze and Rohrbach, who have done much for knowledge in the realms
of history, ethnology, geology, philology, and economics. The peculiar
problems of the country have been most diligently studied, and maps
dealing with geological features, rainfall, vegetation, distribution
of wild animals, etc., have been compiled with great skill and most
careful attention to detail.
On the whole Germany is able to give a fairly good account of her
stewardship so far as the development of the colony is concerned.
Thirty years is a short period in which to look for broad and
beneficial results in a land that has many natural disadvantages; that
so much has been achieved is a tribute to the patience and persistence
of the settlers.