490

NORTHERN RHODESIA RETROSPECT AND PROSPECT

"YONDER lies your heritage." On the day that I first landed in , speaking at Bulawayo, uttered those words as he pointed North. I was bound for —then an almost unknown country, famous only for the last journeys and death of Livingstone, a country of which

there were wild rumours of savage and warlike tribes, of great Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 wealth to be obtained from rubber and ivory trading, of perilous risks to health. Little wonder that those words in a headline of The Natal Mercury struck my imagination. Few English- men at that time were not thrilled by the glamour of Rhodes' name. I remember how, at Oxford, when he and Kitchener, the latter straight from the reconquering of the Sudan, came together for their honorary degrees, it was Rhodes rather than Kitchener whom we pressed to see and cheer. So I read these words and felt that I was entering into the heritage of which he spoke, and I wondered what it might be like. On the journey up the coast to Chinde, and up the Zambezi, through British Central Africa (as was then called), the croakdngs of the sternwheel skippers and of the coffee planters and traders were not encouraging. " There will be more trouble with the Arabs yet: there will be war with the Awemba. You will be dead of black-water in a few months, and you will be glad to be dead." That is a fair summary. But I did not mind, and I had, as a matter of fact, an uneventful and happy journey to the Tangan3aka Plateau, as described in No. VIII of this JOURNAL. I served in Northern Rhodesia for twenty-four years under the Chartered Company that was Rhodes' creation, and for three years under the Crown, and I now have the honour of representing the territory in London. The glamour of Rhodes' personality has never left me. " The immense and brooding spirit still Shall quicken and control. Living he was the land, and dead His soul shall be her soul." NORTHERN RHODESIA 491

The two Rhodesias to-day are still the countries of Rhodes, and his spirit still lives in them. I have often thought that for this reason there is something in Rhodesia that is lacking elsewhere : the personality of the founder, the tradition of his name, his faith and his ideals; and I would like to try to convey to those who do not know the countries a little of what that means. So I will start with a story. It refers to a long-forgotten meeting of the Chartered Company at the Cannon Street Hotel, one of those meetings which were literally without parallel, at one of which it was even proposed that the Kaiser Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 should be asked to join the Board ! But that was after Rhodes' death. At the meeting to which I refer, angry shareholders gathered to complain of the entire absence of any sign of dividend : indeed it was many, many years before a dividend was paid. Rhodes faced them, and angry as they were, they cheered him. It was always the same—in London as in Rhodesia—when Rhodes appeared people felt things would be all right. He told the shareholders a story—the story of how, unarmed and nearly alone, he made peace in the Matopos: he dwelt lightly on that, but he described in detail how he had bought seed grain for the starving Matabele. They had no food, and no grain to sow for next year's crops. Their faces brightened and their gloom disappeared. Rhodes said (I quote from memory) : " Why do you smile? " I asked them. " The grain I give you now cannot fill your empty stomachs." " No," they answered me, " but we shall know that the seed is in the ground." Rhodes paused, and the shareholders understood. They had come to curse, and left blessing. The seed was in the ground. Forgive the personal note. I was one of those who watched that seed in the ground (I speak solely of Northern Rhodesia). I saw it germinate, meet with setback after setback, wilt and wither, get stunted. Yet I, and others, had faith that it would bloom and bear fruit. In 1901 things were brighter and brisker on the great Plateau, by Fife and Abercorn, than at any time until about 492 JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY

a year ago. Following in the old slave route there was trade. The Tanganyika Concessions had not yet migrated from their name place to Katanga, they launched the Cecil Rhodes on the lake, man-hauled in sections up Choma Hill from Lake Nyasa. Trading concerns built big stores, traders like Rabineck and Estermann went by Lake Mweru to the Congo trading in rubber and ivory : a few Arab caravans still passed. Coffee, then just about to cease flourishing in B.C.A., was planted and throve. Ceara rubber was planted. Great droves of cattle passed by from the North en route for Southern Rhodesia, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 driven by Britons, Greeks, Somalis, Cypriots, Syrians. Except for an abortive attempt by Ponde the Awemba did not rise : they accepted our rule—more than that, the Chiefs made friends of us ignorant youngsters, co-operated with us, bore with us, and helped us to rule. They were great days—a free life with wide responsibilities and good hunting, with no restrictions as to the numbers of elephants we might kill. Those days passed; hopes were deferred. There was no revenue. The Chartered Company carried on and somehow raised the few odd pence with which the administration was carried on, and the foundations laid. Rhodes was dead, but his faith remained, with the Company's Board at home and with those of us who were " set to serve the lands we ruled, serve and love the lands we ruled." The laying of those foundations was extraordinarily inter- esting. The starting of the hut tax, for instance, in a land of which we had no census, and where we had no idea if the natives would submit to a tax. Some did and some did not, for a long time. We started by enrolling " hut-counters." Men went out and returned with bundles of smoky straws, one plucked from the roof of each inhabited hut. With unfailing memory the hut-counter handed in bundle after bundle, giving the name of the headman, his chief, and the stream on which the village was situate. We tabulated each village under the Chiefs, with the name of the stream recorded as a guide to situation; and on that data assessed and collected the tax— in kind. In kind! We took tons of grain we did not need, sheep, goats, anything, to get the idea started. And, later, many of us had to pay for shortage in this useless grain stocked Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021

GENERAL VIEW OF THE CENTRAL RESEARCH STATION AT MAZABUKA : An important factor in the pastoral and agricultural development of Northern Rhodesia.

[A. Wilun, LainpUms. BREAKING DOWN A SLEEPER LOG ON FRICTION FEED SAW : Zambesi Saw Mills near Livingstone. (These saw mills supply railway sleepers for Rhodesia and South Africa.) [To/o«/>. 491. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 NORTHERN RHODESIA 493 in open grain bins. A proper census, and a map, followed in due course. Some tribes, especially in the Bangweulu swamps, fled to the waters rather than pay tax. Once they marooned me on an island. For years they fled, man, woman and child, at my approach. At last they too came into line, and turned up to work for their tax. But they were an entirely uneconomic proposition for work, so special unstamped tax receipts were printed for them, and they did road work inefficiently for a month to fulfil their obligations. Later, in the war, these same natives literally saved the situation by manning thousands Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 of canoes, opening up the water route through Bangweulu and Chambesi, and keeping their canoes in commission " for the duration." But for this water route and the relief which it provided to the long land-transport of food and munitions (almost entirely by head loads) it is doubtful if the forces on our side of German East could have been kept in the field. Let me pass briefly over the war years, with these remarks : the whole man power of Northern Rhodesia was mobilised for four years in war work, chiefly the transport of food-stuffs to the front in German East. When carriers consume 100 lb. for every 10 lb. landed the task of feeding an army is herculean. It was done, and done magnificently, but unfortunately, though unavoidably, it was done at a great cost. Our word which had been our bond was broken several times. Time after time in good faith we had to turn out the natives " for the last time "—only to have to do it again. This was the worst effect of the war. The only material gain to Northern Rhodesia was the construction of the military road from Broken Hill to Abercorn, which to-day is the most efficient section of the Great North Motor Road. After the war the territory relapsed into the status quo—of peaceful stagnation; but a little cloud appeared on the horizon no bigger than a man's hand. Minerals were known to exist—• from Sasare by Portuguese East to Kansanshi and Kasanjiko near Portuguese West. Failures like the Silver King, the Sable and the Roan (now far from a failure), war-time successes like Broken Hill and Bwana Mkubwa; but prospecting was a haphazard game. Many the prospector who travelled in a 494 JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY machila with his eyes on the sky instead of the ground, though some did prospect in honest pioneer fashion. But this tiny cloud appeared and grew. Concessions for scientific prospect- ing over certain areas were granted, new methods of treating the particular ores, now discovered in incredible quantities, were invented, capital flowedin . The wilting plant from that seed of long ago picked up and very soon was in full bloom. Estimates of the " crop "— of the prosperity of Northern Rhodesia—are made each year, and what seems fantastic one year seems an absurd under- estimate the next. This much is certain. There is no corner Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 of the to-day where the future is more bright or more assured than in Northern Rhodesia, But, and I think that those who listened in June to His Excellency the Governor, Sir James Crawford Maxwell, when he addressed this Society, appreciate the fact, the problems that have been brought into being by this sudden and miraculous prosperity will call for statesmanship of the highest order. In the past we made mistakes (at times I am still aghast at the mistakes we did make), but we were moving slowly and could correct them. Similar mistakes may be far-reaching in their effects at the present rate of progress. An error of judgment in a dog-cart jogging along is not as serious as a similar error in a car travelling at sixty miles an hour. We used to move on foot, in machila, or scare the natives with the speed of a push-bike. To-day we race about the country by car and aeroplane, we keep in touch by wireless telephone, and we are taking the native, after centuries of sleep, with us. The industrial and economic problems of Europe have been transplanted in a night to Central Africa: there is a new Rand " North of the river." More than that, there is growing up now a generation of Rhodesian born whites, and there will grow up a big race of them. They will have their place (we must see they do not become " poor whites"), and their parents know it. Rhodes' famous will began, " I have adopted and intend to retain Rhodesia as my domicile." So have I, but my four children are Northern Rhodesians by birth. This Society is not political, and I may not be, but I can say, as others say and feel, that I do not consider my children are Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021

IN THE COPPER BELT: Coal Pulverising Plant at Roan Antelope Mine (N. Rhodesia), July, 1930. NORTHERN RHODESIA 495 immigrants in Northern Rhodesia; and I should not be sur- prised if they return there, it is their home. There are dozens of such children and there will be thousands of them. This must be borne in mind. It is as useless to base one's ideas on Northern Rhodesia of the present day as it would be to do it on the past. One simply must visualise Northern Rhodesia of, say, fifty years hence—a country the heart of which will be a huge mining centre throbbing with life, sur- rounded and fed by large settlement areas, and all per- meated by natives making money on a scale at present not thought of. It is necessary to visualise this for every reason, Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 political and economic—for settlement, for education, for medical services, for trade, for transport. The country (I purposely do not say the Government, for it affects all in the country and all concerned with it) must visualise this and do its utmost to tackle the progress step by step; but to visualise it is the first step. When I left the country in 1927 the white population was more or less where it had been for years, about 5,000. Until the Census is taken in 1931 it is impossible to state with any accuracy what it will be then, but I should say about 15,000. There were 1,861 permanent immigrants in 1929, and 1,555 m the first six months of 1930, and this is only an index, for the white population of a territory such as this does not increase at such a rate without prosperity. The country is prosperous, and the world depression around it makes its prosperity the more notable. It has the greatest copper fields in the world, from which before long there will be a steady output of about 500,000 tons per annum, so that it will supply all the copper used in the British Empire. This copper production will mean employment directly and indirectly for thousands of whites, and for tens of thousands of natives, to whom it will give an attractive life, with good pay, good food, good housing, and on whom it will have a tremendously educative effect. (How far that education will be for good is one of the problems that must be faced, for its repercussions will affect the whole terri- tory.) It also creates an ever-increasing internal market for the settlers who can sell on the spot all that they can produce— meat, grain, monkey nuts, beans, vegetables, dairy produce— JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY and, with the splendid pasture, soil, climate, thev can produce it in surroundings and under conditions comparable with any in the Empire. All this by the gifts of Nature, the genius and energy of our race, and the co-operation of the natives, who grow pros- perous with the country's prosperity, means great new markets for our manufacturers if they do but bestir themselves, and do not let other nations entrench themselves where they themselves have a prior claim.

" The travail of his spirit bred Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 Cities in place of speech." Is it not wonderful ? Great as is the epic of Southern Rhodesia, and not for a moment would I belittle it—that was indeed the land that Rhodes chose as his domicile, that was where he was best known and loved—still greater, I think, is the epic of this northern half of the land that bears his name—a land he never knew, but which despite that his spirit gave us. " Cities in place of speech." Luanshya and Nkana, rising to-day with luxuries like water-borne sewage that Bulawayo and Salisbury know not yet, are due firstly to the vision of a man who never entered the country. How many people realise that Rhodes, though he planned the Victoria Falls bridge " so that the spray could fall on the carriages of the passing train," never saw the Falls ? How much, indeed, of Rhodes is remembered to-day? He is, however, no half-forgotten myth in the lands that bear his name; and it will be a bad day for those lands should memory fade, for it has been his spirit that has kept the country going during the slow germination and growth of the seed which he gave just as surely as he gave that seed-grain to the Matabele. May like vision be granted to those now cultivating the crop, and to those who will reap ! In many ways the signs so far are good. The present Government is planning with care a settlement scheme, a better-planned scheme than any part of Africa has yet known, to cope with the rush of settlers that will come; for develop- ment must go on, and those who labour at it must be fed, wherefore settlers are needed to provide the food. A fertile Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021

THE BIRTH OF A NEW TOWN: At Mufulira Mine, N. Rhodesia, July, 1930. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 NORTHERN RHODESIA 497 land with a population of four natives to the square mile cannot do it. This settlement scheme is based on an aerial survey which has been undertaken, and which gives accurately and pictorially a map of all the land available for settlement. Nothing of this nature on such a scale has ever been attempted before. It will be accompanied by full details as to every ranch or farm available, pasture, soil, water, density of timber : so that the would-be settler will have absolutely accurate data to help him in the selection of his future home. The native reserves have already been demarcated and, of course, will

not be encroached upon. This settlement scheme refers only Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 to the Crown lands left over, those that are alienable but as yet unalienated. It is unoccupied land, land " unoccupy- able " by the exiguous native population, that is being opened up for settlement: empty spaces that will make homes for the adventurous and energetic of our race, and everything is being done to avoid unfairness to the native races, and at the same time minimise risk of failure by the new-comers. The Government is also planning, and taking the first steps in, a native development policy in the land of him who first coined the phrase, " Equal rights for all civilised men." It is planning better schools, and hospitals for white and black, better communications, better opportunities for all. The problems created by all this progress are immense; mistakes so far as is humanly possible must be avoided, so vision, statesmanship, tact, and understanding are called for; and yet one more quality, candour. The governed must be taken into the confidence of the governing. Policies must not be kept secret, they must be stated and explained, in different manner and degree, to both white and black. Misunderstanding must be avoided, for it will not help an iota in the wreck that may follow misunderstanding, even if it can be proved that the misunderstanding was not justified. Moreover, candour and explanation tend to remove friction, which always impedes progress : they help to show to those governing that the governed are not so stupid or unreasonable as might some- times appear, while the governed learn simultaneously that those in control are not brainless nor devoid of foresight. My experience has shown me that misunderstanding or, at any

31 Vol. 18 498 JOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN SOCIETY rate, misconception causes distrust, which means friction; and I believe this is one of the greatest dangers that threaten the future prosperity of Northern Rhodesia, and not Northern Rhodesia alone, though I necessarily confine myself to that territory. There is also the danger of loss of balance to be guarded against. At present one can see no signs of this: the State appears to be keeping its head, but it is a danger. The parallel between a race and an individual is perhaps a little trite, but it is relevant all the same. Everyone knows that a new country must pass through childhood, with its inevitable Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/afraf/article/XXIX/CXVII/490/52573 by guest on 30 September 2021 growing pains, to adolescence and its concurrent failings: it needs food and education before it can stand on its own, and even then it needs guidance—which may be resented, for youth is necessarily impatient of advice and always thinks it knows better than its elders. The most successful parent is he who enters as a partner into his son's concerns rather than as a dictator. Then, too, a sudden inheritance, or " prize in the Calcutta sweep," may demoralise a nation as it may an individual. Northern Rhodesia's rich inheritance, come sud- denly after a childhood of poverty, carries with it its own risks. " Yonder lies your heritage."- Our heritage to us Northern Rhodesians. May nothing mar it! May there be co-opera- tion between all for the common good, and may' the glamour of this sudden inheritance not obscure the vision, or upset the balance, of the heirs or of their guardians I FRANK MELLAND.