Durham E-Theses A geographical study of the coastal zone between homs and misurta, tripelitania a geography of economic growth McLaehlan, K. S. How to cite: McLaehlan, K. S. (1961) A geographical study of the coastal zone between homs and misurta, tripelitania a geography of economic growth, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/9294/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 SECTION THREE ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF FARMING B? kISURATIIO IE? CHAPTER SIX - BgESTOTTO TRAI'ISITIUJL.'AL GROVJTH EFFECTS IS SOCIAL- ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. PART, ONE - Cgp ^he, Agr^u^ui^ Sefitpr Feed the Bxflafldfoig Urbafl (1) The Increase in Production. (a) Tields (b) Factors Behind the Increase in Production I (c) Factors Behind the Increase in Production II (d) Livestock Production in Tripolitania - The Dilemma (e) Factors Behind the Increase in Production III. s (2) The Italian Contribution. (i) Yields on Italian Farms (ii) Production from Italian Farms (iii) The Italian Production Units in i&suratino (iv) An Assessment of the Italian Experiment in Relation to i'iodern Libyan Development in Misuratino. (3) Agricultural Production and Urban Growth. PART TWO - To What Extent ma? it be expected that the Agricultural Sector of the Economy., will be a Source of Taxation (i) Farming and the National Product (ii) Distribution of Income and Trends in Personal Income in Misuratino (iii) The Distribution of Income and the Implications for the Social Structure, Total Agricultural Production and the Rate of Capital Accumulation (iv) Farm Expenditure in f&suratino - Its Amount and Direction. PART THREE ~ The Standard of Living of Farm Families in relation to the lftke3x,fqtujre Tgends, „jln. Per,gpna,;L IaCPP,9» Educational and Hedieal facilities and the Probable Effects, upon the Demand for Urban Goods. (i) The present situation with regard to Education and Literacy. Prospects for the expansion and wider acceptance of Media (ii) Medical Services and Endemic Disease in Rural Areas (iii) The Stenalard of . Living and the Implications for the Demand for Urban Goods. -522- Ghapter Six - Economic, Aspqcfrs of, Farming ftp, ^ spa^o, in, relation to Transitional Economic Srowth Effects in SQcia3,-£fionoq?.e De$&XqmW+ • (1) The Increase in Production (a) Yields. 'Agriculture must supply more food to meet the likely rise in population and the proportionately greater increase in the number of town dwellers. It must expand markets for the potential leading industrial sectors. It must provide3 as farmers1 real incomes rise, a source of taxation from which the Government's functions in the transition may be financed. It must also supply an expanded supply of loanable funds to the modern sector9 thus transferring surplus income from those who would waste it in prodigal living to those who will invest it and then regularly plough back their profits.' •» quote Bostov on Growth. Rostov cites agricultural expansion as an essential pre• requisite for gain in economic momentum which must take place before the growing, under-developed nations are able to enter the 'Take-off phase of development. In Tripolitania, it will be shown how the rural peoples and landscape are reacting to the tremors of economic transition and tribal dissolution which, have been examined in the previous chapter. The characteristics of the break-down of traditional society have been illustrated in respect to £&suratino$ - this ehapter will be devoted to a discussion of the transition elements which have appeared in the farming areas of Tripolitania and the degree to which they have -523- become effective in recent years. In the traditional social and economic framework which operated in Idbya in the years before the Italian conquest, the rural areas of Misuratino were essentially self-sufficient. Thernoiaadic tribes were adjusted to the necessities of the pastoral life from which they gained a living, at times good, sore frequently indifferent, and often poors depending upon the vagaries of the climate and the availability of pasture and water for the flocks. The social surplus from this economic activity was correspondingly small* tihere the environment permitted an easy living9 as for instance in the Jebel Jfehdar areas of Cyrenaiea, or where alien trade routes brought an influx of tjealth, the accumulated capital tended to give rise to tribal friction and periodic war<-fare<> In this case the wealth, rather than finding its way into long^teria investment in permanent resourcesg tended to be dissipated in financing armed raiding, luxuries in the desert are infinitely zaore costly than luxuries in more teraperate surroundings, thus the war horses, kept by the notables of the nomadic tribes and the finely bred racing dromedaries of the Tuaregs of the interior were proportionately a greater undertaking in terms of maintenance in extreme conditions, than wore the battle horses bred for combat in feudal Europe. The net result of these factors has been to militate against the accumulation of social capital gnd to tie the majority of the population engaged in pastoral occupsnce to the necessity of providing food snd shelter. -^24- The oases, too, exhibited features which were primely self- sufficient. The semi-nomadism which prevailed among* most oasis tribal groups until the closing years of the nineteenth Century, and which still operates amongst some of the Arab groups of Eisuratino at the present day, was in large part a direct response by the social groups to the need for the provision of food for man and beast. The operation of semi-nomadism repre• sents the working of the simple social mechanism whereby the lack of accumulated resources was compensated for by seasonal movement to ready sources of supply. We have seen that nomadism was introduced into Libya during the Silalian invasions, that the indigenous Berber peasant society was almost eliminated by the dynamic force of the nomads, and that nomadism was by no means the sole possible response to environmental conditions in Tripolitania. The cultural predilection of the Eilalians and their successors towards nomadism may be accounted as the prime factor in reducing the mass of the peoples of the area to sub• sistence economies, and in preventing the amassing of social surplus even in the rieher oasis belts. Whilst the forces of nomadism dominated the interior steppes, and the necessities of the semi-nomadic life precluded profitable utilisation of the coastal oases, there was no elasticity in the economy of the area which would permit the growth of private or communal investment in either agriculture or industry. Production of agricultural goods was limited by the short-term nature of tribal settlement in any given area, and the yields from the crops which were cultivated under the system (mainly grains and fodders) were poor corresponding closely to the ill-developed technical standards known to the semi-nomads. During the later years of the Nineteenth Century, seml^nomadism became a less dominating social routine and the forces of eeonomie growth brought in their train a geographical centralisation in the coastal oasBs, and brought new factors to bear upon the question of economic surplus (Vide Chapter h), The decline of the Saharan slave trade stimulated the Turkish administration to find other means to improve the state of their Libyan territories and make them less of a financial burden upon the central authority. To this end, a beginning was made to agricultural reform. The Turks had little intention of lavish• ing capital investment in Tripolitardas but rather chose to encourage the Indigenous peoples in speeding the rate of seden- tarlsation in the oases. This Turkish essay in the field of agricultural development in the area represents the first appraisal of the temtory in pre-Hilalian terms5 before this date the Turks had not attempted to enforce any of their tenurial or related codes in the area, although they had been introduced into other countries of the Sapire. The measures taken by the Ottoman administration is of more interest as a first re-assess• ment of the environment in non-nomadic terms than as anything of practical importance. The effects of Turkish legislation had not reached ground level when the Italian occupation took place in 1911. It is of significance that Turkish interest in indigenous agriculture coincided t/ith'the internal changes within the cablla itselfo The latter phase has been described in some detail in Chapter but its importance must be re*stated at this point since it may be taken as the beginning of one of the two elements which have given momentum to the period of transition in terms of production and yields of crops in Tripolitania. These two elements ares- (I) The indigenous economic revolution (II) Italian colonial development. In this section, the causes, directions and the rates of growth of crop production in the indigenous and Italian sectors of the agricultural economy will be discussed in relation to regional variations within the environment of Misuratino, and in relation to the other oasis areas of Tripolitania. Segregation of the Italian and Libyan sectors of production has rarely been attempted in serious analysis of Tripolitanian agricultural production, except by Theodorou whose work gives adequate evidence that this approach is necessary.