A LAND OF PROMISE

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 115, 1 February 1918, Page 6

A LAND OF PROMISE

.. GERMAN EAST AFRICA WHAT IT WAS AND WHAT • IT MAY BE (By Sir Hany Johnston, in the "Daily - , ■ News.") . [Tim British AVar Office recently announced that German East Africa had been completely denied of t!:c enemy; and that the whole of the last of the German overseas possessions has passed into o\ir hands and those of our Beigmi Allies..] A factitious prosperity came to East Africa—the Zanzibar Dominions —with the beginning of the nineteenth century - through the development of -.the sla-K, trade by tho Arabs of Maskat, who then dominated the coast between Somaliland and Mozambique. Slaves wore required increasingly by .the"Southern States in North America, and a greater demand still existed for . them in India, tho Persian Gulf, Ara.bia, and Turkey. The slave trade caused much, devastation of native •populations in the interior, but it at- ■ tracted missionaries to investigate and explore, traders to traffic in European goods, and, finally, the agents of the British: Government to intervene and . also to encourage legitimate commerce with British India. (The greatest of these was_ Sir John Kirk, Livingstone's companion, first given a Consular appointment at Zanzibar ir. 186G, and made a political lagent m 1863.' Sir John Kirk realised the immense potentialities for .honest con-n.-erce in.East Africa, between the Eed Sea on the north and the Portuguese dominions on the south. He succeeded in abolishing the official 'complicir-.v cf the Sultanate of Zanzibar with the slave trade, and then induced the establishment of a British line of steamers plying up and down the coast. Further, he . stimulated ■ the managing director of the British . .India Ste.im Navigation Company—tho late Sir AVilliain Mackinnon—to accept a great concession from the Sultan of Zanzibar, and construct a metalled road from Dar-or-Salaam to Tanganyika, so . that wheeled traffic might replace tho slave-porters for the transport of merohandiso. Sir William Mackinnon sent out tno not-easily-beaten young t Edinburgh men—the brothers John and ' Frederick Meir —and tho road was begun: But the concessionaire shrank from the cost of the enterprise and its Tincertam results. A Future "German India." Other enterprises farther south promoted by Sir John Kirk similarly proved futile—he was before his time '. —and tiie only direction in which he succeeded i't establishing British interests wvis in the northern half of the Sidtan's dominions—now known as British East Africa. Germany had long had her eye on "Znngian" Africa as a future German ''India." Advantage, was taken of the hesitation of British capitalists, and by 1835 Germany had staked out claims which, by agreement with Great .Britain, soon grew into a "colony" Riovering an area of 364,000 square miles, and extending from the Zanzibar "iok'st to Tanganyika, Nyas&a, and the ".VlfcWii Nyanza. " The natives did not want the Germans as over-lords; and for severil .years after the assumption of the. Protectorate, Germany had to fight for her possession; first against the Arabs, JUKI' iiext, and more severely, against warlike native tribes. But after ten years tof trouble the country settled down "'to peaie. It was fortunate in having several good Governors who reWfijetl the natives sympathetically. ■G r ennan rale, indeed, from the 'niueWPo'f 1 the last century down to the ~&Wtbr¥ak of war, was not unpopular in • •Eaw'sfrica. The leading native chiefs as we treat Indian Raas, TM'i'iirabs were soon conciliated, and eventually became strong allies of tin German power: there is no evidence trf any considerable alienation of native lands European colonies—plantations ■—ware established in the beautiful hill country of Usa'mbara, in the mountains of'-Nsagara and Ukinga; steamers were laWched on all. the three great lakes; .Hiftr German science was turned most Effectively on to the investigation of 3he'.resources of this huge territory in Minerals, vegetable produce, and adapt"JfMlity for stock-rearing.

-an Commercial Development. im The British Indian merchants on the -'eßast were -won over to transfer their 'Mlegiance to Germany, and in roturn helped to prosecute a very lucrative commerce. • Altogether it eeeniecl, prior to the outbreak of war in E fi)l4, that Germany was going to make 'Her greatest success as -a colonising 'jiower in East Africa. Not'necessarily %y creating a new "white_" Germany-Tbeyond-the-Seas on the uplands of East 'Africa—black-water fever and other 'germ diseases not : as yet overcome by 'science militated "against success in'-that direotion —but, in the way that Britain .has" succeeded'in India and Holland in Malaysia, by educating a large coloured population to develop a region', lich in-many valuable products. This development would eventually as much 'redound to Germany's commercial and importance as the possession of India has clone for us and Java ■ ipr Holland. The trunk lino to was finished, and would ,'tap all the wealth of the eastern basin of the Congo, aided by -the navigation "of that four-hundred-miles-long in31ind sea-. Moreover, Germans ''ifhq 'had invested much capij^l', in East Africa looked 'or-.-ward to further developments of a paci'jiq, character. A portion, a considerable ]j)ortion, of the Eastern Congoland jijli'ght be purchased from Belgium, and might agree to sell or to ,leaso limitrophe territories. .

The New Rule. "•Oil '! rjjTJhe ideal settlement would, of course, .b.e',ihafc tliese conquered domains should ,j)f)i invested once more in their native.population; hut since few if any of ft;he?e African, Asiatic, or Oceanic territories are at present capahle of governing themselves, they must he enitrusted to the . management of the i\lfied Powers in a way that shall bonv •some relation to tlie moneys expended, .ttther sacrifices made or losses incurred -to. the. wishes of the local, inhabitants, <awl to geographical contiguity. -inTJmler such conditions Gorman East /Africa is certain to come —I might almost say to rcvnrt (with the remembrance of Sir John Kirk's control) — 'tn Great Britain, just as the bulk of !-the Canierooiis and Tocoland will'doubtless go to France. Thorc will be no floitUt as to our being welcome to the bulk of the people as their new rulers; ■ Bare in the case of a few Arab slaveowners. But when we undertake to replace Germany in East Africa it must not be with any idea of "carving out farms" for eager pioneers, or otherwise disposing of native property in land. We must give to this vast country of intelligent Bantu nogroes 'more or less tinged with 'Muhnmmiulonism and often iviMi an aristocracy of Arab or Gala .strain) much the same type of administration sis wo have set up in Nigeria, Uganda, or Nyassaland. There will, of course, remain open, ;;s in British East Africa and Nigeria, immense oportunities for thn profitable investment of capital, and great additions fcn our Imperial resources, in the way of minerals, cotton, rubber, nil, cattle, hides, fibre, and vegetable foodstuffs. Sickness and vomiting from a dis- ■ ordered stomach may he relieved by taking SHAKLANFS FLUID MAG-NESJA.-Advt.