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A NEGLECTED HERITAGE

PORTUGUESE EAST AFRICA. MANY SIGNS OF LACK OF ENTERPRISE. Tlie right to grumble at the Mozambique Convention has usually beeu regarded as a privilege peculiar to tlio citizens of the Union, wno Have treeiy denounced it as a one-sided baigum on mo ground that tho beiicnts courerred on tno adjacent port ot Delagoa, Lay nave been out ot all proportion to the advantages derived by tho Transvaal from a State-aided supply ot Portuguese natives to tho mines. Put another point of view has found expression by oenbor Eusebio da i'onsecu, the Djrect/or-Ueneral of tlio Coiouial treasury, iu an interview with a Lisbon newspaper. The .Director-General denounces tho Convention in round terms as 4 ‘ a factor which contributed towards tho financial ruin of lortugucse East Africa. The hut-tax, tho principal source of income,’ he continued, ‘ 1 diminished fearfully year by year. Within a short time they would have little or no population, and consequently a further diminished hut-tax—-wliich, however, was still an important item. Tho Transvaal Convention was ruinous for them, not only on account of tho diminishing of the proceeds accruing therefrom, but because it was robbing them of their natives’ agriculture, tho development of which had become impossible owing to the absolute lack of labour on the spot, and was being annihilated. Without the great mass of labourers supplied by Mozambique to tho Transvaal it would also be impossible to develop mining and commercial enterprise,” THE HUT TAX. Such a direct denunciation of a treaty which has not yet run half its course deserves 'patient examination and refutai. It is undoubtedly unfortunate that the Director-General is not assisted in his control of Portuguese colonial finance by a direct acquaintance with the local conditions of the .Mozambique province. And one may readily concede that the task of continuing to provide the Portuguese public (so passionately enwrapt in glories of tho past, so hopelessly impotent to respond to t the demands of tho present) with convincing . explanations of the failure of Portugal as a colonising Power must be becoming increasingly arduous. Still, Senhor Fonseca’s figures are not convincing. To take tfio hut-tax, which, as the Director-General significantly admits, after Portuguese occupation extending over several centuries, remains the “ principal source of indome.” It is shown that the receipts for the year 1910-11 exhibit a shortfall as compared with the previous year of A 159,200. But one of the mysteries of Portuguese administration is hero in. volved, says a Transvaal correspondent. To fathom it one must exclude for Tho moment the collection from the district of Inhambane. Then the remaining districts show an increase of £35,800. The district of Inhambane, however, from which the largest quota of natives is recruited for tho Band, where money is consequently plentiful, and which should present the least difficulty in meeting the demands of the tax-collector, shows the astonishing decrease of £75,000. The collection fell from £107,000 to • £32,000 in a single year. A slight decrease, despite the increasing population, might be accounted for by the natural tendency of a hut-tax to promote overcrowding. Tho fewer huts the less tax. Nothing is known in tho district of Inhambane of a diminution of population, unparalleled in its suddenness and severity, to which Senhor Fonseca superficially refers to account for this disappointing result. Without more ado, such a conclusion may be dismissed as singularly wide of the facts. The Director-General should consult local unofficial opinion, which suggests quite another explanation, simpler but perhaps more embarrassing. £250,000 FROM THE BAND. To tho allegation that the effect of recruiting for the mines is to rob the province of the natives’ agriculture, Senhor Fonseca, if ho knew his Mozambique in person and not merely on paper, could himself supply the effective and conclusive rejoinder. In a primitive land, whore a plough is still an object of curiosity, agriculture is essentially tho work of the women, and will continue to bo so until individual ownership affords an incentive to effort which the system of communal tenure must inevitably fail to inspire. It should be clearly understood also, that the drain on the manhood of tho province is not so exacting as Senhor Fonseca’s hasty generalisation would suggest. With a total population in tho Province, south of latitude 22deg. N., of approximately 800,000, and a labour force on the Band from that area of some 75,000 (of which onethird would represent natives engaged for a further period after completing a year’s service), the recruited natives form less than 10 per cent, of the whole. A higher percentage than this is required to feed the German Army with its annual toll of human material. At any rate, the DirectorGeneral may rest assured that he has to thank the mines of the Rand for the substantial sum of over a quarter of a million sterling which figures so bravely in the Mozambique Budget, and is, indeed, more than 20 per cent, of the total receipts of the Province. And it is the wages which the natives gain by their annual exodus which still supply that “principal source of income” which Senhor Fonseca is so pathetically Concerned to augment. LITTLE ENTERPRISE IN MOZAMBIQUE. One may look in vain throughout tho Portuguese East Coast possessions for these signs of mining and commercial enterprise to which Senhor bollseca somewhat grandiloquently alludes, the development of which, we are told, is rendered impossible for lack of the labourers which Mozambique supplies in the Transvaal. If possible, that development is less evident in the country adjacent to the capital itself than in the remoter districts. At In hambane there are sugar plantations with a demand of about 1090 labourers; at Quilimano the cocoa palms furnish a. small copra industry, with. the_ labour supply of which tho W.N.L.A. is careful not to interfere. One has to turn to the rich alluvial tract between the Shire and Zambesi rivers to witness anything like a scene of active tropical development. Here are the extensive sugar plantations of the Senna Sugar Co., with factories, a labour force of some 8000 natives, and .an output in 1911 of 23,000 tons. In this case undoubtedly recruiting for the mines has adversely affected the supply of cheap labour for the coalfields. It is obviously not easy to play off 4s and a handful of beans against £3 a month and all found. RAILWAYS. Recent railway enterprise consists of two short lines. One from Chai-Chai

on tho Limpopo to Snli will connect a rich agricultural district with Loureuco Marques by water carriage. Au extension northwards to Chicomo is projected. From Mutamba, at the head of Inhambane bay, a new line, stretches some forty miles southward to luharrimoi to a point near Chicomo whore tho river becomes navigable. At Inharrime tho broad, sluggish river of that uame, after traversing a district of unsurpassed fertility, empties itself into Lake Rolela and thence feeds a string of lakes stretching coastwise, and which may ultimately become a valuable waterway. One asks what is to bo the function of these lines. Are they merely to subserve the ingenious purpose of facilitating the collection of that “principal source of income,” or oven to provide an outlet for the produce of those natives upon whose efforts the Portuguese place such an ignoble dependence? Or are they designed to throw open this noble region to white settlement, and to create a theatre of tropical development which not tho whole African Continent could surpass? The excellent colonial land law of 1909 is virtually a dead letter, its inscription iu tho statute-book is due to Colonel D’Audrade, whose policy of frankly welcoming foreigners and their capital to aid in tho mineral and agricultural development of the province was sufficient to secure his recall. Since his departure, active inquiry for land has dwindled. Local hostility to foreign capital has increased, and its emissaries have departed iu. disgust. A return to the liberal policy of the Andrade regime would unquestionably promote a great torward movement in the exploitation of the mineral and agricultural resources of the, province. It may be taken as axiomatic that foreign capital divorced from foreign control (an illusion still obstinately cherished) will not bo available for the development of_ tho Portuguese East ‘African possessions. Angola, one may say, has already been catalogued as a desirable “place in tho sun.” What will be the fate of Portugal’s neglected heritage in Easi Africa ?

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZTIM19130218.2.101

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8357, 18 February 1913, Page 9

Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,396

A NEGLECTED HERITAGE New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8357, 18 February 1913, Page 9

A NEGLECTED HERITAGE New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8357, 18 February 1913, Page 9

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