Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-02T23:29:19.087Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

East Africa. Some Problems in Native Economic Development and a Possible Solution in Co-Operative Societies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2012

W. Bryant Mumford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

A well-known native in Tanganyika Territory was asked one day what would be left of European civilization in Africa if the Europeans left the country to-morrow. He replied unhesitatingly, ‘Football’. His reply was probably onlyintended to mean that this element of European culture made a very special appeal to him. Nevertheless, considering his comment as a suggestive, though unconscious criticism, there is perhaps sufficient truth in the remark to merit careful thought. Such thought and a cursory survey of the conditions under which vast numbers of natives live to-day, compared with those under which they lived prior to the advent of the European, is not very encouraging. It is true that the country is governed in peace, which was not so in the past, and abuse of power by the chiefs has been reduced to a negligible quantity. It is true that railways have been built, opening up the country. It is true that under the recently developed native self-administration, political self-realization and reawakened pride of tribe are becoming increasingly evident. Especially are all these things true of the advanced tribes of Nyasaland, Uganda, Bukoba, and Moshi. For these tribes and a scattered number of regularly employed natives, such as clerks and teachers, there has been progress towards economic standards. The people are comparatively wealthy, well provided with blankets, lamps, soap, and similar ‘luxuries’, and live healthier, more comfortable lives than their forefathers. On the other hand, the subjects of many of the other tribes, and in some instances even the chiefs themselves, still live in huts which would often be better described as hovels.

Type
Research Article
Information
Africa , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , January 1933 , pp. 27 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1933

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 30 note 1 Mr. Rivers-Smith was Director of Education of Tanganyika Territory from 1920 to 1931 and organized not only the Government schools, but also instituted the present grant-aided mission schools.

page 30 note 2 Ex-industrial pupils at Tanganyika Schools receive outfits of tools on completion of their agreements of indentureship. It is these to which reference is made here and later.

page 31 note 1 Cf. Lugard, ‘The White Man's Task in Africa’, published in Foreign Affairs, October 1926.Google Scholar

page 31 note 2 Distance from markets sometimes makes this difficult, but it is usually possible to find some economic crop for all parts.

page 34 note 1 Roughly speaking, 10 yards of beads = I hoe, and 20 hoes = 1 cow.

page 34 note 2 The total population in the East African group (Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika) including Europeans, Asiatics, and natives is twelve million; the issued coinage amounts to about four and a half million pounds or less than 8s. per head of population. Amongst most tribes there is, however, considerable personal lending and borrowing of money which augments the coinage by credit. One economic survey in one native area showed that about 30s. per year passed through a man's hands.

page 35 note 1 For a comparison of the work of these two men, see Co-operation at Home and Abroad, by Fay, C. R., pp. 19–50.Google Scholar