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The Nyasaland Tea Industry in the Era of International Tea Restrictions, 1933-1950

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Robin Palmer
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The Tea Industry in the Cholo and Mlanje districts of southern Nyasaland emerged during the 1930s under the shelter of the International Tea Regulation Scheme of 1933 which restricted exports by the world's leading producers. In contrast to its East African neighbours, Nyasaland's Tea Industry was well organized locally by the Nyasaland Tea Association and was effectively represented in Britain by its London Committee. Though having to accept restrictions on the planting of new tea, which occasioned some local controversy, the industry, in common with other tea-producing countries, benefited from the rising prices of the 1930s for which the Tea Regulations were largely responsible. By 1938 tea had become one of Nyasaland's few profitable industries. A seeming further advantage was the bulk buying scheme, at guaranteed prices, organized by the British Ministry of Food which lasted throughout the 1940s, but the industry's wartime performance was sluggish as a consequence of poor growing seasons combined with serious shortages of manpower and fertilizer. As a poor quality, low price producer facing chronic labour shortages, which prevented millions of pounds of tea from being picked, Nyasaland greeted with hostility Imperial decisions to withdraw eastern Africa from the International Tea Scheme in 1948, to end bulk buying in 1950, and generally to encourage the free expansion of production. Nyasaland's tea planters were told that henceforth they must face open competition.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 26 , Issue 2-3 , March 1985 , pp. 215 - 239
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

1 I wish to acknowledge helpful criticisms of an earlier version of this article by members of the Chancellor College history seminar, Zomba, and by John McCracken, Forbes Munro, Megan Vaughan and Leroy Vail. The archival sources used here are the Public Record Office, London (files prefixed C.O. or MAF) and the National Archives of Malawi, Zomba (various prefixes). I have also used the evidence to the Bledisloe Commission, which is to be found in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library, London.

2 Public Record Office, C.O. 323/1300/31825/2C (Part 2), Barlow, British Central Africa Company to Cunliffe-Lister, 14 June 1934.

3 National Archives of Malawi, Hist. MSS. NY II/I/I, Proceedings of the Annual General Meeting [henceforth AGM] of the Nyasaland Tea Association [henceforth NTA], 6 Feb. 1936.

4 For cotton, see McCracken, John, ’Experts and expertise in colonial Malawi’, African Affairs LXXXI (1982), 101–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mandala, Elias, ‘Peasant cotton agriculture, gender and inter-generational relationships: the lower Tchiri (Shire) valley of Malawi, 1906–1940’, African Studies Review xxv, 2/3 (1982), 27–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vaughan, Megan, ‘Food production and family labour in southern Malawi: the Shire highlands and upper Shire valley in the early colonial period’, Journal of African History xxiii (1982), 351–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For tobacco, see McCracken, John, ‘Peasants, planters and the colonial state: the case of Malawi, 1905–1940’, Journal of Eastern African Research and Development xii (1982), 21–35Google Scholar; McCracken, John, ’Planters, peasants and the colonial state: the impact of the Native Tobacco Board in the Central Province of Malawi’, Journal of Southern African Studies ix(1983), 172–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar More recent work by some of these and by other authors was presented at a conference in Edinburgh in May 1984 and is published by the Centre of African Studies, University of Edinburgh, under the title Malawi: An Alternative Pattern of Development.

5 The historiography of the Nyasaland Tea Industry is slight in volume, content and achievement. See Hadlow, G. G. S. J., ‘The history of tea in Nyasaland’, Nyasaland Journal xiii, 1 (1960), 21–31Google Scholar; Hadlow, G. G. S. J., A Short History of Tea Planting in Nyasaland, Nyasaland Protectorate, Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 13 (New Series) (Zomba, 1934)Google Scholar; Hutson, J. A., ‘An outline of the early history of the tea industry in Malawi’, Society of Malawi Journal xxx, 1 (1978), 40–6. The most useful single source is the autobiography by Arthur Westrop, Green Gold (Bulawayo, c. 1964).Google Scholar

6 Palmer, Robin, ‘White farmers in Malawi: before and after the Depression’, African Affairs LXXXIV (1985), in press.Google Scholar

7 In all its official papers and correspondence the Tea Industry liked to give itself capitals. I am happy to follow this tradition.

8 McWilliam, M. D., ‘The East African tea industry 1920–1956: A case study in the development of a plantation industry’ (B.Litt. thesis, University of Oxford, 1957) 191. The same phrase, indeed the complete sentence from which it is taken, is repeated unacknowledged in Nicola Swainson, The Development of Corporate Capitalism in Kenya, 1918–77 (London, 1980), 87.Google Scholar

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12 Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/5, Minutes of Meeting of the Board of Directors [henceforth MMBD], NTA, 26 March 1957.

13 Vail, Leroy, ‘The making of an imperial slum: Nyasaland and its railways, 1895–1935’, Journal of African History xvi (1975), 89–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Tea planters, like all agricultural producers in Nyasaland, continually complained about high railway rates, but to little avail. Mann, a visiting expert, compared the rate of 0.97d per lb from Luchenza to Beira with rates of 0.23d and 0.38d per lb from India's tea producing regions to the port of Calcutta. Mann, Report on Tea, 33.

14 Smee, C., ‘Nyasaland tea and pests and diseases’, Nyasaland Tea Association Quarterly Journal 1, 2 (1936), 1.Google Scholar

15 Mann, , Report on Tea, 2, 3, 6, 24, 26.Google Scholar

16 Palmer, , ‘White farmers’, in press.Google Scholar

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18 In Cholo it was reported in 1931 that ’A large area of new land is being scientifically opened up and planted with improved varieties. There seems to be every hope of Cholo becoming an important tea growing centre’. NSE 5/1/3, Report of the D.C., Cholo, for 1931.

19 Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Report of an Economic Survey of Nyasaland 1958–1959 (Salisbury, 1960), 220; Nyasaland Government, African-Grown Tea. Report of the Mission Appointed by the Minister of Natural Resources and Surveys to advise on the Establishment of an African-grown Tea Industry (Blantyre, 1962). The Minister in question was Dr H. Kamuzu Banda.

20 Mann, H. H., ‘Note on tea possibilities in the area near Nkata Bay’, in Nyasaland Protectorate, Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 4 (New Series) (Zomba, 1932), 18–21.Google Scholar

21 A 3/2/249, Minute by Hornby, 2 Aug. 1933; S 1/499/32, Hadlow to Chief Secretary, 16 June 1933. The Directors of the Nyasaland Tea Association ‘do not consider that Tea is a suitable agricultural crop to be grown by natives of this country’. Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/3, MMBD, NTA, 3 Dec. 1937.

22 Wickizer, V. D., Tea under International Regulation (Stanford, 1944), 17.Google Scholar Another authoritative view was that ‘Tea production is most efficient when in the hands of big companies.’ Harler, C. R., The Culture and Marketing of Tea (London, 1964), 230.Google Scholar

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24 Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library, Rhodesia-Nyasaland Royal Commis sion, Oral Evidence, Vol. III: Nyasaland, Evidence of H. W. Wilson and M. P. Barrow, 25 June 1938, 939, 1032 [henceforth Bledisloe Commission, Evidence]; A 3/2/243, Director of Agriculture to Chief Secretary, 30 March 1929.

25 McWilliam, , ‘East African tea industry’, 21.Google Scholar As early as 1931 Hadlow reported that ‘The tea industry, although started by individuals, is now, with few exceptions, in the hands of limited liability companies’, but this seems to me to be somewhat premature. Hadlow, G. G., ‘The tea industry of Nyasaland’, The African World, xxviii (1931), 71.Google Scholar

26 CO. 852/40/2, Nyasaland Railways Ltd. to Colonial Office, 11 Aug. 1936, citing The Times of 12 May 1936.

27 Wickizer, Tea, 8.

28 One lost control of his estate completely, but Arthur Westrop was able to turn his into a limited company by selling off some profitable Malayan tin shares. Westrop, Green Gold, 24, 316.

29 S 1/43 E/33, Report of the D.C., Mlanje, for 1932.

30 Munro, J. Forbes, Britain in Tropical Africa 1880–1960: Economic Relationships and Impact (London, 1984), 28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Barclays Bank, D.C.O., Tea (London, 1967), 58.Google Scholar

32 Butler, Report on Some Diseases, 3.

33 Encyclopaedia Britannica xxvi (Cambridge, 1911), 477.Google Scholar

34 Westrop, Green Gold, 23–4. 36 Ibid. 227.

36 Morrison, R. D., Tea. Memorandum relating to the Tea Industry and Tea Trade of the World (London, 1943), 48.Google Scholar

37 Ibid. 63.

38 Ibid. 48, 50, 86; Barclays Bank, Tea, 34; International Tea Committee, A Review of the Tea Regulation Scheme 1933–1943 with Supplement relating to Tea Market Conditions between 1918–1932 (London, 1943).

39 Wickizer, Tea, 73–4.

40 Harler, C. R., ‘The plucking of tea leaf and labour problems facing the tea industry’, Nyasaland Agricultural Quarterly Journal x, 1 (1951), 27Google Scholar; Harler, Culture and Marketing, 249.

41 Woolacott, J. E., ‘The Empire tea campaign’, United Empire (1931), 541Google Scholar; McLeod, C., ‘A plan for Empire tea’, United Empire (1931), 670–3.Google Scholar It was projected that lecturers would make special mention of Empire teas during lectures and broadcasts. S 1/716/31, Murray to Chief Secretary, 3 Sept. 1931.

42 Wickizer, Tea, 130.

43 Barclays Bank, Tea, 37.

44 Ibid. 37.

45 Wickizer, Tea, 120–2, 128–9.

46 C.O. 822/54/3, Dale to Colonial Office, 9 Feb. 1933.

47 Ibid. Minute by Campbell, 15 Feb. 1933.

48 Ibid. Minute by Flood, 13 Feb. 1933. A year later, however, Flood was complaining that ‘T.T. & Uganda are behaving very foolishly over this and seem quite unable to grasp the fact that their tea industry only survives by the help of the International Tea restriction’. CO. 323/1300/31825/2C (Part 1), Minute by Flood, 18 April 1934.

49 C.O., 822/54/3, Minute by Green, 13 02 1933.Google Scholar

50 Ibid. Minute by Stockdale, 14 Feb. 1933.

51 Ibid. Minute by Campbell, 15 Feb. 1933.

52 Ibid. Cunliffe-Lister to Young, 3 March 1933.

53 Ibid. Cunliffe-Lister to Young, 2 Jan. 1934.

54 Though Ceylon tea interests took the precaution of ‘tackling’ Nyasaland repre sentatives in London. CO. 323/1300/31825/2C (Part 1), Minute by Stockdale, 5 Jan. 1934. This evidently had the desired effect, for letters of support for Tea Restrictions soon began rolling in from the African Lakes Corporation Ltd., Blantyre & East Africa Ltd., Dickson, Anderson & Co. Ltd. and J. Lyons & Co. Ltd.

55 Mann believed that costs were ‘reduced below a safe point’. Mann, Report on Tea, 33.

56 S 1/499/32, Hadlow to Chief Secretary, 16 June 1933.

57 C.O. 852/147/5, Mitchell to MacDonald, 29 July 1938.

58 Ibid. Minute by Carstairs, 30 Aug. 1938.

59 C.O. 323/1300/31825/2C (Part 1), Hall to Cunliffe-Lister, 27 May 1934; Ibid. (Part 2), Tucker to Cunliffe-Lister, 10 July 1934.

60 Ibid. (Part 1), Minute by Bottomley, 28 May 1934.

61 In 1934 Nyasaland declared its tea acreage to be 15,000, and this was accepted by the International Tea Committee. It was subsequently discovered that 700 acres of tea had been omitted because of an error on the returns. The ITC agreed to accept the amended figure of 15,700 acres on 27 February 1935.

62 Hist. MSS. NY II/I/I, Proceedings of AGM, NTA, 27 April 1935. Barrow acknowledged that while it had taken years for the old-established tea countries to agree to co-operate, Nyasaland was being obliged to do so while the industry was still in its infancy.

63 Government support, by no means always given to planters in Nyasaland, took various forms, such as funding for research, strongly supporting the NTA in the squabbles over tea acreage allocations with East Africa, not asking too many questions about wages and conditions on the tea estates, favouring the reimposition of Imperial Preference on tea in 1932, and the considerable help of the Tea Commissioner during the Second World War.

64 Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/3, MMBD, NTA, 3 Dec. 1937; CO. 852/147/5, Brooke-Popham to Parkinson, 11 Feb. 1938.

65 C.O. 852/147/5, Minute by Eastwood, 29 Sept. 1938.

66 In 1943 a representative of Brooke Bond in London called to see Sir Clifford Figg, Deputy Chairman of the ITC (1933–47) and Business Adviser to the Colonial Secretary (1939–45), about the possibility of getting new machinery for tea factories in Kenya. Figg responded by saying that East Africa needed a really live tea association with London correspondents, ‘just as the Nyasaland people had done. It was just because Nyasaland had a London Committee with an energetic Chairman, like Mr Loram, that they seemed to have some chance of getting some tea machinery’. CO. 852/519/6, Minute by Figg, 22 Sept. 1943.

87 S 1A/236, Secretary, NTA, to Chief Secretary, 14 Nov. 1942.

68 In January 1944 Loram advised the NTA to drop its claim to have South Africa included in its ‘ local consumption’ market. He pointed out that there was no possibility of getting South Africa, and that the move would only create difficulties with India and Ceylon, which had built up the South African market. Moreover it might prejudice the recent agreement between the ITC and eastern Africa. The NTA duly backed down. C.O. 852/519/6, Loram to Figg, 3 Jan. 1944.

69 An example of such ‘responsible’ behaviour occurred in 1936, when the NTA initially agreed not to push for an increase in acreage during the second Tea Agreement quinquennium. The Director of Agriculture regarded this decision (later reversed when East Africa refused to play ball) as ‘both sound and diplomatic. It is likely to create a good impression on the International Tea Committee, particularly the Dutch section’. Similarly in 1941 the NTA decided not to press for an increase in the contract price for tea, despite rising production costs, on the grounds that it was only right that the industry should shoulder its share of the war burden. S 1/49oIII/32, Small to Acting Chief Secretary, 26 Sept. 1936; Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/3, Minutes of 5th AGM, NTA, 24 April 1941.

70 McWilliam, ‘East African tea industry’, 159.

71 In November 1945 ‘Colonel Walker said he thought it would help a good deal if all East African Colonies got together to speak with one voice in the ITC instead of being separately represented by Colonies where in some cases the Colonial Tea Committes and the Colonial Governors were at variance.’ CO. 852/616/2, Minute by Kisch, 15 Nov. 1945. One of the problems was distance. The two tea-growing areas in Uganda (Fort Portal and Jinja) were 100 miles apart, whilst in Tanganyika it was over 300 miles from the Usambaras in the north-east to Mufindi and Tukuyu in the south-west. In contrast, Cholo and Mlanje in Nyasaland were only 30 miles apart. McWilliam, ‘ East African tea industry’, 59–60. See also T. Eden, ‘The tea industry of East Africa’, World Crops vi (1954), 203–5.

72 C.O., 852/519/6, Walker to Figg, 9 06 1943.Google Scholar

73 C.O., 852/9/3, International Tea Committee to Colonial Office, 12 01 1935.Google Scholar

74 A 3/2/247, Hadlow to Chief Secretary, 3 May 1935.

75 C.O., 852/39/9, Wyndham to Graham, 3 June 1936Google Scholar; Barrow, M. P., ‘The African Tea Association’, Nyasaland Tea Association Quarterly Journal I, 2 (1936), 5–6.Google Scholar

76 McWilliam, , ‘East African tea industry’, 60–1.Google Scholar

77 The original official figures in General Notice No. 203 of 13 July 1935 were Mlanje 8, 856 acres, Cholo 8,844 acres. It was subsequently discovered that the area of the Glenorchy Estate, Mlanje, was 486 acres rather than 488, and thus the Mlanje total was adjusted downwards to 8,854 acres. See Appendix.

78 S 1/499.B/32, Minute by Small, 27 March 1936.Google Scholar

79 C.O., 852/616/9, ‘Report of the Commission of Inquiry to advise and report upon the allocation of…4,040 acres for the growing of tea…’, 1944, 3–4.Google Scholar

80 C.O., 852/147/5, Kittermaster to MacDonald, 13 08 1938.Google Scholar

81 C.O. 852/616/9, ‘Report of the Commission…’, 13, 17, 19. The Commission originally allocated 2,039 acres to existing estates and 2,039 acres to newcomers. Included among the latter, however, were eleven ‘ provisional’ allocations, totalling 1,089 acres, for which ratification would depend on subsequent enquiry determining that the land in question was suitable for tea growing. In the event only two were approved, of 297 acres, and the final allocation, ratified in Government Notice No. 77 of 21 October 1944, was 2,339 acres to existing estates and 1,247 acres to newcomers. See Appendix.

82 There were two particularly acriminious meetings of the NTA during 1936, at which allegations of illegal planting were voiced and much anti-Italian passion, possibly aroused by the invasion of Ethiopia, was directed against the planters Conforzi and de Vito, who had both received new allocations of tea. Affidavits were tossed into the ring. S 1/499B/32, Record of a Special General Meeting, NTA, 4 March 1936; Ibid. Minutes by Small and Hall, 27 and 28 March 1936; Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/2, Proceedings of a General Meeting, NTA, 7 July 1936.

83 C.O., 852/447/2, Minute by Murray, 30 05 1942.Google Scholar

84 C.O., 852/616/9, ‘Report of the Commission…’, 17.Google Scholar

85 S, 1A/230, Minute by Blunt, 26 04 1939.Google Scholar

86 S, 1 A/234, Minute by Tait Bowie, 10 09 1940.Google Scholar For further details, see McWilliam, , ‘East African tea industry’, 41Google Scholar; Swainson, , Corporate Capitalism, 80, 87.Google Scholar

87 The Director of Agriculture was shown a letter ‘to the manager of one of the larger concerns from his home office in which it was said that “Conforzi must be stopped”’. Evidently his hope, expressed four years earlier, that ‘these are not the days for inter-estate or inter-company jealousy’ proved misplaced. S 1/499B/32, Minute by Small, 27 March 1936; W. Small, ‘Tea research in Nyasaland’, in Nyasaland Protectorate, Department of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 1 (New Series), (Zomba, 1932), 3.

88 NSM 3/1/5, Report of the D.C, Mlanje, for 1934.

89 S 1/79c/36, Report of the D.C, Cholo, for 1935.

90 A South African expert, complete with travelling canteen, gave a demonstration of tea making in Lilongwe market and a cinema display ‘against the prison wall’; kiosks were established at railway stations from which ½d cups of tea, over 100,000 in 1939, and free scones were dispensed; tea was issued to tea pluckers and an attempt was made to persuade the government to issue tea rations to troops, prisoners and patients. S 1/84/37, P-C., Central Province, to Chief Secretary, 2 July 1937; A 3/2/250, Hadlow to Small, 14 Nov. 1935; Annual Reports of the Nyasaland Tea Market Expansion Board in Nyasaland Tea Association Quarterly Journal 1,4(1937), 9–12; Ibid. 11,4(1938), 6–8; Ibid, m, 2 (1938), 4–5; Ibid, iv, 3 (1940), 13–14.

81 Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/2, Minutes of 2nd AGM, NTA, 5 May 1938; Report of the International Tea Committee, 1st April 1938 to 31st March 1939 (London, 1939), 32. Writing in 1954, Eden noted that’ Of recent years, according to the magnitude of the crop, this [East African] domestic consumption has varied between 33 % and 50 % of the total production’. Eden, ‘Tea industry’, 205.

62 Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/3, MMBD, NTA, 28 Oct. 1936. Thirty years later it had risen to over £15 million. Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. The Tea Industry in Malawi, Report dated 30th December 1966 (London, 1966), 10. There are those who argue that the Tea Industry has always tended greatly to inflate the stated amount of capital investment as part of a strategy devised to reduce liability for income tax.

93 Bledisole Commission, Evidence of Barrow, M. P., 25 06 1938, 1032.Google Scholar

94 C.O., 852/147/5, Minute by Clauson, 29 07 1938.Google Scholar

95 Sir Robert Graham, Chairman of the ITC, told the Colonial Office in January 1943 that ‘he personally had changed his opinion, and now thought it would be of great benefit if representatives of the Governments of the chief consuming representatives were appointed to the Committee.’ C.O. 852/447/7, Minute by Figg, 11 Jan. 1943. This official change of mind was then publicized in Morrison, Tea, 73.

96 Morrison, , Tea, 86–9.Google Scholar

97 C.O., 852/447/1, Note on Tin and Rubber Regulation Schemes, 1941.Google Scholar

98 C.O., 852/519/6, Minute by Clauson, 29 07 1943.Google Scholar

99 C.O., 852/659B/6, Minute by Clauson, 10 10 1944.Google Scholar

100 C.O., 852/616/11, Minute by Clauson, 6 08 1946.Google Scholar

101 , Wickizer, Tea, 101.Google Scholar

102 The increase was ¾d per lb for 1940, 1941 and 1942, 2¼d for 1943, and 3d per lb for 1944 and 1945. These figures were higher than those for Kenya but lower than the increases awarded to India and Ceylon. MAF 87/264, ‘History of tea control 1939–1945’, Act. 1945.

103 Over two million lbs of Nyasaland tea were awaiting shipment in the Beira docks in January 1941, and the NTA was forced to use part of its cess fund to build storage sheds at Luchenza, the rail head nearest to Cholo and Mlanje. Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/2, Minutes of Meeting of the Tea Producers, NTA, 18 Jan. 1941; C.O. 852/447/3, Kennedy to Moyne, 24 Feb. 1941.

104 C.O., 852/447/12, Ministry of Food to Tea Commissioner, Nyasaland, 24 July 1942.Google Scholar

106 Westrop, , Green Gold, 170–1.Google Scholar

106 Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/4, Minutes of Extraordinary General Meeting, NTA, 22 Feb. 1951.

107 Nyasaland Protectorate, Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture 1943 (Zomba, 1944), 6.

108 H. H. Storey and R. Leach, Tea Yellows Disease, Nyasaland Protectorate, Depart ment of Agriculture, Bulletin No. 3 (New Series) (Zomba, 1932); H. H. Storey and R. Leach, ‘A sulphur-deficiency disease of the tea bush’, Annals of Applied Biology xx (1933), 23–56.

109 Annual Report of the Department of Agriculture ig4i (Zomba, 1942), 8.

110 Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/3, Minutes of 5th AGM, NTA, 24 Apr. 1941.

111 S 1A/235, correspondence on tea production and export in the event of war, 1938–9; Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/3, Minutes of General Meeting, NTA, 19 Oct. 1939; DMP 1/10/1, Deputy Governor, Tanganyika, to OAG, Nyasaland, 2 Feb. 1940. Of the 2,050 acres of tea allocated by the ITC for 1938–43, 1,265 acres were originally awarded to German planters. This was re-allocated after the start of the war. C.O. 852/447/3, OAG, Tanganyika to Moyne, 3 Aug. 1941.

112 Declining the offer, the Director of Manpower understood that ‘planters in Malaya have labour consisting either of recruited Tamils or indentured Chinese. They have the Government behind them in any labour troubles and it appears to me problematical as to whether elderly Malayan planters would be able to handle Nyasaland's labour in a satisfactory manner’. DMP 1/10/2, Smith to Director of Agriculture, 13 May 1942.

113 NSE 5/1/5, Report of the D.C., Cholo, for 1938.

114 Robin Palmer, ‘Land alienation and agricultural conflict in colonial Zambia1, in Robert I. Rotberg (ed.), Imperialism, Colonialism and Hunger: East and Central Africa (Lexington, 1983), 103–4; Ian Spencer, ‘Settler dominance, agricultural production and the Second World War in Kenya’, Journal of African History xxi (1980), 497–514; Deborah Fahy Bryceson, ‘Changes in peasant food production and food supply in relation to the historical development of commodity production in pre-colonial and colonial Tanganyika’, Journal of Peasant Studies vn (1980), 303–5.

115 Hist. MSS. NY 11/1/4, Minutes of 12th AGM, NTA, 16 June 1948; Ibid. Minutes of Extraordinary General Meeting, NTA, 6 Feb. 1952.

116 Ibid. Minutes of Special General Meeting, NTA, 7 Jan. 1947.

117 Ministry of Food bulk buying of coffee, cocoa, cotton, sugar, copper, oils, fats and bananas continued into the 1950s; bulk buying of rubber had ended in 1946, of sisal in 1948 and of tin in 1949. From 1947 Nyasaland tea planters had the option of either selling on contract to the Ministry of Food or of seeking alternative outlets.

118 Westrop, Green Gold, 50. A Tanganyika writer agreed that ‘we have benefited to a large extent from restriction’. C.O. 852/85/1, Gee to Boyd, 25 Oct. 1937.

119 Nyasaland Protectorate, Record of the Proceedings of a Meeting of the Sixty-third Session of the Legislative Council held at Zomba on Tuesday, iyth February, 1948 (Zomba, 1948), 18–19.

120 This Agreement was made in order to avoid the danger of uncontrolled production. However, for the moment it contained no export quotas or prohibitions on planting, though it was felt that these could subsequently be reimposed if required.

121 In 1947 Tanganyika allowed its Tea Ordinance to lapse. Those in Kenya and Uganda were amended, but in such a way as to remove all restrictions on plantings and exports. The ITC interpreted these as hostile acts and concluded that East Africa had automatically withdrawn from the International Tea Agreement. Me William, ‘East African tea industry’, 171–2. The Colonial Office certainly supported these moves by the East African countries; unfortunately the tea files for 1947, 1948 and 1949 (as well as many more) in the Public Record Office have been ‘destroyed under statute’.

122 Hist. MSS. NY n/1/5, MMBD, NTA, 21 May 1948.

123 Proceedings of Legislative Council, 28 Feb. 1949, 20–1.

124 C.O. 852/1175/3, Poynton to Colby, 18 Dec. 1950. By the end of the Second World War over 80 per cent of all colonial exports had been subject to bulk purchase agreements.

126 Rogers at the Colonial Office acknowledged that ‘we are not on very firm ground, as the Minister's statement was incorrect insofar as Nyasaland was concerned. We had consistently pressed the Ministry of Food from 1949 onwards to let us have information on proposals under consideration and the lines on which discussions with the Dominions were proceeding which we could transmit to the Colonies. They failed dismally to do so’. C.O. 852/1175/3, Minute by Rogers, 2 Dec. 1950. This is but one example of the ongoing conflict between the Colonial Office, representing producers, and the Ministry of Food, representing consumers.

126 C.O., 852/1175/3, Colby to Poynton, 10 11 1950.Google Scholar

127 Ibid. Poynton to Colby, 18 Dec. 1950.