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The Political Economy of Primary Railway Construction in the Rhodesias, 1890–1911

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Jon Lunn
Jon Lunn
Affiliation:
House of Commons Library, London
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Extract

The main trunk lines of the Rhodesian railway system were built under the aegis of Cecil Rhodes' British South Africa Company (BSA Co.) between 1890 and 1911. This article begins with an analysis of the motivations behind railway construction during this period. It argues that interpretations which set up a dichotomy between ‘Rhodes-as-imperialist’ and ‘Rhodes-as-capitalist’ are misconceived. Nevertheless, it shows how the motivations behind railway development took on a more narrowly economic and financial character after the fiasco of the Jameson Raid in 1896 put paid to Rhodes' sub-imperial ambitions.

There follows an analysis of the economic and financial foundations of the BSA Co.'s regional railway monopoly. The article charts how railway construction was sustained through the manipulation of the interlocking interests of the BSA Co. and the Witwatersrand; through the creation of a ‘group structure’ of railway companies; and through the triangular relationship which developed between the BSA Co., Paulings, the monopoly contractor, and d'Erlangers, the chief broker and underwriter of railway loan (debenture) capital.

Finally, two fundamental allegations made by critics of the railway policy of the BSA Co. are assessed: firstly, that debenture finance was a means of distributing disguised dividends to itself and its friends; secondly, that these disguised dividends were paid for by the settlers through exorbitant railway rates. The nature of debt within the railway monopoly, the functions of debenture finance and the imperatives which shaped rating policy are discussed. The allegations are revealed to be ill-founded. It is argued that the tensions between the settlers and the BSA Co., their interdependence notwithstanding, were rooted in conflicting perceptions of what the priorities and parameters of economic development should be.

Type
Railways and Imperialism in Rhodesia
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , July 1992 , pp. 239 - 254
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 This quotation comes from Phimister, I. R., ‘Towards a history of Zimbabwe's Rhodesia Railways’, Zimbabwean History, XII (1981), 71.Google Scholar The main examples of this tradition are, Weinthal, L. (ed.), The Story of the Cape to Cairo Railway and River Route from 1887 to 1922 (London, 1923)Google Scholar; Pauling, G., The Chronicles of a Contractor (London, 1926)Google Scholar; Varian, H. F., Some African Milestones (Oxford, 1953)Google Scholar; Letcher, O., When Life was Rusted Through (Bulawayo, 1973)Google Scholar; d'Erlanger, Baron E. B., The History of the Construction and Finance of the Rhodesian Transport System (privately published, 1939)Google Scholar; Burman, J., Early Railways of the Cape (Cape Town, 1984).Google Scholar Finally, see also Croxton, A. H., Railways of Zimbabwe (Newton Abbot, 1982).Google Scholar Croxton, a retired long-service employee of the Rhodesia Railways, attempts to provide a scholarly account but belongs in his assumptions to the ‘huntin’ and shootin” tradition.

2 Katzenellenbogen, S. E., Railways and the Copper Mines of Katanga (Oxford, 1973).Google Scholar See also Katzenellenbogen's, ‘Zambia and Rhodesia, prisoners of the past: a note on the history of railway politics in Central Africa’, African Affairs, LXXIII (1974), 63–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and South Africa and Mozambique: Labour, Railways and Trade in the Making of a Relationship (Manchester, 1982).Google Scholar Other significant academic studies are: Vail, L., ‘The making of an Imperial slum: Nyasaland and its railways, 1895–1935’ J. Southern Afr. Studies, 1 (1975), 89–112Google Scholar; Purkis, A., ‘The politics, capital and labour of railway building in the Cape Colony, 1870–1885’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford, 1978)Google Scholar; Maylam, P., Rhodes, the Tswana and the British: Colonialism, Collaboration and Conflict in the Bechuanaland Protectorate (Connecticut, 1980)Google Scholar; Wilburn Junior, K. E., ‘The climax of railway competition in South Africa, 1886–1899’ (Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford, 1982).Google Scholar Finally, in terms of earlier exponents, see Frankel, S. H., The Railway Policy of South Africa (Johannesburg, 1928).Google Scholar

3 See, for example, Lockhart, J. C. and Woodhouse, C. M., Rhodes (London, 1963)Google Scholar; Galbraith, J. S., Crown and Charter: The Early Years of the British South Africa Company (Los Angeles, 1974).Google Scholar

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20 d'Erlanger, Baron E. B., My Souvenirs (privately printed, 1938), 172–86.Google Scholar I thank Pauling and Co. Ltd for supplying me with a photocopy of these revelations; d'Erlanger, , Construction and Finance, 20Google Scholar; Pauling, Chronicles of a Contractor, 142.

21 d'Erlanger, , Construction and Finance, 13–14.Google Scholar

22 Ibid. 24–7.

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24 d'Erlanger, , Construction and Finance, 36.Google Scholar

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31 Hammond, , Report, 1, 13–16.Google Scholar

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33 Phimister, , ‘Towards a history’, 85–6Google Scholar; for discussions of rating structures, see Mosley, P., The Settler Economies: Studies in the Economic History of Kenya and Southern Rhodesia (Cambridge, 1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Hawkins, A. M., ‘The railway rating policy of Rhodesia Railways, 1949–60’ (B. Litt. thesis, Oxford University, 1963).Google Scholar

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35 Memo of the General Manager, 24 Jan. 1922, Ton Mile Cost Book, Rhodesia Railways 1928–48, National Railways of Zimbabwe Museum, 681/1069. Hawkins, , ‘Railway rating policy’, 104Google Scholar; Phimister, , ‘Towards a history’, 86.Google Scholar

36 d'Erlanger, , Construction and Finance, 14.Google Scholar

37 Reform Movement, 46–8.

38 Hone, , Southern Rhodesia, 329–30.Google Scholar

39 NAZ A/1/5/5, Administrator's Office, In Letters, J. F. Jones to W. Milton, 18 Sept. 1903.

40 Hammond, , Report, 1, 6–8.Google Scholar

41 South African State Archives (SAS), Pretoria, Vol. 372, F15397, Vryburg-Bulawayo and Rhodesia Railways, 1911–30. Memo on relations between the South African Railways and the Rhodesia Railways, and the Beira and Mashonaland Railways, August 1931, 7–11.

42 Ibid. 12; SAS Vol. 1612, RG 230, Division of revenue between Rhodesia Railways and the South African Railways, 1911–51. Memo on the Vryburg-Bulawayo section, the Rates Officer, 15 April 1912.

43 Mosley, , Settler Economies, 66.Google Scholar

44 Reform Movement, 47–8.

45 Phimister, , ‘Accommodating Imperialism: the compromise of the settler state in Southern Rhodesia, 1923–9’, J. Afr. Hist., XXV (1984), 294.Google Scholar For a detailed account of relations between the settler-colonial state and the railways after ‘responsible government’, see Lunn, ‘Capital and labour’, chs. 2 and 3.

46 Phimister, , ‘Towards a history’, 79.Google Scholar