This appeared in TA 30 (May 1988)

Too much old school tie
“Tanganyika is no fairy land. It is suffering from too much old school tie”. So wrote the Tanganyika Herald in its issue of 5th February 1938. It quoted extensively and prominently from some writing it had discovered in an Oxford newspaper by a Mr. John Balfour who had recently returned from a 10,000 mile African tour.

Hr. Balfour wrote: “The Administrative Officer’s life is to sit in an office from 8.30 to 12.30 and 2 to 4 doing sums, writing memoranda and reports just as he did for examinations at school. At 4 o’clock sharp he puts down his pen, has tea and then plays golf, tennis or football. The British magistrate adjourns his court even though in the middle of delivering a judgement. At sundown the officer sips whiskies and sodas and plays bridge.

From the lowest officer to the Governor, from the Governor to the Colonial Office, the administration is a machine in which no single cog can budge until a group of others has been started. Individual action brings frowns. An academic system of rules is pinned on the board like the rules of a public school.

An official with 15 years experience complained to me that he had less power, responsibility and money and more interference than when he started.

The Administration is grossly overstaffed. In a certain specialised department 66% of the expenditure goes to pay the official’s salary; another hefty slice goes to the native subordinates.
But if staffs or salaries were cut down public school boys would not consent to be colonial administrators. The job would not allow them to lead the lives of leisured sportsmen from four o’clock onwards ……

Inciting Zanzibar Arabs
The ‘Tanganyika Opinion’ in its leading article of February 25th 1938 wrote that: “The British Resident in Zanzibar has fully maintained the honoured traditions of British diplomacy (fithina) in his recent speech at the Arab Idd Baraza. As all the world and its wife knows, the whole trouble about the clove trade in Zanzibar originated with the formation of what is called the ‘Clove Growers Association’ (CGA). To judge from its nomenclature, one would suppose that it is an association of the actual clove growers. But it is nothing of the sort and the leading lights of the CGA have as little to do with the growing of cloves as we have with the growing of potatoes. It is a body bossed by the representatives of British commercial interests in Zanzibar for the express purpose of ousting the Indian traders from the clove market. It has created an unjust monopoly so that the growers of cloves will have to content themselves with selling their produce to the CGA willy-nilly at prices much lower than they would have realised in a free and competitive market.

When this CGA was first brought into being the clove growers of Zanzibar (both Arabs and natives) strongly resented it but, being mostly an inarticulate and unorganised people, their protest could not take any tangible form.

The Indian traders were made of sterner stuff. Being an intelligent and self-respecting people they had no alternative but to resist the Government’s Clove Decrees and, as they knew that India was a large importer of Zanzibar cloves they naturally sought the assistance of their motherland. India accepted the challenge and has decided to maintain a boycott of Zanzibar cloves until the Government abolishes the CGA and recognises the principles of free trade”.

The article went on to quote the speech of the Resident [President ? post editor] in which he indicated that the Government was considering a change of policy. He did not believe that (although he admitted that they had a grievance) the Indians would want to be in permanent antagonism with the Government and with their Arab and Swahili fellow citizens as all were suffering from the effects of the boycott.

This appeared in TA issue 29 (January 1988)

German propaganda in Tanganyika
The Tanganyika Standard (March 5, 1938) reported on a question that had been asked in the House of Commons in London. “Has the Minister’s attention been drawn to the intensification of German propaganda in Tanganyika which was of an anti-British character and urged the transfer of the territory to Germany”. The Minister replied acknowledging the existence of some propaganda of the nature specified but added that the Government of Tanganyika had the matter under constant observation and would take any measures to deal with it which appeared requisite.

Seeing the country again after twenty years
The London representative of the Kenya and Uganda Railways and Harbours, a Mr. W.M. Hardy, was reported in the Tanganyika Standard of February 12th 1938 to have been visiting Tanganyika after an interval of 20 years. He noticed a few changes.

“The development of the gold mining industry has taken place since my day” he said, “as have the immense strides in aviation with the regular internal and trans-Africa services. Dar es Salaam has grown out of all knowledge and the number of buildings and fresh enterprises seems to be legion. As you know however, it is trifling things that strike one on returning to a place. One that surprised me (especially in the towns) is the tendency for people nowadays to dispense with sun helmets and even with hats altogether. In my day, no one would have dreamed of going on the street without a helmet or other cover.

The Wachagga Unrest
The Indian owned ‘Tanganyika Opinion’ in its leading article on February 4th 1938 attacked it’s contemporary – the Tanganyika Standard which it considered to be a Government mouthpiece.

“Our local European contemporary has at last been constrained to admit what we have been saying all along that, contrary to the statement by the Government that the recent riots in the Kilimanjaro area were the outcome of the mischievous activities of a handful of irresponsible agitators, there was widespread unrest among the native coffee growers …. and that the riots were the acts of a people who were driven to desperation owing to their inability of having a legitimate grievance redressed.

It is unthinkable that the omniscient Government with its costly ramifications throughout the length and breadth of the country can be unaware of the reports of victimisation etc which reach the much humbler organisations represented by the Fourth Estate. It is therefore reasonable to suppose that the Government are fully aware of the malpractices of certain Chiefs but to be under the necessity of condoning them. And Why? We can only refer to the second part of King Henry IV in which William Shakespeare records the following dialogue:

Davy: I beseech you Sir, to countenance William Visor of Wincot against Clement Perkes of the Hill.
Sha1 (Mr. Justice Shallow); There are many complaints Davy against that Visor; that Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge.
Davy: I grant your worship that he is a knave Sir, but yet, God forgive Sir, but a knave should have some countenance at his friend’s request. An honest man, Sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not. I have served your worship truly, Sir, this eight years; and if I cannot once or twice in a quarter, bear out a knave against an honest man, I have very little credit with your worship. The knave is mine honest friend, Sir; therefore I beseech your worship, let him be countenanced.
Shal: Go to; I say; he shall have no wrong.

The point of comparison is obvious. Granting that the Chiefs are in the habit of harassing the population, they nevertheless squeeze out the taxes from them and fill the coffers of the Government … therefore the Government must needs overlook their misdemeanours and countenance them. A Government that has mainly got to depend on Native taxation for its costly and extravagant top-heavy administration cannot afford to be over nice in such matters.