This appeared in TA issue 33 May 1989

SETTLER FARMING
Tanganyika Opinion (January 7, 1939) discussed non- native agriculture in the light of the annual report of the Department of Lands and Mines. More land was in the hands of other Europeans than in the hands of British settlers. Germans held some 455,000 acres and Greeks 177,000 but the total non-British European settlement totalled 1,014,000 acres. Indians held 278,000 acres and South African ‘Dutch’ 55,000.

But it was the quality of the farming which was exercising the newspaper. According to the then Director of Agriculture (a Mr. Harrison) settlers had an overweening tendency to speculation, there were too many bad coffee estates, many ill-tended and worthless cotton fields and a waste of valuable labour. There was, he said, “a poverty of knowledge, aptitude and money”.

The indictment of Mr. Harrison, the paper wrote, must be wiped out by the creation of better conditions. “This cannot be done by reading lectures …. it can be done by sympathetic guidance, co-operation and the creation of opportunities for self-training”

TANGA TOWNSHIP AUTHORITY TURNS NAZI
Under this heading Tanganyika Opinion (January 27, 1939) outlined new town planning regulations laid down by the Tanga Township Authority. One condition required that in any new building plans flats must not be occupied by more than one family and the family must consist of not more than six adults or, alternatively, two adults and eight children all of whom must be under the age of ten years. Great indignation was said to prevail in Asian circles in Tanga and the Indian Association had brought the matter to the attention of His Excellency the Governor of Tanganyika. The Governor had indicated however that he could not intervene as the conditions were due to the requirements of hygiene and sanitation.

This appeared in TA 32 (Jan 1989)

Fifty years ago Tanganyikans knew that a major war was threatening Europe. The Tanganyika Herald of 1939 included the following news items.

January 21. The East African Indian Congress passed the following resolution yesterday; ‘This conference is of the opinion that H.M. Government should not bargain with Germany on the fate of Tanganyika; that the future of that territory should be decided on the principle of self-determination by the peoples residing in the territory and that, in the meanwhile, the administration should remain on the basis of British mandate under the League of Nations as at present.’

February 3. In a report from a correspondent in Britain: ‘The activities of the Tanganyika League have been well received here. At any rate most intelligent people here now know where Tanganyika is on the map – which in my experience is quite a new thing. The ordinary man is, I think, opposed to giving the Territory away to Germany. But the Tanganyika League should not relax its activities; rather should it increase and intensify them. Absolute security is far from being won.’

February 25. Quoting from the News Review of London: ‘On orders received from the Chancellery, the Berlin Colonial League has started classifying Germany’s colonial claims. The details are to be included in a report which will form the basis for Germany’s first demand. It will probably be for the return of Tanganyika which is needed for its sisal, cotton, timber, rubber, coffee, ivory, wax, leather and skins. The draft report also states that the number of German farmers in Tanganyika has grown from 400 in 1931 to 4,000 in 1939. All were said to be members of the German Colonial League.’

February 25. At a meeting of the Executive Council of the Joint East African Board in London it was revealed that the Council of German Jewry had stated that it was disinclined to organise Jewish settlement in Tanganyika.

April 1. Under the heading Town Gossip: ‘I have heard it said that Tanganyika is the safest place in East Africa because the Germans will not throw bombs here when they have it in their minds that they would be destroying a country of which they hope to be the owners.’

April 22. It has been decided to carry out an experimental blackout in Dar es Salaam on Wednesday evening when all lights must be switched off between 9.30 and 10.30 p.m. Sirens will sound at nine p.m. An observer will cruise over the town in an aeroplane to report on the experiment.

May 5. The well known Indian advocate, Mr. D. M. Anjaria addressed a meeting of nearly 1,000 people in Dar es Salaam and explained about air raids, bombs, gas, precautions for the safety of buildings and measures already taken by the government.

May 5. With a view to accelerating the raising of the additional company of the Kings African Rifles which was announced on Friday. Certain officers of the KAR Reserve of Officers have volunteered for service pending the arrival of regular staff from England.

May 12. The people of Zanzibar have been warned that in the event of an air raid it will be necessary to evacuate the town. Zanzibar possesses 800 vehicles and all of them will be used under Government supervision. The population should start constructing shelters at Shamba.

May 20. Under the title ‘German Land in Africa’ the first of a series of films is being shown in Germany. In the film German settlers at work in Tanganyika are described as model colonisers and the natives are depicted as awaiting with impatience the return of a German administration. It is remarked that ‘the German has a hard hand but a soft heart – the Englishman a soft hand but a hard heart’.

May 27. Nazi attitudes to Indian settlers in East Africa have been made the object of a special article in the Deutscher Kolonialdienst. It states that Indian settlers are a serious danger to the vital interests of Europeans. They are accused of acquiring properties from Germans after the Great War at a fraction of their true value.

June 3. H.E. the Governor has stated that ‘the conviction is now, I believe, widespread, that whatever may be the terms of any settlement between H.M’s Government and another power, it is not within the bounds of possibility that the handing over of Tanganyika Territory will be included in those terms.’

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.