Through South Africa Part 8

RHODESIA IN THE HANDS OF LAND GRABBERS.

"Some existing African Companies hold farm lands," remarked the interviewer. "Ought they turn their attention promptly to the agricultural development of those lands, instead of confining their attention so exclusively to mineral wealth?"

"Certainly," said Mr Stanley. "Take, for instance, the Willoughby Consolidated. They have an enormous acreage of land. The people of Bulawayo wanted water, so a certain number formed a company to make the waterworks. They had to buy about 6000 acres from the Willoughby Consolidated to protect their watershed. Supposing these people had not bought the land for the sake of the waterworks, the Willoughby Consolidated would have kept all this vast acreage to themselves, and would have developed it only according to the necessities of the neighbourhood, or sold it to some settlers who wanted to live there.

Most of Rhodesia has been divided in that way by the people who grabbed at the territory, so that poor settlers, the bone, marrow, and sinew, are frightened by the prices."

"Do you, then, think that the best farms are already allotted?"

"One who was only in the country such a short time as myself cannot go into all these small details. He can only say that his impression is that the people complained that most of the best lands had been taken up by the great companies. Miners are disposed to hold very cheering ideas in regard to the minerals, and more miners come in than agriculturists.

Therefore it strikes me, seeing those miners come in in such numbers, that something has been left undone; the responsible authorities ought to have seen that the proper settlers who could feed those people were induced to come at the same time. Earl Grey or some other Director should be asked if the Chartered Company had kept habitable land in Rhodesia which might be sold for farms; if they had reserved sufficient farming acreage for the wants of a farming population, or if they had sold it all to the great companies. It would be people like Earl Grey who could give you these details. We can only get impressions from the mutterings of those in the country who say, 'What is the use of coming here? all the good land is gobbled up by the companies.' One would be glad to have the matter explained. Farmers with 500 pounds capital, if they could get land cheap in Rhodesia, might be tempted to settle there, but if the land is in the hands of companies, those companies will want to make big profits. The Chartered Company are under the necessity of selling land to get money. The greater the run of farmers to Rhodesia the higher would be the prices of land. The Chartered Company, we can see, have been liberal enough to miners, but I doubt whether they have been so liberal to the farmer cla.s.s."

"From your experience of the conditions in England, do you think people at home would respond readily to an effort by Mr Rhodes and the Rhodesian Government to attract them to Rhodesia?"

"Yes, I do, because South Africa is as pleasant a place to live in as any part of the world that I have visited. It is certainly more pleasant than the cold north of Canada. America was very good, but it is not superior to South Africa. The United States Government, however, had a very large reserve of land which they could afford to give at 2.5 dollars an acre, and they gave 160 acres of land to anyone who would promise to settle there for five years and build houses and improve the land. That is what the Chartered Company should do. If you have an estate, you must invest a portion of your capital in seed and in machines for cultivating the land; if you regard a State as a farm, the best seed you can put into it is a farming population. Settlers who develop the soil contribute as much wealth to the State as those who dig for minerals. Perfected communication also adds value to every acre. I had at one time to explain why I did not consider the land of the Congo State worth a two-shilling piece, because it was impossible to reach it, but, I said, if you make it accessible to me it is worth so much an acre. If you leave me isolated in the heart of the Congo, I throw away my life and the two-shilling piece."

"Is there in Rhodesia plenty of land beyond what is required for the Matabele and the Mashonas?"

WHAT THE CHARTERED COMPANY SHOULD DO.

"Well," replied Mr Stanley, "the natives have always got the slopes of the country. It is, of course, a white man's land, because the white man has taken it. At the same time there are reserves, and the question is, how much of the reserves for the whites has been put aside for agriculturists. Ought the Company to be satisfied with having only miners in Rhodesia who will employ the natives, and after all the gold is got will retire and leave Rhodesia the black man's country that it was, or do the authorities intend to plant an English race permanently there? What are their offers? The Chartered Company ought to give 160 acres of land to any settlers who will undertake to develop it and remain on it for five years, after which the land would be their own. A somewhat similar system is adopted with regard to the mines. If you peg out claims you must work them. So it ought to be with the agricultural land. Having done this, it would remain for the Chartered Company to do their utmost to increase facilities for communication. If they gave reserves free to the natives whom they had conquered, they certainly ought to give at least the same advantages to the white settlers who are to make the country prosperous and to yield revenue by the payment of taxes."

RHODESIAN RAILWAYS.

"Did you observe the criticisms of the _Financial News_ on your proposal regarding the railway from Bulawayo to the sea?" asked the interviewer.

"Yes," said Mr Stanley. "The _Financial News_ does not see the object of making two railways between Bulawayo and the coast, but I was writing from the Bulawayo standpoint. If Bulawayo is to be the capital of Matabeleland, it has as much right to branch out in all directions as Salisbury has in Mashonaland. Naturally, if I were a Bulawayan, I should not care to see Salisbury getting all the plums, especially as Bulawayo is better situated than Salisbury. A railway from Bulawayo to Victoria would bring out the merits of the latter place. There are already over a thousand whites between Bulawayo and Victoria, and a great many gold claims. Then, again, it is only twelve miles from Victoria to Zimbabwe. A great many people want to see the ruins.

Tourists go to Victoria first, and thence drive in carriages to Zimbabwe. Thus, from all these sources, mines, settlers, merchants, and tourists, the railway would have a good revenue, while the company would have other indirect gains. From Victoria to Umtali you could make a junction with the existing line to Beira. Bulawayo should shoot out its right arm towards the Indian Ocean, for another reason. Supposing, in the event of an outbreak, a scheme were formed by the Boers to cross over the border and occupy the Bechua.n.a.land Railway, where would Rhodesia be? Rhodesia would be cut off, unless it was abandoned, which is improbable. You thus see the necessity of two entrances, one from the east and one from the south. Supposing Bulawayo, on account of its two exits, begins to thrive, and the development of the land is increasing at a great pace, the next thing necessary is to extend its tentacles in other directions, and get more trade. It will not omit the Zambesi Coal Fields and the Victoria Falls. There is another object you have, not only for the tourist to see the Falls, but also the coal fields lying close to them. You reach the Victoria Falls and you have Loanda and the Trans-African Railway, which already reaches 160 miles to the interior; you can either join with that or you can construct a separate line to Mossamedes. You thus draw another line of country to increase the trade of Bulawayo. I am speaking now from the point of view of Bulawayo as a centre of trade. The compet.i.tion between it and Salisbury might be compared to that which existed for a quarter of a century between Saint Louis and Chicago. The former was a very conservative city; it had its enormous fleet of steamers and the whole Mississippi tributary to it, and when it had 250,000 of a population, Chicago had only 50,000. The people of Chicago, however, were determined to tap every field of trade within reach. They struck off to California, Denver, Utah, Saint Louis, to the north-west, and down to New Orleans, so that to-day Chicago has a population of one and a half millions, and Saint Louis only 500,000. Bulawayo is more favourably situated for railway expansion than Salisbury, which is inclined too far to the north-east, whilst Bulawayo is almost as near to Beira as Salisbury is. It is, moreover, as near to Mossamedes as to the Cape, and it has the whole Congo State to the direct north of it.

Consequently it would, become a kind of Chicago, drawing the trade of all those countries, so that as the new white men scattered, some to the Zambesi, raising a town near the coal fields, and hotels near, the Falls and Zimbabwe ruins, Bulawayo would feed them all. At the same time, Cape Town would become the New York of South Africa. If this were accomplished, then, in any eventuality, Bulawayo and Rhodesia would be secure in their independence, for they would have their two exits to the Indian Ocean and to the Atlantic, and could still remain British."

"Probably Cape Town would look askance at any proposal to establish a port at Mossamedes?" said the interviewer.

"Yes," replied Mr Stanley, "but Rhodesia does not belong to the Cape, and what is good for its prosperity must be considered apart from Cape Town, and, as Rhodesia thrives so long as it is connected with the Cape, the latter will always profit by it. Tourists will prefer to go to Cape Town because there they will be among Englishmen instead of Portuguese, but goods would go to Mossamedes and thus cut off five days in transit."

BLACK AND WHITE.

"Do you think the black men in South Africa are likely to disappear as the whites increase?"

"No," replied Mr Stanley, "I do not think they will. There are now so many wedges of white population between the native territories that any native movement can at once be checked. I see abundance of hope in that direction for the prevention of any federation of the natives such as used to be tried in the early days of the American Colonies. There the cause was want of communication, with an enormous area covered by Indians and only a few scattered settlements of whites, but in South Africa you have nothing of that kind. The natives will all be wanted.

There are certain things that they alone can do, such as working in the open air in the summer. The white men are the makers of money, and the natives must naturally be the hewers of wood and drawers of water."