History of Tanzania part v; The political Economy of the colonial State of Germany and British

        THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE COLONIAL STATE
                         GERMAN AND BRITISH PERIOD

COLONIAL ECONOMY

INTRODUCTION

• It is generally known that, African resistances in colonial Tanganyika were completely suppressed by the superior German forces. This situation brought these societies under German control.

• For this control to be effective, the Germans had to establish effective administrative policies. These administrative policies were aiming at consolidating colonial economies that would facilitate the exploitation of Africa's human and material resources.

• The established economy intended to serve the interests of the capitalism and had the following general characteristics:

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– It was based on the production of agricultural and mineral raw materials demanded y the capitalist industries

– It was dominated by commercial sector which specialized in the exportation of African raw materials and importation of European manufactured goods.

• Colonial economy was therefore designed to suit the nature of capitalist economic system. The European capitalists got cheap raw materials from the colonies, while the colonies imported expensive European manufactured goods.

• In this way the capitalists were able to gain high rate of profits through exploitative operations. These exploitative relations of production so established, were regulated and legitimized by the colonial state.

• For example, it was the colonial state which was responsible in alienating people from their land, the state supervised the recruitment of laborers for plantations and mining centers, it also built infrastructural facilities to facilitate the exploitation of resources and man power, and through its coercive instruments it created peaceful production environment by suppressing African resistances, like the Majimaji rebellion.

• Nature of colonial economy

• To the metropolitan states, the purpose of colonial economic policies was to facilitate and promote maximum exploitation at minimum costs. To ensure effective operations of their policies, they had to restructure (reform) the traditional African economy. In the process of restructuring African traditional economy, Europeans used different three major techniques:

Ø Preservation: by preservation, the colonialists preserved some elements of pre colonial economies. For example:

– The primitive and crude tools of production such as hoes, pangas, and axes were preserved

– The family was also preserved and remained as the basic unit of production. This partly explains why Europeans took deliberate efforts to abolish slave trade in their colonies.

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Ø Destruction : by destruction, the colonialists destroyed self sufficient African economies. The colonial state made deliberate efforts to smash down traditional African economies. This was done through a number of ways:

– By flooding African markets with European manufactured goods which were in large quantities, of relatively high quality, and cheaply sold. Because Africans produced goods in small quantities and such goods were of a relatively low quality, then, they failed to survive on an apparent competition with the foreign commodities. This made African industries to naturally die off.

– Throughout the colonies, traditional industries were made illegal, and severe punishment were provided to the Africans who went contrary to this order. Therefore Africans could only get industrial goods from Metropolis. Items such as cooking vessels, hoes, and matches were all imported. This was to effect the colonial policy making colonies centers for producing raw materials and provide market for European manufactured goods.

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Ø Creation: by creation, the colonialists created new economic structures which formerly did not exist in the traditional African economies. The best examples of such structures which were created includes:

– Taxation, tax was introduced and had to be paid in cash. Imprisonment and hard labor awaited all those who failed to pay the required amount. Therefore, one had to get money to pay tax. This money was to be obtained either by producing cash crops or selling labor power, in this way, colonialists secured enough raw materials and cheap laborers respectively.

– Land alienation, land alienation policy was introduced by the colonialists to achieve smooth operationalization of agriculture and mining activities. Therefore, land had to be alienated from Africans by any cost. The kicked out peasants became landless, and therefore, suffered from food shortage. Thus, they had to sell their labor power for their own survival and that of their family.

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– Creation of infrastructures, physical infrastructures such as railways, roads, harbors, airports and other social infrastructures such as schools, hospitals, Bomas, prisons and courts were all created to facilitate colonial exploitation.

– Creation of colonial labor system. Various strategies were used to ensure that cheap labor was made constantly available for colonial production. Some of the strategies included the use of communal labor, contract labor, migrant labor, and creation of labor reserve areas such as Kigoma, Ruvuma, and Dodoma. Institutions (SILABU) were also created to recruit laborers from distant areas.

– Creation of coercive instruments. These assisted the colonialists to easy the whole process of exploiting resources. These instruments concerned themselves with the maintenance of law, order, and security of the colonial state. These state apparatus for example:

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• They were responsible in suppressing resistances mounted by Africans against the colonial state

• They were responsible in maintaining security in the colony and preservation of peace

• They were responsible in supervising tax collection, public works and effect land alienation.

• All these functions performed by state apparatus promoted the development of colonial economies.



• SECTORS OF COLONIAL ECONOMY IN TANGANYIKA

AGRICULTURAL SECTOR

• Colonial economy in German East Africa was structured mainly on peasant production coexisting with plantations and settler agriculture.

• Initially the Germans had adopted settler agriculture, but it was opposed by early German administrators and capitalists who needed cheap raw materials. Therefore, more emphasis was put on peasant agriculture because of its cheapness. The major crops were sisal, cotton, rubber, and coffee.

 Sisal: this was the main crop by 1905. it was imported from Florida (USA) in 1885 by German East African company. It was grown first around Pangani area, before it was spread to other parts of the colony.

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 Cotton: the crop gained prominence as a peasant crop from 1908, and by 1911, it was popular in Usukuma. However, its history goes far back to 1902, when the Governor ordered that the crop should be grown south of the colony. He ordered every headman to establish a cotton plot in his area where all his people would come to work.

• By 1905 such plots were common in all coastal districts south of Dar es salaam and other places such as Morogoro, Kilosa and Southern districts of Lindi and Mtwara. Cotton cultivation had several complications:

ü The land chosen was very poor and crop yield was extremely low

ü The work was badly organized and brutally controlled

ü Therefore no reasonable profits were made out of cotton

• It was out of these complications that cotton cultivation provoked the Majimaji resistance between 1905 and 1907.

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v Coffee, the crop was introduced in Kilimanjaro by missionaries and spread by African Catechists. In Buhaya coffee was a traditional crop and first exported in 1898. The Chaga in Kilimanjaro were actively encouraged after 1921 to grow Arabica coffee, some times in close proximity to European plantation.

v Rubber, the crop was introduced between 1908 and 1912. German planters made large profits from it until when its market collapsed during the first world war.

 INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL SECTOR

INDUSTRIAL SECTOR

• The industrial sector was the smallest of all the productive sectors of the colonial economy. This was because:

o The major objective of colonialism was the production of raw materials for the metropolitan industries. Therefore, the colonialist found no reason for introducing industries in the colonies.

o Even when industries were established in the colonies, such industries were mainly processing one (spinning mills, cotton ginneries, sisal decorticating machines, and sugar processing units). The major function of such industries was to facilitate easy export of raw materials by reducing their bulkiness and weight so as to keep freight charges low.



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• However during and after the 2nd World Wars, some changes were made in the structure of colonial industries:

ü It became necessary to establish import substitution industries because the war created shortage of some basic goods.

ü However, import substitution industries were not intended to produce goods for the mass market in the colony. They were intended to meet the needs of the colonial ruling class, settlers and to a small extent, the emerging African petty Bourgeoisies.

ü The few industries were mainly concerned with secondary processes such as food canning, bottling, flour mills and breweries.

• Generally industries continued to occupy a very weak position in the colonial economy, and the colonial state made sure that the industries established did not disturb the predominance of production of raw materials for export.

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COMMERCIAL SECTOR

• Commercial sector was mainly designed to facilitate the exportation of agricultural and mineral raw materials from the colony, and the importation of manufactured goods from Europe.

• Traditional industries were generally discouraged in order to force the colonized to buy imported manufactured goods.

• The most important features of the colonial commercial sector were:

ü Imbalance of trade between the rural areas and urban areas. Urban centers played the role of commercial centers, and they received manufactured goods from Europe and then sold them to the rural areas. In turn, they received raw materials from the rural agricultural sector and exported them to Europe.



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ü Commercial transactions were based on unequal exchange, because the capitalists determined and controlled the prices of both colonial exports and imports. Therefore, the colonized were just price takers.

ü Commercial sector was strengthened by colonial banking system which offered loans to the capitalists to facilitate trading activities.

ü To a large extent trading activities were organized by Asians, mostly Indians.

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MINING SECTOR

• Ming involved the extraction of valuable minerals. Mining regulations published in 1921 to control mining rights produced a positive response from prospectors. Many prospectors had now the right to prospect minerals in the colony

• Mica mines in Uluguru mountains had been the chief mineral producing areas during German period until 1920 when they were closed, after which gold became the new attraction to prospectors in Mwanza and Musoma districts to the south and east of lake Victoria where large gold deposits were discovered in 1922

• In the same year, 1922, alluvial gold was found along Lupa river near lake Rukwa in the far south west. The Lupa river gold fields attracted a big number of miners because alluvial mining required little in terms of capital and the output of gold showed promise of good profits in the future

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• In the 1940s, diamond mining activities were established and operated at Mwadui, near Shinyanga. Diamond deposits were discovered by Williamson.

• Minerals extracted from this sector were also exported to Europe where high profits were realized.

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TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATION SECTOR

• Transport and communication network include railways, roads, harbors, telephone, and airlines. These were designed to serve various functions. But the fundamental role played by these infrastructures was exploitative.

• The following are the functions performed by transport and communication facilities:

ü To carry raw materials from producing areas, such as plantations, settler farms, or mining centers to the ports or harbors usually Dar es salaam, Tanga, Zanzibar or in the southern ports, to be shipped to Europe.

ü To supply European manufactured goods from the harbors to the interior of mainland Tanzania.



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ü To transport soldiers and administrators to the area where production was taking place. In these areas peace and security was crucial to ensure smooth production of raw materials.

ü To facilitate the movement of laborers from labor reserves to production areas. These transport and communication networks, especially railways and roads were typical, even now, like a branch of tree. They started from the coast and spread towards the interior

ü Roads used to feed the railway stations with raw materials ready for transport to Dar es salaam for export. However most of them were vulnerable to changes of weather.

ü Airlines were to transport valuable stones such as diamond and gold, and other lighter commodities direct to Europe. To serve this function, airports were constructed in Dar es salaam, Mwanza, Shinyanga and Arusha.

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THE LABOR SECTOR

• Te demand for labor arose due to the establishment of the colonial economy in Tanganyika. Because administration was expensive, German rulers emphasized on economic development. They encouraged establishment of plantations of tropical crops, using African laborers.

• However, shortage of labor was the main problem which faced German planters in he early period. Thus, German administrators had to develop a policy that would ensure constant supply of laborers in the plantations and other public works. This German labor policy revolved around the following stages

v The Germans imported laborers from outside the colony. For example, laborers were imported from areas like China and Indonesia. But this move was not successful

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v The use of workers fro within the colony, especially the use of Nyamwezi and Sukuma. These were ready to move and were easily recruited. However, local labor recruitment was affected by the development of peasant production. Development of peasant production created complications in labor supply:

ü The Chaga tended to gradually engage in peasant production. This limited labor recruitment from this area.

ü Between 1909 and 1913 cotton export went up because of the involvement of the Sukuma peasants in production. This limited labor migration from among the Sukuma.

ü Among the Nyamwezi, labor recruitment was stopped as result of the outbreak of sleeping sickness.

v These problems led to the recruitment of laborers from periphery regions such as Ubena, Unyaturu, Unyiramba, Urangi and Ungoni.

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v There was also attempts to recruit labor from beyond the boundaries to solve the problem of labor shortage. The Bemba of Zambia, Makua from Mozambique and Rundi workers were imported from their areas to work in the sisal plantations of eastern Tanganyika.

• However, during the 1927 and 1928 the supply of labor improved because of improved medical care in the labor camps. But this increase also resulted from the establishment of Labor Department in 1926 where by a new law was passed and made compulsory the payment of wages in cash and reporting of injuries to colonial authority.

• Generally, various methods were used to ensure constant supply of labor:



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ü Taxation, people were forced to work so that they can get money to pay tax. Thus various types of taxes (hut tax, poll tax, cattle tax) were introduced to compel African offer their labor power .

ü Creation of labor reserves, some areas were designed to be sources of labor supply. These included such areas such areas like Kigoma, Tabora, Songea, Singida and Rukwa. In these areas cash crops were not encouraged.

ü Introduction of European manufactured goods, these European manufactured goods were to be bought in money. In order to get money to buy them, one was supposed to sell his labor

ü Low wages, the planters paid low wages in order to make laborers continue to work for them.

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ü Forced labor was commonly used in the construction of public facilities such as roads, railways, etc. Also those Africans living near to plantations were forced to work in the plantations. In Usambara for example, plantations were located nearby African villages which had to provide them with laborers.

ü Use of contract labor, the use of contract labor assured constant supply of labor in the colony. To get contract labor, agents of plantation owners travelled throughout the colony recruiting laborers. Laborers were persuaded to sign contracts with recruiting agents. Breaking the contract was a criminal offence which had to be accompanied by imprisonment ,flogging( whipping) or both.

ü Western education , the introduction of western education aimed at getting laborers who could work in different offices of colonial administration. Education was mandatory if an African wished t be employed by the colonial government. The product of colonial education were junior clerks, teachers, askaris, deep attendants, agricultural extension officers, etc.

ü Use of communal labor, this started right from the beginning of colonial period, and latter on it was adopted as a law. Under this law Africans were forced to provide free of charge labor services for what was called “public works”. This ranged from cleaning to building of infrastructures necessary for colonial production. In these exercises, villagers used heir own tools and failure to turn up was punishable.