The British colonial economic policies

The British colonial economic policies in Uganda and Kenya were generally exploitative and in the interest of the British than the Africans. The following are the main features.

They ignored industrialisation of most East Africans countries.  They only set up coffee processing plants and cotton ginneries for making it more durable for exportation.  Hence the Africans had to offer ready markets and to depend on European industrial products.  The local industries like bark-cloth in Buganda salt mining from Katwe and iron smelting in Bunyoro were destroyed.

New forms of taxation was introduced by the British, they brought compulsory poll tax and gun tax for example in Buganda, each house hold had to pay three rupees.  This was expensive to the Africans.

The British introduced compulsory growth of cash crops like cotton, coffee, tea and sisal.  They forced natives to produce large quantities of the above crops.  Therefore the Africans became producers of raw materials for British industries and market for their finished products.

                                                                                                 Carefully harvesting sisal

The British grabbed the better lands of Africans for their European settlers and sometimes for the construction of administrative offices, sites of hospitals and schools. 

However the Africans were never compensated.  This policy was worse in Kenya for example the Kenya highlands were reserved for white settlers.  The Masai were also driven from the plateaux of Ngong and Laikipia to dry and remote areas in the south.

The British surveyed and constructed transport and communication networks to link up Kenya and Uganda for example the construction of several Murram roads and the Uganda railway which started in 1896 and reached Kampala in 1933.  These lines eased the transportation of goods and services although they linked productive areas to the coast while remote areas were ignored.

The British contributed to the growth of towns and commercial centres along the main lines of communications.  They built ports, harbours, and towns like Mombasa, Nairobi, Nakuru, Kisumu, Tororo, Kampala and Jinja. These today have turned into important large towns and cities.

The British used some degree of forced labour on their main constructions like roads, railway network, ports, harbours and mostly on their white settler large plantations in the Kenya highlands.

The British created a strong commercial and trading ties with Europe and her other overseas colonies in the Far East like India.  As a result, a lot of European industrial products were introduced in East Africa.  There was also increased number of European and Asian traders and businessmen in Uganda and Kenya.

Entrance of an adit mine for copper at Kilember

The mining industry was another economic policy of the British.  They exploited minerals like copper and Gold from western Uganda while salt at Magadi was exploited in Kenya.

THE COLONIAL ECONOMY

The imperialistic European powers came to Africa with various motives-social, political and economic but the economic atmosphere at home purely determined their stay. 

That is, the contradictions of the industrial revolution such as the desire to acquire raw materials, avenues for the investments of surplus capital, acquisition of markets and settlement of their surplus population. 

Therefore, the kind of colonial economies were largely determined by the foreign factors and the two categories of settlements that were established that is settler economies and exploitative colonies were a fulfillment of the above objectives hence the following colonial economic policies were introduced in Africa.

Among the included land alienation whereby on arrival of the Europeans, large quantities of land were taken away from the Africans especially those that were economically viable in terms of fertility of soil and in terms of minerals. Classical examples can be evident in Kenya; leaving Africans with the unproductive areas while the fertile areas were used to supply raw materials.

In as much as the Europeans had acquired the land, there was need to acquire labour that would be used to make land useful as one colonialist Grogan put it "we have stolen land, now we must steal limbs; compulsory labour is important of our occupation of the country". 

It's therefore from this view that the forced labour policy was employed on Africans in farms, roads, railway construction for example in Uganda railway Germans in Tanzania forced the Africans to work on cotton plantations as later evident in the Maji-Maji rebellion (1905-07).

It's vital to note that forced labour was not enough to make Africans work hence alongside a monetary economy Europeans introduced a European tool of taxation, thus taxes were imposed to increase revenues for the colonies intended to run the day to day affairs of the government most important taxes were introduced as a way of compelling Africans either to grow cash crops or to work in European farms.  The most famous taxes were the hut and gun taxes, which turned Africans into, wage workers in order to be able to pay the taxes. This was also in Kenya among the Kikuyu and even the French colonies as one French man put it

"The idea that seems best for achieving employment of native labour would be to impose on the blacks relatively high taxes; in default of payment they would incur a sentence of forced labour".

Meanwhile forced labour and taxes were not for their own sake but to avail raw materials for the metropolitan countries and their industries as Muhamud Mamdani rightly observes

"A country like Uganda was being looked at as a deep source of raw materials and a market for finished goods".

Little wonder therefore that the introduction of cotton in 1905 was intended to cater for the cotton shortage in Manchester cotton industries following the American civil wars.  It's from this basis that an export and import economy was introduced to be able to satisfy the two interests. 

This witnessed the encouragement of the production of coffee, cotton, rubber and palm oil all, as cash crops at the expense of the food crops, which subsequently led to famine in African countries which, had hitherto been self-sufficient.  In this sense therefore, Africans were developed as producers of raw materials in form of cash crops and minerals.

It's worth noting that the availability of raw materials in the metropolitan countries required markets in African colonies and this was only made possible by the destruction of the infant industries or the discouraging of industrialization in Africa for the only industries that were established were mainly processing industries purposely intended to reduce the bulk of the exported materials and make it easier for transportation. 

In this regard, manufacturing industries were monopolized in Europe whereas the local crafts industries that produced hoes, spears, knives; axes were destroyed to make Africans dependent on foreign goods.

Africans provided markets despite the fact that Africans could as well provide similar goods as Walter Rodney in his book, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa rightly observed "The African peasant went into colonialism with a hoe and came out with a hoe" and Mamdani added "The hoe he came out with was an imported one".

A system that has continued up to date where Africans still dance to the tunes of their colonial masters as Mamdani cynically remarked in the case of Uganda "If they sneeze in Britain, we catch a cold in Uganda".  In other words, the entire stratum of our society is nurtured to act as a conveyor belt for the satellite economy tied on to an imperialistic network.

The most controversial was the ideological exploitation through western education whereby an elementary education system was introduced in East Africa whereby Africans were denied technical skills and their education only produced at best an intelligentsia of admirers and executors of colonial policies by making Africans classical dependants on imperialism in all aspects of life.

This was not of help to Africans but in the interest of colonial powers as Bret put it in his book, a history of Modern Tanzania.  "The kind of education provided was not geared towards development but to ensure that Africans are not educated above their stations in life".

The most outstanding was the modern transport sector where colonial powers through forced labour encouraged the construction of communication systems such as feeder roads and railway systems which were largely intended to facilitate the transportation of raw materials or siphon goods from the interior up to the coastal areas. 

Little wonder therefore that most railway networks were directed to economically productive, in East Africa the Uganda railway run from Port Bell on Lake Victoria to Namasagali via Kisumu to Mombasa and so did another line from Kasese to Jinja for cotton and copper respectively.

In conclusion, a critical analysis of the colonial economic policies portrays that they were designed primarily for the benefit of the colonial masters.  If Africans had anything to benefit from these policies, it was by accident and not desired as Chango Macho concludes "If Africans achieved anything during the era of colonialism, it was no more than the crumbs of bread from a rich man's table".

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROGRESS MADE IN KENYA (1900-1945)

Economic development in Kenya before 1919

Kenya, like her partner states, was predominantly dependent on subsistence farming.  Her economy lacked much specialization and was simple.  The declaration of Kenya as a British Protectorate in July 1895 did not change conditions much until the British imposed a hut tax on the people which forced people to work for the white settlers to get money.  The British wanted the railway to bring profits and so it encouraged white settlement on the Highlands.  The Asians who remained after the building of the railway together with the white settlers played a positive role in Kenya's economic development.

When money economy was introduced in Kenya some Kenyans who possessed money began to consume European goods and this gave them the impetus to work harder for more money. 

In 1902, Sir Charles Eliot, the British Commissioner, was given power by the Crown Land Ordinance to sell, grant, to lease unoccupied land.  It was this scheme that increased in Kenya the population of the white settlers from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The Nyanza basin seemed promising as an agricultural area.  Cotton was introduced there in 1906 but this failed.  Simsim, groundnuts and maize exports grew in the years between 1907 and 1914. 

On the whole the African production of export crops exceeded what Europeans grew in Kenya in value before 1919.

The white settler's contribution in this period was by no means small.

They made Africans work for a wage which helped the economic development of the country.

They produced locally consumed crops such as maize and potatoes.

Some white farmersespecially Lord Delamere, (i) Experimented with wheat,

(ii) Encouraged the establishment of a Company called Unga Ltd. (1909)

Though the R.C Missionaries had introduced coffee near Nairobiin 1899, it was the white settlers who began to grow it on a large scale.

By 1919 coffee had been singled out as one of the important crops in Kenya.

They introduced scientific stock rearing.  On Lord Delamere's Equator Ranch at Njoro sheep - rearing, cattle ranching and dairy farming were experimented with and later found successful.  To help farmers the Government set up its own experimental stock farms at Naivasha.

BETWEEN 1919 AND 1945

Immediately after World War 1 there was an economic slump in 1920 - 21.  To help overcome this slump the Kenya Government encouraged maize growing and in 1923 passed the Tariff Amendment Ordinance. The Ordinance enabled farmers to sell their wheat, meat, and dairy produce within East Africa. 

The Government also assisted the farmers with their production and marketing problem by cutting down the railway freight charges.

The period 1922 - 29 saw the economy of Kenya progressing.  The revenue rose from £1.64 million in 1922 to £3.33 million in 1929 while expenditure on public works increased from £206,000 to £520,000 in the same period. 

This prosperity led to the extension of the railway lines in the highland the agricultural regions.  Prices were fairly stable and high enough to encourage farmers make steady progress in the same period. European settlers also increased from 1,183 in 1924 to 2,000 in 1929. 

Kenya was hit hard by the World economic Depression of 1929 - 33 because: In the first place in 1928 desertlocusts came from the North and ate up the crops.

Secondly, local value of coffee was reduced by more than a half while the value of sisal and maize was reduced by more that two - thirds. Cultivated area dropped from 644,000 in 1930  to 502,000 acres  in 1936.

Up to 1945 Kenya remained basically agricultural and the industries were based on agriculture though she exploited minerals (soda and gold deposits) and forests.

The outbreak of the World War II in 1939 had to bring new economic forces, which Kenya had to contain to make a better economic development.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE IN KENYA

Sisal

It was introduced in Kenya from Tanzania and the first sisal plantations were established near Thika by 1920.  It was producing high quality sisal.

Coffee

Lord Delamare introduced the growth of coffee on a large scale. In 1908, coffee planters association was formed to encourage farmers to grow more coffee.

Wheat

This was the main economic activity in the Kenya highlands and Uasin Gishu plateau.   In 1909 a flourmill was set up in Nairobi.  This encouraged the growing of wheat on large scale.

Pyrethrum

It was one of the most successful crops that was introduced and yielded well in the Kenya highlands and plains.

Tea

This was introduced at Limuru in 1904. By 1920 large tea estates had been established near Meru and by 1925, two tea companies from India set up large plantations at Kericho.

 

Stock farming:

Lord Delamere imported Dairy cattle and sheep from Britain and New Zealand.  By 1925, stock farming had become an important economic activity especially in the highlands.

 

LORD DELAMARE

At the beginning of the 20^th Century, the political situation in Kenya was greatly different from that in Uganda or Tanganyika.  The Uganda railway was laid to link Mombasa with Uganda, which was more prosperous in terms of trade; but the railway was very expensive to build and run.

The British government did not want to go on paying for the deficit but wanted to see it make more money to pay for it self.   In order to stimulate trading and exporting activities in Kenya, the government encouraged settlers along the railway line in the highlands.

More and more settlers came from Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand after the First World War and that changed the course of history in Kenya.

Lord Delamare, was the foremost and pioneer settler in Kenya.   He was a man of great wealth and greater energy.  He had come to Kenya on a hunting safari: during 1897  - 1898.   He was so much impressed by the agricultural potential of the country that he came back to Kenya in 1903 to stay.

With characteristic energy, he took up wheat farming.  He cleared the land at great expense.  But the crop was a failure because of " rust  " disease. He started sheep farming at Njoro in 1904. 

He tried to establish stock farming and imported British and New Zealand sheep and cattle on his Equator Ranch.  This experiment also failed.  Thousands of his cattle died because of East Coast fever.  His sheep died of mineral deficiency.

He was disappointed but did not give up.  Attention was paid to the veterinary science and crops diseases.  Soon the diseases were brought under control.

In order to encourage wheat farming, the famous flour-mill, Unga Ltd, was set up in 1909. Delamare also saw the importance of coffee growing in Kenya.  Coffee plantations were established slowly because they required a lot of capital.

Now the settlers, led by Lord Delamare, wanted cheap African Labour to work on their big farms and ranches. They had a sense of racial superiority and were not pleased when the government wanted to assist African farming.  They were also against the idea of giving land in the highlands to Indians for farming.   Gradually they wanted a share in the running of the Kenya government.

To further their ends, Lord Delamare was instrumental in founding planters' and farmers' Association.   Some governors were sympathetic to the settlers' cause.

Although the number of settlers in the country was then small, Kenya got executive and Legislative assemblies as early as 1906.

Delamare became unofficial member of the Legco, selected by the settlers community.  He left the Legco in 1909 under protest.  Settler pressure on the government increased.  They controlled the Land Board and pressurised the government to pass the Masters' and servants' ordinance.  By this Ordinance, African Labourers came under direct control of the settlers.

The World War gave the settlers a chance to consolidate their gains.  On the other hand, there was a steady political awakening among Africans.  There was dissatisfaction among Indians because of the government policy of " white highlands.

The positions of the settlers gradually became weak.  The publication of the Devonshire white paper dashed all the hopes of the settlers to rule Kenya.  The paper said, among many other things, " primarily, Kenya is an African territory" and " The interests of the African native must be paramount.

However, Delamare continued to fight for the settlers.  He declared that the white race was the only one capable of governing mixed races.  The Hilton Young Commission gave another blow to the settlers.  There were vigorous protests from Delamare and other settlers.

Lord Delamare died in 1931.  It was a sad loss to the settler community.  It may be said of him that although he was a die- hard settler, he laid the foundation of wheat, dairy and coffee farming which was to form the backbone of Kenyan economy later on.