§2. THE LABOUR-QUESTION IN WESTERN AFRICA.
In their present condition our African colonies are colonies only because they are administered by the Colonial Office.
Most of these stations—for such they should be termed—were established, for slaving purposes, by the Portuguese, and were conquered by the Dutch. Thence they passed into the hands of England, who vigorously worked the black traite for the benefit of her West Indian possessions.
The 'colonies' in question, however, saw their occupation gone with negro emancipation, and they became mere trading-ports and posts for collecting ground-nuts, palm-oil, and gold-dust. Philanthropy and freedom expected from them great things; but instead of progressing they have gradually and surely declined. The public calls them 'pest-houses,' and the Government pronounces them a 'bore.' Travellers propose to make them over to Liberia or to any Power that will accept such white elephants.
Remains now the task of placing upon the path of progress these wretched West African 'colonies,' and of making them a credit and a profit to England, instead of a burden and an opprobrium.
Immigration, I find, is le mot de l'énigme.
Between 1860 and 1865 I studied the labour-question in West Africa, and my short visit in 1882 has convinced me that it is becoming a vital matter for our four unfortunate establishments, Bathurst, Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Lagos.
A score of years ago many agreed with me that there was only one solution for our difficulties, a system of extensive coolie-importation. But in those days of excited passions and divided interests, when the export slave-trade and the émigration libre were still rampant on either coast, it was by no means easy to secure a fair hearing from the public. Not a small nor an uninfluential section, the philanthropic and the missionary, raised and maintained the cuckoo-cry, 'Africa for the Africans!'—worthy of its successor, 'Ireland for the Irish!' Others believed in imported labour, which has raised so many regions to the height of prosperity; but they did not see how to import it. And the general vis inertiæ, peculiar to hepatic tropical settlements, together with the unwillingness, or rather the inability, to undertake anything not absolutely necessary, made many of the colonists look upon the proposal rather as a weariness to the flesh than a benefit. A chosen few steadily looked forward to it; but they contented themselves with a theoretical prospect, and, perhaps wisely, did not attempt action.
The condition of the Coast, however, has radically changed during the last two decades. The export slave-trade has died the death, never to 'resurrect.' The immense benefits of immigration are known to all men, theoretically and practically. India and China have thrown open their labour-markets. And, finally, the difficulty of finding hands, for agriculture especially, in Western Africa has now come to a crisis.
Here I must be allowed a few words of preliminary explanation. In this matter, the reverse of Europe, Africa, whose social system is built upon slavery, holds field-work, and indeed all manual labour, degrading to the free man. The idea of a 'bold peasantry, its country's pride,' is utterly alien to Nigritia. The husband hunts, fights, and trades—that is to say, peddles—he leaves sowing and reaping to his wives and his chattels. Even a slave will rather buy him a slave than buy his own liberty. 'I am free enough,' he says; 'all I want is a fellow to serve me.' The natives of the Dark Continent are perfectly prepared to acknowledge that work is a curse; and, so far scripturally, they deem
Labour the symbol of man's punishment.
No Spaniard of the old school would despise more than a negro those new-fangled notions glorifying work now familiar to stirring and bustling North Europe. Nor will these people exert themselves until, like the Barbadians, they must either sweat or starve. Example may do something to stir them, but the mere preaching of industry is hopeless. I repeat: their beau idéal of life is to do nothing for six days in the week and to rest on the seventh. They are quite prepared to keep, after their fashion, 365 sabbaths per annum.
In the depths of Central Africa, where a European shows a white face for the first time, the wildest tribes hold markets once or twice a week; these meetings on the hillside or the lake-bank are crowded, and the din and excitement are extreme. Armed men, women, and children may be seen dragging sheep and goats, or sitting under a mat-shade through the livelong days before their baskets and bits of native home-spun, the whole stock in trade consisting perhaps of a few peppers, a heap of palm-nuts, or strips of manioc, like pipe-clay. This savage scene is reflected in the comparatively civilised stations all down the West African coast, where the inexperienced and ardent philanthrope is apt to suppose that the lazy, feckless habits are not nature-implanted but contracted by contact with a more advanced stage of society.
Again, in many parts of Africa the richest lands, and those most favourably situated, are either uninhabited or thinly peopled, the result of intestine wars or of the export slave-trade. Mr. Administrator Goulsbury, of Bathurst, during his adventurous march from the Gambia to the Sierra Leone River, crossed league after league of luxuriant ground and found it all desert. He says, [Footnote: Blue Book of 1882, quoted in Chap. X.] 'I think the fact has never been sufficiently recognised that Africa, and especially the west coast of the continent, is but very sparsely populated.... It is not only very limited, but is, I believe, if not stationary, actually decreasing in numbers.... I commend this fact to the consideration of those who indulge in day-dreams as to the almost unlimited increase of commerce which they fondly imagine is to be the result and reward of opening up the interior of the country.'
In regions richer than the Upper Gambia the disappearance of man is ever followed by a springing of bush and forest so portentous that a few hands are helpless and hopeless. Such is the case with the great wooded belt north of the Gold Coast, where even the second-growth becomes impenetrable without the matchet, and where the swamps and muds, bred and fed by torrential rains, bar the transit of travellers. The Whydah and Gaboon countries are notable specimens of once populous regions now all but deserted.
Nothing more surprising, to men who visit Africa for the first time, than the over-wealth of labour in Madeira and its penury on the Western Coast. At Bathurst they find ships loading or unloading by the work of the Golah women, whose lazy husbands live upon the hardly-earned wage. They see the mail-steamers landing ton after ton of Chinese rice shipped viâ England. The whole country with its humid surface and its reeking, damp-hot climate is a natural rice-bed. The little grain produced by it is far better than the imported, but there are no hands to work the ground. It is the same with salt, which is cheaper when brought from England: no man has the energy to lay out a salina; and, if he did, its outlay, under 'Free Trade,' would be greater than its income.
Steaming along the picturesque face of the Sierra Leone peninsula, the stranger remarks with surprise that its most fertile ridges and slopes hardly show a field, much less a farm, and that agriculture is confined to raising a little garden-stuff for the town-market. The peasant, the hand, is at a discount. The Sierra Leonite is a peddler-born who aspires to be a trader, a merchant; or he looks to a learned profession, especially the law. The term 'gentleman-farmer' has no meaning for him. Of late years a forcing process has been tried, and a few plantations have been laid out, chiefly for the purpose, it would appear, of boasting and of vaunting the new-grown industry at home. Mr. Henry M. Stanley remarks [Footnote: Coomassie and Magdala, p. 8], 'In almost every street in Sierra Leone I heard the voice of praise and local prayer from the numerous aspirants to clerkships and civil service employ; but I am compelled to deny that I ever heard the sound of mallet and chisel, of mortar, pestle, and trowel, the ringing sound of hammer on anvil, or roar of forge, which, to my practical mind, would have had a far sweeter sound. There is virgin land in the neighbourhood of Sierra Leone yet untilled; there are buildings in the town yet unfinished; there are roads for commerce yet to be made; the trade of the African interior yet waits to be admitted into the capacious harbour of Sierra Leone for the enrichment of the fond nursing-mother of races who sits dreamily teaching her children how to cackle instead of how to work.'
The same apathy to agriculture prevails in Liberia. For the last forty years large plantations have been laid out on the noble St. Paul River between Cape Mount and Mount Mesurado. The coffee-shrub, like the copal-tree, belts Africa from east to west—from Harar, where I saw it, through Karagué, where it grows wild, the bean not being larger than a pin's head, to Manywema, in the Congo valley, and to the West Coast, especially about the Rio Nunez, north of Sierra Leone. It is of the finest quality, second only to the Mocha; but what hope is there of its development? The Váy tribe, which holds the land, is useless; the rare new comers from America will work, but the older settlers will not; and there is hardly money enough to pay Krumen.
On the Gold Coast there is no exceptional scarcity of population: under normal circumstances, the labour-market is sufficiently supplied, but a strain soon exhausts it. Sir Garnet Wolseley found his greatest difficulty in the want of workmen: he was obliged to apply for 500 British navvies; and, at one time, he thought of converting the first and second West India Regiments, with Wood's and Russell's men, into carriers. On the other hand, the conduct of the women was admirable; as the conqueror said in the Mansion House, he hardly wondered at the King of Dahome keeping up a corps of 'Amazons.' I shall presently return to the gold-mines.
At Lagos M. Colonna, Consular Agent for France, informs me that by his firm alone 600 hands are wanted for field-service, and that the number might rise to a thousand. He would also be glad to hire artisans, blacksmiths and carpenters, masons and market-gardeners. The Yorubas from the upper country, who will engage for three years, demand from a franc to a shilling per diem, rations not given. Labour ranges from sixteen to twenty-four francs per mensem; and coolies could not command more than twenty-five francs, including 'subsistence.' Here Kruboys are much used. M. Colonna pays his first-class per mensem $5 (each =5 francs 20 centimes), his second class $4, and his third $3. Returning to the Gold Coast, I find two classes of working men, the country-people and the Kruboys: the Sierra Leonites are too few to be taken into consideration. At present, when there are only five working mines, none of which are properly manned, labour is plentiful and cheap. It will be otherwise when the number increases, as it will soon do, to fifty and a hundred. Upwards of seventy concessions have already been granted, and I know one house which has, or soon will have, half a dozen ready for market. Then natives and Kruboys will strike for increased wages till even diamond-mines would not pay. The Gold Coast contains rich placers in abundance: if they fail it will be for want of hands, or because the cost of labour will swallow up profits.
The country-people, Fantis, Accra-men, Apollonians of Béin, and others, will work, and are well acquainted with gold-working. But they work in their own way; and, save under exceptional conditions, they are incapable of regular and continuous labour. It gives one the heart-ache to see their dawdling, idling, shuffling, shiftless style of spoiling time. They are now taking to tribute, piece and contract work. The French mines supply them with tools and powder, and, by way of pay and provisions, allow them to keep two-thirds of the produce. It is evident that such an arrangement will be highly profitable to the hands who will 'pick the eyes out of the mine,' and who will secrete all the richest stuff, leaving the poorest to their employers. No amount of European surveillance will suffice to prevent free gold in stone being stolen. Hence the question will arise whether, despite the price of transport, reduction in England will not pay better.
The Kruboys in the north and the Kabinda boys in the south have been described as the Irishmen of West Africa: they certainly do the most work; and trading-ships would find it almost impossible to trade without them. During the last twenty years they have not improved in efficiency even on board men-of-war. In 1861-65 the gangs with their headmen willingly engaged for three years. Now they enlist only for a year; they carefully keep tallies, and after the tenth monthly cut they begin to apply for leave. Thus the men's services are lost just as they are becoming valuable. It is the same with the Accra-men. When the mines learn the simple lesson l'union fait la force they will combine not to engage Krumen for less than two years.
There are two great centres at which Kruboys are hired. The first is Sierra Leone, where they demand from all employers what the mail-steamers pay—the headmen half-a-crown and the hands a shilling a day besides rations. The second is the Kru coast. In 1850 the 'boys' received 5s. per mensem in goods, which reduced it to 3s. They had also daily rice-rations, 'Sunday beef,' and, at times, a dash of tobacco, a cap, a blanket or a waist-cloth. In 1860 the hire rose to 9s. in kind, or 4s. 6d. in coin. About this time cruisers began to pay them the monthly wages of ordinary seamen, 1l. 10s., with white man's rations or compensation-money, amounting to another 12l. a year. In 1882 headmen engage for the Oil Rivers at 1l., and 'boys' for 10s. to 12s. For the gold-mines of Wásá they have learned to demand 1s. 3d. per diem, and at the cheapest 1l. a month, the headmen receiving double.
The Kru-market does not supply more than 4,000 hands, and yet it is already becoming 'tight.' In a few years demand will be excessive.
[Footnote: The usual estimate of the Kru-hands employed out of their own
country is as follows:—
For the Oil Rivers:
150 each for Brass and Bonny, New Calabar and Camarones;
150-200 for the Niger, and
150 for Fernando Po and the Portuguese Islands 1200-1500
At Lagos 1000
On board the 25 Bristol ships, at 20 each 500
For nine to ten ships of war 200
For ten mail-steamers 200
In the mines: (May, 1882)
Izrah 7, Akankon 14, Effuenta 120,
the two French companies 200, the Gold Coast 100,
and Crockerville 20 461
——
Total 3861; say 4000]
The following notes were given to me by the managers of mines, whom I consulted upon the subject.
Mr. Crocker prefers Fantis, Elminas, and others; and he can hire as many as he wants; at Cape Coast Castle alone there are some eighty hands now unemployed. He pays 36s., without rations, per month of four weeks. He has about a score of Kruboys, picked up 'on the beach;' these are fellows who have lost all their money, and who dare not go home penniless. Their headman receives per mens. $3.50, and in exceptional cases $4. The better class of 'boys' get from $2.50 to $3; and lesser sums are given to the 'small boys,' whose principal work is stealing, skulking.
Mr. Creswick has a high opinion of Krumen working in the mines, and has found sundry of them to develop into excellent mechanics. The men want only good management. Under six Europeans, himself included, he employs a hundred hands, and from eight to ten mechanics. The first headman draws 37s. 6d., the second 22s., full-grown labourers 18s., and 'small boys' from 4s. to 6s. and 9s.
Mechanics' wages range between 1l. 5s. and 4l. All have rations or 'subsistence,' which here means 3d. a day.
Mr. MacLennan has a few Fanti miners, whom he pays at the rate of 6d. per half-day. His full muster of Krumen is 120; the headmen receive 27s. 6d., rising, after six months, to 35s. The first class of common boys get 20s.; the second from 13s. 6d. to 15s.; and the third, mostly 'small boys,' between 5s. and 10s. His carpenters and blacksmiths, who are Gold Coasters and Sierra Leonites, draw from 2l. 10s. to 3l. The rations are, as usual, 1-1/2 lb. of rice per day, with 1 lb. of 'Sunday beef,' whose brine is converted into salt.
Mr. A. Bowden, manager of the Tákwá and Abosu Mines, also employs a 'mixed multitude.' His Sierra Leone carpenters and blacksmiths draw 3l. 10s. to 4l. 10s. per month without rations, and his native mechanics 3l. to 3l. 10s. The Fanti labourers are paid, as usual, a shilling per diem and find themselves. The Kruboys, besides being lodged and fed (1-1/2 lb. rice per day and 1 lb. beef or fish per week), draw in money as follows: headman, 2l.; second ditto, 1l. 7s. to 1l. 12s.; miners, 18s. to 20s. and labourers 9s. to 16s.
This state of the labour-market is, I have said, purely provisional. It will not outlast the time when the present concessions are in full exploitation; and this condition of things I hope soon to see. We can then draw from the neighbouring countries, from Yoruba to the north-east, and perhaps, but this is doubtful, from the Baasás [Footnote: A manly and powerful race, who call themselves Americans and will have nothing to do with the English.] and the Drewins to the west. But we must come, sooner or later, and the sooner the better, to a regular coolie-immigration, East African, Indian, and Chinese.
The benefit of such an influx must not be measured merely by the additional work of a few thousand hands. It will at once create jealousy, competition, rivalry. It will teach by example—the only way of teaching Africans—that work is not ignoble, but that it is ignoble to earn a shilling and to live idle on three-pence a day till the pence are exhausted. Its advantages will presently be felt along the whole western coast, and men will wonder why it was not thought of before. The French, as they are wont to do in these days, have set us an example. Already in early 1882 the papers announced that a first cargo of 178 Chinese—probably from Cochin-China—had been landed at Saint-Louis de Senegal for the proposed Senegambian railway.
The details of such an immigration and the measures which it will require do not belong to this place. Suffice it to say that we can draw freely upon the labour-banks of Macáo, Bombay, and Zanzibar. The intelligent, thrifty, and industrious Chinese will learn mining here, as they have learnt it elsewhere, with the utmost readiness. The 'East Indian' will be well adapted for lighter work of the garden and the mines. Finally, the sturdy Wásawahili of the East African coast will do, as carriers and labourers, three times the work of Pantis and Apollonians.
I need hardly say that Captain Cameron and I would like nothing better than to organise a movement of this kind; we would willingly do more good to the West African coast than the whole tribe of its so-called benefactors.