The outsider who attempts any detailed investigation of trade conditions in Northern Nigeria must be prepared to walk as delicately as any Agag, and even then he is pretty sure to ruffle somebody’s feelings. The fact of the matter is, that the paramount position held by the Niger Company—the “monopoly” as some call it, although it hardly amounts to that and must decreasingly do so—is a very sore point with many of the officials. The aims of the latter and the aims of the company necessarily diverge, but there is, I think, a tendency on the part of some of the officials to forget the fact that the Niger Company’s enterprise is the explanation of our presence in the country. One very sore point is the question of “cash for produce,” and this affects not the Niger Company only, but the other merchants. The official case is, that the natives desire cash for their produce, but that the merchants will not pay cash, or pay as little cash as possible, because they make a very much larger profit on the barter business; that this strangles trade development by discouraging the native producer, who is automatically forced to accept goods he often does not require, and must afterwards sell at a loss in order to get the cash he wants. Indeed, the official case goes further. It is contended not only that the merchants will not buy produce against cash when asked for cash, but on occasion actually refuse to sell goods against cash offered by the native, demanding produce in lieu thereof. For example, if a native has sold his produce against cloth and then, possessing some loose cash, desires to purchase, shall we say, earthenware or salt, he is told that his cash will not be accepted, but that he must bring shea-nuts or ground-nuts, or whatever may be the product out of which the merchant can make the biggest margin of profit. Instances are given of merchants having refused to sell salt to natives for cash; of natives being able to buy cloth in the open market for actually less than the merchants reckon in paying the native producers, and so on. Why, it is urged, should the political officer encourage the native to bring produce for sale to the merchant when all he will get is cloth that he must sell at a loss in the market in order to get silver to pay his taxes? Hence we arrive at a point when, as in the last published Government Report, the “pernicious barter system” is denounced, lock, stock, and barrel. The views of the merchants are various. In certain quarters the official allegations are altogether denied. In others it is contended that the barter trade is the best means of getting into touch with the actual native trader; that it would not pay to import cash to buy rough produce like shea-nuts or ground-nuts, which in many cases are all the natives have to offer; that the out-stations are in charge of native clerks from the coast, who cannot be trusted with cash; that the native gets as good value in goods as he does in cash, and so on. Proceeding from the defensive to the aggressive, many of the merchants contend that competition, and competition alone, can be expected to put large quantities of cash into commercial circulation, and that the Government, instead of fostering competition by encouraging new-comers, and especially the small man, to go into the country, handicaps the merchant by disproportionately heavy taxes. The £20 trading licence for every trading station, even far away in the bush, is particularly resented. It is pointed out that if the Administration of Southern Nigeria, whose economic resources are so much richer, makes no such charge, it is preposterous that the Administration of Northern Nigeria, whose economic fortune, in the European sense, depends so largely upon the growth of trade, should do so. One firm of merchants showed me their books, which disclosed in rent, assessment, and licences a total annual charge of £150 for a single station. No doubt there is much to be said on both sides, and each side has a case. It was, for instance, proved to my satisfaction that in certain instances cash had undoubtedly been refused to native traders bringing produce to the merchant stores for sale, and that, in other instances, when cash had been given, the prices paid, as compared with the local price governing merchandise, was so much less as practically to drive the native to accept merchandise. On the other hand, to dub as “pernicious” the barter system, which is responsible for the vast bulk of the trade that provides the Government all over West Africa with such large revenue, must appear a straining of the use of language; nor does the Administration, I think, allow sufficiently for the innumerable difficulties which the merchant has to face in Northern Nigeria. For example, in many of the out-stations produce has often to be stored for six months or more, depreciating all the time, before the state of the river permits of its shipment. But, after all, cash is spreading rapidly, and the key to the situation undoubtedly lies in competition. The more the Administration can do to attract new blood the better will be the all-round results.
CHAPTER XVI
MINING DEVELOPMENT AND THE BAUCHI PLATEAU
There appears to be no doubt that Nigeria is a highly mineralized country. Iron exists in considerable quantities and in many districts, in Southern but more particularly in Northern Nigeria. In the Southern Protectorate large deposits of lignite have been discovered 40 miles inland from Onitsha, and require more than a passing mention.
Lignite, as is well known, stands about halfway between wood and coal. It forms an excellent combustible, and if it can be produced in the proper form for the purpose, it would be invaluable for the Nigerian railways and for the steamers and steamboats plying up and down the river, besides saving the Administration, which is a large importer of coal, much expense. The first experiments made with the raw material, as extracted, by the Marine Department, the Northern Nigerian Railway, and the Niger Company were not altogether satisfactory, which is, perhaps, not surprising. The Imperial Institute in London is giving close attention to the matter. That the deposits are of commercial value is undoubted. An analysis of the Nigerian lignite and a personal investigation of lignite deposits in Bohemia and elsewhere, conducted by Professor Wyndham Dunstan, the Director of the Institute, have shown that the Nigerian article is virtually identical with the German and Austrian. Lignite is extensively used in Germany, where it is manufactured into briquettes, and excellent briquettes have been made by a German firm from specimens of the Nigerian lignite supplied by the Institute. It is probable that the difficulties experienced locally in utilizing the material in its raw state would vanish if the necessary machinery for the manufacture of briquettes could be erected at or near Asaba. Meantime the Administration has had a road constructed from Asaba to the lignite-fields.
Great importance is attached locally to the Udi deposits, specimens of which I was able to examine. To the non-expert eye they have every appearance of rather dirty-looking coal. Credit for this discovery is wholly due to the mineral survey party sent out by the Imperial Institute under Mr. Kitson. I am told that the deposits cover an area of no less than five square miles. To work them commercially a railway between Onitsha and Udi will, of course, be necessary. The Udi district can hardly be described as “open” at the moment, but a metalled road to connect it with Onitsha is in a fair way of being completed.
There can be little doubt that in these deposits the Administration has a valuable source of potential revenue, and that the Colonial Office will be called upon before long to come to a decision as to the best means of reaping advantage therefrom. It is an open secret that demands for prospecting licences and even for concessions are already being made. In some quarters the opinion is entertained that the home and local authorities would be well advised to refuse to part with control over the fields, but, for some years to come at any rate, to let the Southern Nigeria Administration itself develop them. There seems to be no reason why these deposits of fuel should not be made to play as important a part in the future economy of West Africa as the Nile Sudd appears likely to do in the economy of Egypt and the Sudan.
Mineral oil has also been discovered in the Southern Protectorate, but the extravagant hopes held out of being able to work the latter at a profit seem in a fair way of being abandoned, and the financial assistance lent by the Administration has not so far justified itself. West Africa is a peculiar country and is apt to turn the tables upon the company promoter with a disconcerting completeness. In the Northern Protectorate salt exists in Bornu, Sokoto, Muri, and Borgu. Monazite has been found, although not in large deposits, in Nassarawa and Ilorin. Mica and kaolin occur in Kano. Tourmaline has been found in Bassa. Kabba contains limestone deposits favourably reported upon by the officers of the Imperial Institute as suitable for agricultural purposes and the preparation of mortar. Certain parts of Muri are rich in galena, containing lead and silver. I am told that quite recently extensive supplies of silver have been discovered in the same district, the natives of which have, of course, been trading in both silver and in lead for many years. Rumours of the existence of gold and copper have not so far, to my knowledge, been justified. Of precious stones, I have only heard of small garnets being won, although I was shown a handful of inferior diamonds supposedly discovered in Southern Nigeria, and the blue clay formation certainly exists in some parts of Bauchi. A number of mineral surveys have been carried out by the Imperial Institute, but the potentialities of the vast bulk of the country are still unknown.
The chief discoveries have been concerned with tin. The industry was originally, and in restricted form, a native one, and has a somewhat romantic history. Its brief outlines, obtained from conversation with the native authorities of Liruei-n-Kano and Liruei-n-Delma, are as follows. Some eighty years ago the people of the former place, a small town in the south-east of Kano Province, whose inhabitants carried on an iron smelting industry under the direction of an able woman, Sariki, found the white metal. They ascertained that it possessed a trading value. They invented an ingenious but simple method of treating and producing it in an exceedingly pure form, which remained a secret among the members of the ruling family and their adherents, but which was explained to me by them in detail, by the side of one of their furnaces at Liruei-n-Kano. After honeycombing the neighbourhood of Liruei-n-Kano with vertical pits, they wandered in course of time over the whole stanniferous area, washing and digging in the beds, as far south as the tenth parallel. Further than that they could not move owing to the hostility of the pagan tribes. Tin, in thin, rounded rods, became a regular article of sale in the markets.
The first sample of tin ore was sent home by Sir William Wallace, then Acting High Commissioner, in 1902. It was examined by the Imperial Institute and was found to contain over 80 per cent. of tin di-oxide, equal to about 64 per cent. of metallic tin. From that time onwards the Niger Company which, under the arrangement contracted with the Imperial Government at the time of the abrogation of the Charter, stands to gain very largely through the development of the mineral resources of the Protectorate, has spent considerable sums—at first without return—in proving and in encouraging the industry. To the company is due the fact that the field has been opened out at all. It is but fair to state this because the company is the butt of much criticism in Northern Nigeria, and in some respects, I think, criticism inspired by jealousy of its own remarkable enterprise. In the last three or four years no fewer than eighty-two companies have been floated to exploit Northern Nigeria tin with a total capital of £3,792,132.[10] Hardly a week passes but that some fresh company is not floated, or the attempt made to do so. It has, therefore, become a very big thing indeed, and an outside non-expert opinion may be of some use from the point of view of the “man in the street” at home. The country is flooded with prospectors, on the whole of a much better type than is usually attracted to a new mining region, and the Government, under guarantee from the Niger Company, are now building a light railway in the direction of the principal deposits.