Notwithstanding these successive disasters the Chartered Company and the settlers had done much during those few troublous years to develop the country. The rinderpest and the native rebellion made it all the more urgent to complete the railway system that was to open communication with the coast. The Company hurried on the construction. In November 1897 the line had been extended from Mafeking to Bulawayo, and in 1899 the line from Salisbury to Beira was completed. Then the line from Bulawayo to Salisbury was pushed on; this connection has just been completed, and one can now travel by rail without changing carriage from Capetown to Beira viâ Bulawayo and Salisbury. Another line is being constructed through the Wankie coalfields which will cross the Zambesi near the Victoria Falls. How short a time ago it seems since the man who had visited the Falls was regarded as a great explorer! Other branches, too, will shortly open communication to the various goldfields.
Macheckie Railway Bridge on the Salisbury Line, Mashonaland Railway
It is worthy of notice that Rhodesia, though the most remote from the coast, was the one State in South Africa whose industries were kept going during the war, so that the conclusion of peace found her ready for an immediate expansion of her trade. This was due to the wise policy of the Company. Early in 1900 it was represented to the Administration that unless communication, which had been interrupted at the commencement of the war, was soon restored, work could not proceed on the mines; the native labourers would have to be discharged, and the mines would have to be closed down. The Administration realised that it would not only be disastrous to throw so many Europeans and natives out of work, but that the closing down of the mines would convince the Matabele that there was truth in the report which the Boer agents were diligently spreading to the effect that the English were being driven out of the country, and that the opportunity for rebellion had arrived. The Administration therefore came to the assistance of the mining community by making arrangements for the importation of sufficient necessaries for six months through Beira, at a fixed transport rate of £25 per ton from Port Elizabeth. The Company found itself about £5 a ton out of pocket by this arrangement, but great distress was saved. At the opening of the war the price of grain and meal rose 100 per cent.; but the Hon. Sir Arthur Lawley, the then Administrator of Matabeleland, warned the Chamber of Commerce at Bulawayo that if the cost of necessaries rose too high he would open the Government Stores—in which a large reserve of supplies had been laid up at the outbreak of the war—and sell to white men at a reasonable rate. This had the desired effect for a time, but later on the merchants took an unfair advantage of the situation, whereupon the Administrator carried out his threat, and so brought prices sharply down again. The result of this policy was excellent; the development of the mines proceeded, even if slowly; the crops were sown and there was a good harvest; the natives remained quiet and readily paid their hut-tax, which amounted to a larger sum than had been raised in any previous year.
Considering all the disasters, from the rinderpest down to the Boer War, that have befallen the country, it is indeed wonderful that so much has already been done towards the development of the resources of Rhodesia. There are critics at home who maintain that the country is valueless, that there are no payable gold reefs in it, else the mines would by this time have been working at a profit. People in the old days spoke in the same way of the Rand. Now, it was not until 1897, when the railway reached Bulawayo, that the real development of the mines commenced, and since then the country has produced gold to the value of a million and a quarter sterling, and this with a very limited number of stamps running. The gold belt extends for about 500 miles. Out of the 114,000 claims that have been pegged out, only 737 have been worked at all. Some of the mines have already paid dividends. The future possibilities of these yet practically untouched goldfields no one can estimate.
It had been naturally expected that so soon as the opening of the Rhodesian railways lowered the cost of transport rapid progress would be made in the working of the mines, and critics at home express their wonder that more has not been done; but the enormous increase in the cost of local transport due to the rinderpest has cancelled the advantage gained by the low railway rates from the south. Before the railway was constructed or the rinderpest appeared, the transport from Mafeking to Bulawayo, a distance of 500 miles, was ten shillings per 100 lbs. It costs as much as that now to transport mining machinery by ox-waggon from the Bulawayo railway-yard to a mine only 50 miles distant; and some of the mines are as far as 200 miles from a railway station. The branch lines that are being constructed will bring many of the mines within easy reach of the railway, but no great general progress can be made throughout Rhodesia until cattle become plentiful and cheap again. The Chartered Company is taking active steps to restock the country. The importation of cattle on a large scale, both by the various companies and by individuals, is now proceeding. Cattle of an excellent breed, suitable to the climate, are being brought from Angoniland, and will be crossed with Kerry or Jersey bulls. Importers of stock intended for breeding purposes can carry them over the Rhodesian railways at considerably reduced rates. Moreover, the Administration advances money to farmers on easy terms, on the security of their farms, to enable them to purchase cattle. With regard to the rinderpest, inoculation has proved successful, and the Government should be able to subdue any fresh outbreak by using the serum which is now manufactured at Kimberley.
Now that peace has come to South Africa, all that Rhodesia wants to enable her to make rapid progress is cheap transport, which she will shortly have, and abundant and efficient native labour; for surely the sore trials of her youth, which she so pluckily endured and survived, are over at last. The gold is there; the majority of the reefs are permanent, and to quote from the report of the Chartered Company’s Resident Consulting Engineer:—“What the future may hold it is impossible to say, but the most grievous pessimist must surely admit that the experimental stage has been safely passed, and that Rhodesia has been proved to be a valuable gold-mining country of which the possibilities are enormous.” The recent discovery of valuable coal deposits will greatly assist the development of the country’s resources, more especially benefiting the gold-mining industry, for the timber is becoming exhausted in the vicinity of the mines, and the price of wood fuel is ever advancing. A careful examination of one small section of the Wankie bed shows that it will yield 1000 tons a day of coal of excellent quality for the next hundred years. It is too early yet to discuss the value of the iron, copper, and other ores which exist in Rhodesia.
To turn to agriculture. There seems to be no production of the temperate and sub-tropical zones that does not flourish on the favoured, well-watered soil of Southern Rhodesia. The area under cultivation is rapidly extending. The one great drawback is the locust. However, farming pays well despite occasional bad seasons. Here is a story that exemplifies the tenacity, under disaster, of the Rhodesian settler. In one year, when the successive locust swarms ate up the land, a certain farmer sowed his farm with mealies. The locusts devoured the crop: undiscouraged, he sowed his fields a second time: again he lost his crop. Yet a third time he sowed, and got his harvest in safely. Despite the two failures, he now realised a handsome profit. Happily, in the season of 1898-99 locusts almost entirely disappeared, and apparently they have never since invaded the country in their former numbers. It is claimed that this is due to the extensive use of toxine, with which for the last few years a campaign of extermination has, with apparent success, been carried on against these scourges of the land. The toxine has been distributed among the white farmers and the native chiefs, with instructions for its use, and satisfaction with the results has been generally expressed. An energetic farmer does well in Rhodesia, and finds among the mining communities an ever-increasing market for his produce. At present the principal products are mealies, barley, wheat, oats, forage, and potatoes, and excellent crops are raised. Market farming and dairy farming in the vicinity of the towns are industries that require little capital, and are exceedingly profitable. Boer tobacco is produced in large quantities, and experiments that have been tried with American seed have proved the suitability of soil and climate for the cultivation of the superior qualities of tobacco. Oranges, peaches, walnuts, apples, bananas, figs, cherries, vines, and other fruits do very well in Rhodesia. In the yet uncolonised north of this vast territory wild rubber of high commercial value covers large tracts of country. The Chartered Company is taking steps to protect the plant against the destructive native methods of extraction, and to make it a source of wealth to Rhodesia as well of revenue to itself. In several districts the cultivation of coffee and tea promises to prove successful.