Cattle and horses have come from Germany and the Argentine, Karakul sheep from Russia, merino sheep from Australia, and Angora goats from Cape Colony. Animals purchased abroad by farmers have been imported at the expense of the Government, and considerable encouragement given to stock-rearing. Much good work was expected from an Agricultural Advisory Board organised at the end of 1913, and a staff of Government experts had been collecting information on such matters as water laws, fencing rights, and animal diseases; these experts were to have assisted the members of the Board in drafting useful measures. A Land Bank with a capital of £500,000 was established in 1913, and some advances were made to farmers in the following year. The object of the Bank was to supply the farmer with capital at a reasonable rate of interest under a bond which could not be called up as long as the interest and other charges were duly paid, and to provide easy terms for repayment of the principal. The Bank was also expected to assist in providing fresh capital for effecting farm improvements, making the increased value of the farm security for the advances made, to foster the establishment of co-operative societies for the sale of produce and the purchase of certain articles in bulk. It would appear that the first grants were made to the farmers in one particular area, and the farmers in other parts were highly incensed at what they affirmed to be favouritism. Shortly before the war broke out the Bank was notified from Berlin that the proposed remittance of one and a half million marks for advances had been cancelled.
Among other industries are those connected with sealing, guano export, whaling, and brewing. The export value of seal skins has averaged about £2,000 per year for several years, but in 1913 little profit was made by the sealers on account of the low price received for the skins. Whaling has not yet been a great success. The breweries at Windhoek and Swakopmund have proved highly lucrative; and they have been successful in driving imported beer out of the market.
Then it should be remembered that much valuable research work has been done in the country, and that the characteristic German virtue of thoroughness has been manifest in the systematic labours of such men as H. Hahn, Rath, Schenck, G. Hartmann, Lotz, Range, Schinz, Schultze and Rohrbach, who have done much for knowledge in the realms of history, ethnology, geology, philology, and economics. The peculiar problems of the country have been most diligently studied, and maps dealing with geological features, rainfall, vegetation, distribution of wild animals, etc., have been compiled with great skill and most careful attention to detail.
On the whole Germany is able to give a fairly good account of her stewardship so far as the development of the colony is concerned. Thirty years is a short period in which to look for broad and beneficial results in a land that has many natural disadvantages; that so much has been achieved is a tribute to the patience and persistence of the settlers.
Chapter X
THE DIAMOND FIELDS
The discovery of diamonds near Luderitzbucht in 1908 was an event of great importance to the country, and in view of the value of the diamond fields, and the powerful influence they have had on the economical development of the country, we shall give some account of their discovery, probable origin, and the nature of the mining operations connected with them.
There can hardly be a more dreary place on earth than the strip of desert land that borders the coast of South-West Africa, and it is hardly a matter for surprise that geologists tramped leisurely over the wind-blown sand dunes, making careful note of the geological features of the country, without for a moment suspecting that the gravel beneath their feet was thickly studded with the hard and brilliant little “stones of fire” known as diamonds. Somehow or other it is not the lot of the geologist to discover gems and gold in South Africa. A child playing with the pebbles on a river bank; a poor Dutch farmer lazily sifting gravel through a coarse wire sieve; a prospector sinking a well in search of water; a kaffir shovelling sand—in such unromantic ways have Nature’s chiefest treasures come to light in this land.
One day in April of 1908, a kaffir working on the Kolmanskuppe railway line, not far from Luderitzbucht, picked out of a shovelful of coarse sand a small, rough, whitish stone that sparkled in the sunlight. Little did the “boss” to whom he showed it dream that in the tiny stone lay the promise of an increase in the revenue of the country of nearly seven million sterling in half a dozen years, and the conversion of the tin-shanty settlement at Luderitzbucht into a substantial and progressive little town in the same period. But so it proved.
As luck would have it, the native had worked in the De Beers diamond mines at Kimberley; he knew the difference between a rough diamond and a white pebble. Had he not received a substantial bonus from the compound manager as a reward for his honesty whenever he discovered a “fire stone” in the blue ground and handed it over to the official? But his “boss” laughed at him when he said it was a diamond, and told him to “get out!” The railway contractor, however, a gentleman named Stauch, laughed after another fashion when the gem came into his hands. He hurried off to Swakopmund, and there sought an interview with the owners of the land, the Deutsches Kolonial Gesellschaft. He came back with half a dozen licences in his pocket which gave him the right to peg certain extensive areas. It was not long before little parcels of the gleaming gems were in his possession. The wise Herr Stauch is now a diamond magnate.
The news of the wonderful discovery quickly spread, and before many months had passed companies were exploiting the gravel occurrences. It is amusing to recall to-day the ridicule heaped on these “discoveries” by financial and other journals. The gems were “dolls’ diamonds,” “diamondettes”; it was “financial folly” to pick up these little glittering, weather-beaten specks. With a characteristic display of journalistic wit, one well-known weekly affirmed that “he would be an ass indeed to allow himself to be imposed upon by such ‘carats’ as these.” But the carats recovered last year, for instance, were valued at the nice little sum of £2,945,975.