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Some Aspects of Economic Policy in Tanganyika, 1945–60

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Cyril Ehrlich
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An understanding of Tanganyika's economy must begin with the bleak geographical facts. In 1945 an area of some 343,000 square miles, larger than France and Britain together, supported a mere seven million people. The size and distribution of this population resulted from an oppressive physical environment over which remarkably little human control was exerted. One example of this was man's subservience to the tsetse fly, which—as a result rather than a cause of under-population1— infested some 60 per cent of the land. Even more serious were the hazards of a rainfall that exhibited all the vices—inadequate and irregular in its geographical distribution, capricious in its seasonal visitations. Prolonged periods of drought were common everywhere except at the coast and near Lakes Victoria and Nyasa. As the overwhelming majority of the people were subsistence producers, the incidence of rainfall was a principal and variable determinant of economic welfare. Thus, for example, 1946 was a bad year; there were food shortages in every province and in some areas the Government had to organise famine relief. The rice crop failed almost completely, maize was grievously affected, and even sorghum and millet, the most drought-resistant of grain crops, were sufficient for only half the year. In the following year rainfall was heavy and well distributed; indeed in the Highlands it was excessive, destroying crops through flood and disease. But generally harvests were the biggest since 1943 and ‘a long back-log of tribal ceremonies’ was elebrated.2

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , July 1964 , pp. 265 - 277
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1964

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References

Page 265 note 1 Gourou, Pierre, The Tropical World (London, 1961), p. 11.Google Scholar

Page 265 note 2 Tanganyika Department of Agriculture, Annual Report (Dar es Salaam, 1947), p. 2.Google Scholar

Page 266 note 1 Exports and imports include those to and from Kenya and Uganda. Government revenue and expenditure include both current and development items. The years 1945 to 1953 are calendar years; 1955 to 1960 are financial years; i.e. ‘1955’ = 1954–5, etc. The G.D.P. figures for 1946 to 1953 are estimates by H. W. Ord, and for 1954 to 1959 are official estimates; all are at factor cost and have been rounded to the nearest £m. Add the two columns together for an estimate of the total G.D.P. Sources: The Gross Domestic Product of Tanganyika, 1954–57 (Dar es Salaam, 1959);Google ScholarThe Budget Survey, 1961–62 (Dar es Salaam, 1962);Google ScholarPeacock, A. T. and Dosser, D. G., The National Income of Tanganyika, 1952–54 (London, 1958);Google ScholarThe Economic Development of Tanganyika, annex vi; and Ord, H. W., ‘The Growth of Money Incomes in East Africa’, in East African Economics Review (Nairobi), 06 1962.Google Scholar

Page 266 note 2 Peacock and Dosser, op. cit., p. 51.

Page 266 note 3 Browne, Cf. G. St. J. Orde, Labour Conditions in East Africa (London, 1946), Col. No. 193, p. 17.Google Scholar

Page 267 note 1 Proceedings of the Legislative Council (Dares Salaam), 3 12 1945.Google Scholar

Page 267 note 2 Ibid. 26 November 1953.

Page 267 note 3 Ibid. 3 December 1945.

Page 267 note 4 The desirability of greater differentiation was much discussed during the 1930's. See Leubuscher, C., Tanganyika Territory (London, 1944), p. 135.Google Scholar

Page 268 note 1 Proceedings of the Legislative Council, 9 06 1958.Google Scholar

Page 268 note 2 Hicks, Cf. U. K., ‘The Search for Revenue in Underdeveloped Countries’, in Revue de science et de législation flnancière (Paris), 03 1952;Google Scholar also Walker, cf. D. and Ehrlich, C., ‘Stabilisation and Development Policy in Uganda: an appraisal’, in Kykios (Basel), XII, 3, 1959.Google Scholar The case for imposing export taxes in Tanganyika is made in the World Bank Report, The Economic Developmnent of Tanganyika (Baltimore, 1961), pp. 328–9.Google Scholar

Page 268 note 3 Walker and Ehrlich, op. cit. pp. 343–4.

Page 268 note 4 Proceedings of the Legislative Council, 10 06 1958.Google Scholar

Page 269 note 1 Cf. Report of the East African Commission of Enquiry on Income Tax, 1955–57 (Nairobi, 1957), pp. 15–32,Google Scholar and Peacock and Dosser, op. cit. p. 13.

Page 269 note 2 Proceedings of the Legislative Council, 3 12 1945.Google Scholar

Page 269 note 3 Ibid. 2 November 1948.

Page 269 note 4 Ibid. 23 November 1949.

Page 270 note 1 The Economic Development of Tanganyika, p. 47.Google Scholar

Page 270 note 2 The classic analysis is in Frankel, S. H., The Economic Impact on Under-developed Societies (Oxford, 1953),Google Scholar essay VIII. See also Wood, A., The Groundnut Affair (London, 1950).Google Scholar

Page 270 note 3 SirKirby, Arthur, ‘Tanganyika Triumphant’, in African Affairs (London), LXI, 243, 04 1962, p. 115.Google Scholar

Page 270 note 4 Proceedings of the Legislative Council, 8 02 1951.Google Scholar

Page 270 note 5 Ibid. 1 December 1947.

Page 271 note 1 SirSmith, Sydney Armitage, Report on a Financial Mission to Tanganyika (London, 1932), Cmd. 4182.Google Scholar

Page 271 note 2 Leubuscher, op. cit. p. 132.

Page 271 note 3 Tanganyika Report for the Year 1950 (London, 1951), p. 191.Google Scholar

Page 271 note 4 Report on a Financial Mission to Tanganyika, p. 85.

Page 272 note 1 Farquharson, J. R., Tanganyika Transport: a review (Dar es Salaam, 1945).Google Scholar

Page 272 note 2 Proceedings of the Legislative Council, 1 05 1957.Google Scholar

Page 272 note 3 The Economic Development of Tanganyika, p. 23.Google Scholar

Page 273 note 1 East African Royal Commission, 1953–55, Report (London, 1955), Cmd. 9475.Google Scholar

Page 273 note 2 Report on a Financial Mission to Tanganyika, p. 85.Google Scholar

Page 273 note 3 Handbook of Tanganyika, 1958 (Dares Salaam, 1958), p. 348.Google Scholar

Page 273 note 4 Hawkins, Cf. E. K., Roads and Road Transport in an Under-Developed Country (London, 1962),Google Scholar especially ch. 9. He quotes a ‘rule of thumb’ that gravel roads become too difficult to maintain when traffic exceeds 300 vehicles per day. Most main roads exceeded this figure by 1960.

Page 273 note 5 Ibid. p. 23. Tanganyika's ratio was o.middot;8; Uganda's 0.middot;14; the Union of South Africa's 0·2.

Page 274 note 1 The Economic Development of Tanganyika, p. 277.

Page 274 note 2 For a geographer's interpretation of the ‘economic island’ approach, see Green, L. P. and Fair, T. J. D., Development in Africa (Johannesburg, 1962).Google Scholar

Page 274 note 3 Hirschmann, A. O., The Strategy of Economic Development, (New Haven, 1958), p. 94.Google Scholar His analysis is peculiarly relevant to the Tanganyikan experience. On balanced growth, see Nurkse, R., Problems of Capital Formation in Under-Developed Countries (Oxford, 1953), pp. 11–17; on the role of social overhead capital, pp. 152–4.Google Scholar

Page 274 note 4 Both argument and example appear in Cairncross, A. K., Factors in Economic Development (London, 1962), p. 113.Google Scholar

Page 275 note 1 Rolleston, W. L., Proceedings of the Legislative Council, 13 06 1958.Google Scholar

Page 275 note 2 These statistics are not as comprehensive or accurate as would be desirable. A much better functional classification has been published, including local government expenditure, but covering only a few years. See Public Finance in Tanganyika: an analysis (Dar es Salaam, 1959),Google Scholar Tables 7 and 13.

Page 275 note 3 The Economic Development of Tanganyika, ch. 8.

Page 275 note 4 Proceedings of the Legislative Council, 11 12 1957. 19Google Scholar

Page 276 note 1 See Gulliver, P. H., Land Tenure and Social Change among the Nyakyusa (Kampala, 1958), particularly pp. 42–6.Google Scholar

Page 276 note 2 The Economic Development of Tanganyika, p. 107.

Page 276 note 3 Economists since J. S. Mill had not been much concerned with growth. Social accounting was in its infancy, and quite unexplored in backward countries.

Page 276 note 4 Ehrlich, Cf. C., ‘Some Social and Economic Implications of Paternalism in Uganda’, in The Journal of African History (Cambridge), IV, 2, 1963.Google Scholar Much of the argument applies with greater force in Tanganyika, where Africans were even less advanced in the cash economy.

Page 276 note 5 Cf. the powerful and successful attack on the government's attempt to reduce its education programme in 1956. Proceedings of the Legislative Council, 3 and 4 10 1956,Google Scholar and the Governor's Address, 10 December 1956.