HABITATINTL. Vol. 7, No. 112, pp. 5-16.1983. Printed in Great Britain.

019773975183 $3.00+0.(H) Pcrgamon Press Ltd.

The Groundnut Scheme - a Personal Memoir

PETER JOHNSTON

INTRODUCTION

Early in 1947 the writer was camped for the night in the Dihimba area of Mikin- dani District when a runner arrived with a message from the district office clerk to say that the Provincial Commissioner at Lindi (65 miles away) had telephoned to ask him to join the commander of the little Government steamer the Azaniu which would call in at Mikindani Bay to pick him up at 10.00 a.m. next morning. So we had a short night’s sleep, broke camp at 2.00 a.m. and marched to the road- head some 14 miles away, where a lorry was waiting to drive us into Mikindani, the district headquarters. The Azaniu arrived on time under Commander George Cole RN’ accompanied by Admiral Sir Anthony Morsa - grandly entitled ‘Mari- time Consultant’ to the Groundnut Scheme. We proceeded to Mtwara Bay and entered between the long tapering sandspit to the south and the little sisal estate jetty to the north - a very narrow passage but with some 13 fathoms minimum clear deep water. The channel broadened out and we were in the beautiful Blue Lagoon where de Vere Stackpole’s novel was first filmed in its original silent ver- sion shortly after the end of World War I. The Admiral declared “give me a battleship and I will bring her in”, and it was clear that the port site for the southern area of the Groundnut Scheme had been selected.

ORIGINSOFTHEGROUNDNUTSCHEME

Like Caesar’s Gaul, the Scheme was divided into three parts: the first in dry arid Ugogo’ at Kongwa, some 50 miles east of Dodoma and north of Mpwapwa, to which access by rail could readily be made, but where the prevalence of drought conditions rendered all crop growing at risk in as often as three years in six; the second at Urambo some 60 miles west of Tabora and with feasible rail access; the third and largest area of all, Nachingwea, 100 miles west of Mtwara, in the hinter-

t Lt. Commander Cole was the only non-serving Naval officer rated a First Class Hydrographic Surveyor; he subsequently earned fame for journeying from the Kenya coast to New Zealand by catamaran together with his wife, three children and their elderly grandmother.

2 Ugogo forms the dry central plateau of Tanzania, averaging some 3,700 ft. above sea level, and occu- pied by the Gogo, a people of Bantu stock who straddled the route to the lakes followed by the nineteenth century explorers as they marched up-country from Bagamoyo on the coast. At the time of the Groundnut Scheme, Ugogo was divided into four districts: Mpwapwa and Kongwa to the cast (Kongwa being created as a separate district to cope with Scheme problems), Dodoma in the centre where the central railway line crossed the north/south Kenya/Zambia land route, known as ‘the Great North Road’; and Manyoni to the west. The provincial headquarters was Dodoma, now the capital city of Tanzania. For half a century, the leading Gogo chief was Mazengo of Mvumi, south of Dodoma, who anointed Dr Julius Nyerere when he was installed as President of Tanganyika on 1 December 1962 exactly one year after Independence. At the time of the Scheme, the Gogo numbered something under 375,000, of whom around 40,000 occupied the 2,000 sq. miles or so of Kongwa District.

5

Peter Johnston

I I I I I 1 I J 50 40 30 22 IO 0 50 IO0

Fig. I. Sketch map of the ~~ro~~d~lui Scheme area ofoperatioas in the former Southern Province of Tanganyika.

land of Tanganyika’s3 Southern Province which required construction of a port, a railway and an oil pipeline, and to which the managers of the Scheme were keen to add much of Liwale District over the Mbemku~ river and which, had it been developed, would have been serviced from Kilwa Kisiwani’s fine natural deep harbour.

The Scheme had originated with Lord Boyd Orr’s warning to Attlee’s govern- ment [Labour administration in the UK, 1944- 195 11 that there was about to be so serious a shortfall in the world supply of fats that grave malnutrition would be suffered by the new generation created by the World War II popL~latio~~ explosion, unless urgent action were taken to assure new sources of ~upply.~ Action teas taken; in 1946 a mission was despatched from Britain; it consisted of John Wakefield, the greatly experienced agriculturalist, Daviv Martin of the United African Co., which could be reasonably expected to process the anticipated groundnut crop into Lever Bros. margarine, and John Rosa, a banker by pro- fession and with current Colonial Office experience. The Wakefield report ensued as the basis for the whole scheme. Disaster very nearly occurred as the small plane carrying the mission plummeted earthwards in a sudden down draught; a colleague on the ground thought that the Kilosa hills were about to claim a certain victim, but an upward surge of air, at the last moment, enabled the team to reach Morogoro safely after all. Other countries were examined in Eastern and .____ ___.- ._... _...--_

3 Following the Union with Zanzibar in 1964 the name Tanzania was given to the United Republic. Tanganyika remaining the correct name for the mainland (and major) part thereof.

4 Alan Wood attributes the first thoughts of a groundnut scheme to R.W.R. Miller, the Tanganyika Director of Agriculture, when the Managing Director of the United Africa Co. visited Dar-es-Salaam in 1946 and to whom he apparently suggested that his company plant 20,000 acres of groundnuts, vi&: The ~~or~~d~~t Affair, Bodley Head. p. 27, 1950.

The Groundnut Scheme - a Personal Memoir 7

Central Africa before the recommendation was made for the development of an enormous groundnut venture in Tanganyika.

No member of the Agricultural Department, no administrators ‘on the ground’ thought for one moment that success could be achieved in the Kongwa area which was chosen for the initial programme; but the Colonial Office Agricultural Ad- viser, Wakefield, had served his time in the Tanganyika’s Agricultural Department, rising to its headship as director, before moving on to the prestigious charge of the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture in Trinidad. His advice,’ backed by his fellow travellers was accepted and the greatest development project in any British dependency since the Gezira Scheme in the Sudan before World War I was launched. Time and again, those of us who knew the dry Central Province asked ourselves how such a marginal area could possibly be selected for a major agri- cultural undertaking. The general belief has been that Tom Bain, a very hard- working and successful farmer at the head of the Matamondo Valley,6 one of a handful of Europeans to attempt to farm in the Mpwapwa/Kongwa area, per- suaded the Mission that the potential for the Kongwa area was immense and that his confidence turned the scales. But, this was all undertaken as if an urgent military operation; speed was of the essence and no time was allowed for trial and experiment. When bollworm first attacked the cotton on the new Gezira Scheme there was already a laboratory to identify the problem and to help over- come it. No such facilities were available when rosette and black spot disease were encountered at Kongwa; nor was there any trial as to the best method of clearing acacia thorn and other undergrowth common to Ugogo.

LONG-TERMAMBITIONSPROVETOBESHORT-LIVED

When John Strachey, then Minister of Food, spent a day with the writer at Mikindani in 1948, he was still ebulliently full of enthusiasm and argued force- fully (like Fabius Maximus) how great a thing it was to turn the rusting weapons of war - tanks from the North African desert and from the Philippines - into use- ful agricultural implements for the benefit of mankind. While conversion into tractors was a practicable proposition, there was sadly lacking the all-essential spare parts for machines that were far from tailor-made for clearing deep-rooted trees. John Strachey was looking ahead; he envisaged a Mtwara port with a popu- lation of 40,000-60,000 by the end of the 19.50s that from a few hundred vil- lagers besides the small labour force, mostly itinerants from Mozambique, work- ing on Mtwara Sisal Estate.

The first thoughts of groundnut-growing on a major scale grew rapidly greater, until the target aimed for reached 3 million acres . . . yes, 3 million acres! Con- ceived in 1946, commenced a year later, taken over by the Overseas Food Cor- poration in 1948,’ still vigorously supported by Wakefield at Andrew Cohen’s African Summer Conference at Queens College Cambridge in 1949, when West African participants expostulated that Nigeria had all the groundnuts the world needed, but lacked the rolling stock to transport the crop to the coast by rail. Nonetheless, all-important political enthusiasm began to wane; the inevitable drought came in 1950-1951 - while major structural developments were still

5 “The rainfall in all the localities selected for the project is adequate for the groundnut crop” Cmd 7030, summary of the Wakefield report quoted by Alan Wood, ibid., p. 236.

6 Reached by Commander Lovett Cameron in June 1873 on his historic tram-African march. ’ This was an early Quango [‘Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation’l established under

the Overseas Resources Act, 1948, with a capital ceiling of a0 million, and which took over the management of the Scheme from the United African Co. which had got the operation started in the role of managing agents. Unfortunately, Sir Graham Pedler’s recent history of the Company takes the story only as far as 1931; his assessment of the UAC involvement in the Groundnut Scheme would bc of great intcrcst. (See: The Lion and the Unicorn in Aftica, Heincmann, 1974.)

8 Peter Johnston

under way in the South - and with it ‘the collapse of the Groundnut Scheme’.’ The life of the Groundnut Scheme was sadly short; concentration of time and

money on the Kongwa area proved fatal; Urambo in the west and Nachingwea in the south, each with better soil and a better annual rainfall, never had the chance to prove their potential viability. When the writer took up responsibilities in the Central Province in April 1958, the Tanganyika Agricultural Corporation was in being; at Kongwa, a large and well-run ranch showed what could be done in the former groundnut area (greatly helped by the many boreholes sunk for the Scheme and now able to provide well-dispersed water for controlled grazing pur- poses), with a well-managed African srnallholding scheme to the east and an important dry-area grasses experimental plots to the west. At Urambo, European and African flue-cured Virginia tobacco -~ growing under the Corporation’s auspices - had replaced groundnuts; in the south, a new smallholding scheme was being evolved and Mtwara was fast reverting to a sleepy little seaside township.

THESCHEMEATKONGWA

At Kongwa, there remained one man who straddled the era of groundnut hopes and that of the TAC whose General Manager there he became. This was Bill Clayton a sturdy, capable, experienced and very hard-working former Derbyshire farmer. He had been in charge of one of Kongwa’s groundnut units and sub- sequently developed there a very well run state cattle ranch. In long discussion with him, one could almost be convinced that the whole Groundnut Scheme - and in particular the Kongwa side of the enterprise - could have proved a tri- umph but for the inter-party bickering at Westminster. It was good to listen to him, to share for a moment his great enthusiasm, and even to indulge in the fan- tasy of what success might have meant to the economic development of Ugogo. But in reality it could never have proved a viable proposition to plant up 300 sq. miles of Kongwa with groundnuts. It would all to often have proved physi- cally impossible to plant up such a vast area in the week at most which the limited rainfall allowed the grower if he was to harvest anything like a reasonable crop - even in an averagely good year. The ‘Dodoma Bold” is a fine groundnut and for years fetched a premium on the world market; but, as every Gogo culti- vator knew well if he was to obtain a fair yield, he had to plant with the first good rains.

The headquarters of the Scheme were at Kongwa with ‘Millionaires Row’ occupied by the top brass, nearby the European school with its fine swimming pool; a well-equipped hospital close by (which subsequently for a while served a useful purpose as a tuberculosis treatment centre). Yet a decade later the crum- bling properties were being sold off, the railway line had been taken up; and driv- ing up the long and amazingly straight road from Kongwa to Zoissa on the Masai- land/Handeni border, one needed to be reminded that this only a short while ago had been a railway track; or driving to the coast from Dodoma at night one dipped for an oncoming vehicle on the main west/east road through Kongwa; only to realise that the 10 miles of dead straight road meant a long time before the approaching lorry reached one. Yet here, for a few brief years, 2,000 Euro- peans and over 30,000 Africans had found gainful employment.

While the future of the whole Scheme was being decided on the plains of Kongwa, development continued apace in the other areas, and efforts were indeed made until a late stage to hold off closure. The new Governor, Edward Twining, who arrived in 1949, successor to the invalid and inadequate William Battershill,

a Cmnd 9158.

The Groundnut Scheme - a Personal Memoir 9

was soon called back to the UK to attend a Cabinet meeting, at which he stressed the bad political and international effect of withdrawal and urged that the Scheme be given a little more time (he told the writer how noticeable was the respect and the ‘sirring’ shown towards Sir Stafford Cripps by his colleagues). This was of course the right and proper line for any really keen Governor to take and Twining certainly was determined to put Tanganyika on the map and to keep the country in the limelight of progress. Meantime, what really sounded the death knoll was the expenditure of some $36 million or so of British taxpayers’ monies for a virtually nil return - not even the flow of nuts for conversion into margarine and the sustenance of the new post-war generation.

The remainder of this article will be directed towards the groundwork carried on at Mikindani and Mtwara, in order to service the groundnut-growing potential of up country Nachingwea; this has never been recounted in any detail and so despite a fading memory and a lack of reference material the recollections here set out may be a justified addition to the record.

DEVELOPMENTSATMIKINDANI/MTWARA

Mikkdani District

Mikindani District” was the most southerly coastal district of Tanganyika, the Ruvuma river forming the boundary with the then Portuguese-governed Mozam- bique to the south, the Indian Ocean to the east, Lindi to the north and Newala District with its almost highlands-like and cassava growing - well populated but virtually waterless plateau - to the west, The population was around 70,000 and the area some 1,500 sq. miles. This was solidly a Moslem district with modestly supported Missions (Catholic) only at Mikindani itself and at Nanyamba on the Newala border. It was a slow sleepy area producing sesame, castor, copra and cashewnuts with a normally sufficient rainfall of around 45 in. per mmum. On the north side of the bay lay Mikindani Sisal Estate, the largest single sisal growing unit in Africa - if not in the world, with over 10,000 acres and more being sought; the same Asian firm, Messrs Karimjee, also owned the small estate at Mtwara. These estates would rarely admit to having enough labour and depended very largely on Africans from Mozambique, as the local people were disinclined to take the lowly paid employment available from the sisal estate. When the railway survey party reached ~ik~dani and asked the prevailing wage rate, they were told one shilling a day, twice the sisal rate for casual labour which was paid without rations, and questions were asked in the Legislature about a District Commissioner damaging the econony by imposing ruinous wage rates!

After a very long tour, which had culminated in just over three years in the lively, volatile banana and coffee growing Moshi district on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, Mikindani seemed likely to prove dull by contrast. There had been a rare failure of the rains earlier in 1946 and the district lacked seed for the new season’s plant- ing. Some paddy seed was sent from far-distant Ufipa by Lake Tanganyika, but no other grain or oil seeds could be obtained from any Tanganyika source. ‘Ad hoccery’ was resorted to; a Mozambique smuggler was engaged to bring up dhow loads of maize, millet, simsim and paddy; this was paid for by a loan from the Treasury of the Mikindani Native Authority” and advanced to the local peasantry

10 District headquarters were moved to Mtwara and subsequently became regional headquarters. 11 A Native Authority equated with a Local Authority, with its jurisdiction limited to the African popu-

lation.

10 Peter Johnston

‘on tick’. No one outside Mikindani knew about this ploy until it was a fuit accompli: at a late stage the Provincial Agricultural Officer was brought in to take germination tests which proved most ~lepressingly poor, but not, fortun- ately, in the soil of Miki~l~~~l~li for an excellent harvest was reaped, the Ioans repaid and a reasonably contented populace was ready for the startling impact of the Groundnut Scheme a year later. Thenceforward there was never a dull moment. At the start, this was a ‘one mm station’ with a District Commissioner the only senior level official irtrer ulio Magistrate, Coroner. i/c Police, Prisons, Customs, Port Officer, Public Works, A~riciIlt~~re, etc. He also married and buried, collected revenue, and was Government Sub-accountant. The doctor held the humble rank of Assistant Surgeon: he was the excellent Dr Paes, a Goan who besides coping with sickness in the population, was always ready to turn a hand to the veterinary needs of the many domestic dogs. There was a district foreman from the Seychelles ant1 aI1 African sub-inspector of Police of modest academic ~~tt~iiIl]i~ellts but with a ver) f good illf(~rli~~itioIi service, so that thieves were gener- ally known even if they had escaped over the nearby border to the south. Dr Leader Stirling,’ * until the I980 elections at TANU Member 01‘ f’arliament and Minister of Health, was at that time still a doctor with the UMCA and by arrange- ment he supervised the Native Authority Dispensaries and in particular the cam- paign against yaws.

Once Mtwara was chosen as the groundnut port, Commander Cole had the task of preparing a chart of the harbour and its approaches. While a cement-plinthed, G&-pole walled and palm thatched home for the Cole family was being con- structed on the Mtwara cliffs, work started on board the Amritz; the chart paper was soaked in a tin bath then stretched over the board onto which it was pinned: over the next few months one watched with wonder as the chart evolved into a completed work of art, and at the surveyor’s patience as he traced a full detailed copy.

At that time, TangaI~yika Railways were still an independ~llt system. The Chief Engineer was Leo Martin, who had started his working life on the Indian Railways around 1905, had constructed the extension of the Tanga line from Moshi to Arusha after World War I, and was full of verve and enthusiasm for the needs of the groundnut venture. His support made prompt action possible; if railway construction from Mtwara port to Nachingwea was to be started without delay, through the built-up seafront of old Mikindani, then co?npensation terms had to be worked out and quickly accepted. This was done on a necessarily and properly generous basis and Leo Martin produced the funds promptly: indeed, when Sturgess the experienced surveyor (on the fabulous salary of E400 per month &s rations) -- most reasonable man that hc was -- saw that the original concept of the line through the town wouId cause irreparable ellvii-ot~~~~el~t~l1 damage, he realigned the railway so as to pass round the town on the seaside thereof, thereby rninimising damage to some lovely old Arab-style houses and to u

number of simple African homesteads as well. By this time, in order to meet the deadlines set, compensation had already been paid, and this became a bonus to those who had been ready at the shortest of notice to move house, home and family. Similar ~lrra~~ge~~~e~~ts were made at the creek at the south end of Mikin- dani Bay where a suitable sandy beach was found for tank landing craft to off- load heavy equipment for transportation to Mtwara. The head office messenger, Ali Waziri,‘” had to vacate his home there, as a store for equipment; he sold out

_ _~~~~_~ .“I ____~~_ ** lie rransfcrrcd his allcriancc from the high church Univcrrities Mission in tlx Anglicnn f’aith ttr the

The Groundnut Scheme - a Personal Memoir 11

in accordance with the formula, but was happily back in his little-damaged house a few months later, when, sooner than expected, landing craft facilities had been prepared at Mtwara and an all-weather road to the port constructed. This latter task involved building a 1 ,100 yard causeway across the tidal flats of Miseti Creek some 2 miles south of Mikindani. This was a vital communication link. The Director of Public Works said succinctly “I have no money, I am not interested”; but Leo Martin came to the rescue with a few hundred pounds and the causeway with one passing place midway was built of coral, earth and sand, with a series of cement culverts to carry storm waters seaward and high tides further inland. This was the longest and narrowest piece of dead straight road within 100 miles: drivers were mesmerised and regularly drove over the side damaging the wall - to our rage and fury - or even would meet an oncoming vehicle beyond or before the passing point with each absurdly refusing to give way. Traps were laid and heavy fines were imposed so as to help keep communications with Mtwara open.

\/

INDIAN OCEAN

A Sisal estate Jetty D Sisal estate jetty

B Government dhew jetty E Former fishing vitlage

C Beach used by landing craft

Fig. 2. Sketch map of Mikindani and Mtwara bays,

It should be said here that all of us in the Tanganyika Administration serving in the Southern Province were 100% ‘groundnutters’. Here was a development project on a vast and unprecedented scale which could bring funds and consider- able economic development to the oft forgotten ‘Cinderella Province’. So we worked long and arduous hours to hasten the Scheme along. District affairs could not be ignored and, so far as Mikindani was concerned, for nearly two years it was a matter of a seven-day week, with district safari’ 4 work undertaken at the

I4 ‘Safart” is the Kiswahili word for a journey, and is now comonly used for a holiday visit to East Africa. In Tanzania, it is always used for official touring - an essential part of the Administrative Officer’s life at every up-country station. On safari, he would meet the people, listen to their problems, hear complaints, local court appeals, sound out the reaction of the people to Government proposals, receive proposals from the people. One unusual task in Mikindani was to spend a day or two camped near a school so as to ensure that in a conservative Moslem area a reasonable quota of girls were enrolled and actually attended school. It was on safari that the opportunity was taken to keep the people in the picture about the Groundnut Scheme.

12 Peter Johns&on

weekends and a normal IS- 14 hour day while at base, when a working tea in the office around 5.00 p.m. was the best opportunity to discuss their problems with railway, port, pipeline builders and their consultants.

Social impact of the Scheme

One’s first doubts arose when the social impact of the Scheme began to take effect: the actual groundnut men rarely came to Mikindani; their place was in growing nuts in the hinterland. By and large, they were keen ex-soldiers anxious to do their job well, but they were no longer subject to military discipline and were well aware of this, more so than the high command of the Groundnut Scheme in the early days when General Harrison directed the Overseas Food Corporation. In Mikindani, we were dealing with the groundnut contractors, most of whom operated on a ‘costs plus’ basis. A bad way to do business, but there was no other means to obtain the services of reputable contractors asked to carry out major assignments without any of the necessary data on which to base firm estimates. This meant that the usual practice was to charge 105% of salaries and this encouraged both overstaffing and a less than complete screening of personnel at the time of engagement.

There were some rough and ready artisans. You could see cheerful expatriates in shorts playing tig or the like with their African staff, then suddenly in a fit of ill temper playing the angry boss role; you had drunkenness in public in a strictly Moslem area; you had demands for women where prostitution was virtually unknown; you had the ex-criminal engaged as a storekeeper caught stealing by the African night watchman; you had the fool, bird shooting at night and almost blinding an African child; you had the drunken carpenter with his gun, in comic opera but nonetheless dangerous manner, prowling the town at night and threat- ening police and ordinary citizens alike. We had the latter fined and deported and in both cases the guns were confiscated, but the general effect was unsettling for the community.

While the railway makers hit snags and fell behind schedule, the oil pipeline snaking its way from Mtwara towards Nachingwea was completed ahead of time. This was a Shell project in the experienced hands of an old timer, Jock Imrie (“I laid pipes across Venezuela before these boys were born”). The ‘boys’ might laugh at his attitudes and when they saw him knocking it back during week-end relaxation; but from dawn on Monday until the week’s work was done no one could see him other than as a successful driving force getting on with a tough job. Some of us could not understand why a pipeline was needed. The railway was to carry an average of 700 tons of groundnuts per day. What could the trains poss- ibly haul up, if not at least oil? When the writer’s invitation to the official opening of the pipeline reached him, having been sent to his leave address in Britain and thence by slow mail to Kilimanjaro, it arrived on the same day as the news was published that the pipeline had been sold - at an inevitable loss -- to Israel. Without causing any problems to anyone, a South African firm very efficiently erected the oil tanks at their Mtwara base.

The flow of visitors

Before any of this occurred, the steady flow of visitors to Mikind~i had begun. By land, by sea and by air, VIPs, IPs and some quite unimportant persons came to look and see if there was aught going in their way of business. Arriving back from a tiring and urgent safari, at the flat over the office at Mikindani one Sunday afternoon at tea time an opulent looking gentleman was found esconced in the sitting-room (his pilot was in the hall). He described himself as a Merchant Prince (or so it sounded) and when offered tea asked for a gin and tonic. There

The Groundnut Scheme - a Personal Memoir 13

was no hotel and no rest house, so any expatriate traveller stayed with the District Commissioner plus any pilot, secretary or other appendage he might have brought with him.

Governor Battershill paid one visit; he was in poor health and livery. The old German-built mangrove-timbered bridge in the centre of town was being recon- structed to carry a bulldozer and the timbers - most of which had seemed out- wardly sound - were found to be rotten to the core when the decking had been removed. Little did the Governor know, as we drove slowly over by car, that the primitive decking was being held up by the convicts from the small local prison, standing dutifully below! It was evening when we took H.E.” out to the grass airstrip on Mikindani Sisal Estate for his departure, but the ancient government Anson would not start and there were gloomy visions of putting up a disgruntled Governor for the night. The plane had no self-starter and had to be cranked by hand. Ted Pike, then the acting Provincial Commissioner and a great Irish inter- national rugger forward in his day, made a last despairing effort with the handle and the engine ~ thank heavens ~ kicked and came to life.

At Mikindani, one was virtually oblivious to what the genuine groundnutters were doing up-country in the field, seeking to plant the cleared bushland with groundnuts. Their presence impinged upon one only when the need arose to see, say, the dentist; and then one discovered a well-equipped modern hospital with a dental unit, to save one the long journey to Dar-es-Salaam or the long wait for the itinerant government dentist to come round with his foot-pedal-operated drill.

No! One was far too busy coping with the diverse contractors and their prob- lems. There was the arrival of the contenders for the port construction contract; the District Commissioner was asked to see to their needs and to be ready for a possible 7-10 day stay by the quartet. This meant buying extra sheets etc. for a bachelor household and supplying the visitors with food and drink. One member of the party was found in the District Commissioner’s dining-room in the early hours finishing off the one and only bottle of spirits which could be afforded to the party. (At this time there was no entertainment allowance payable at all and the District Commissioner’s salary was around 2660 per annum.) A subsequent visit by the Financial Secretary and the sterling advocacy of the Provincial Com- missioner resulted in the payment of a modest special allowance. But, for some 18 months, not a day would pass without a caller concerned in one way or another with the Groundnut Scheme.

SOME PERSONALITIES AT MTWARA

Messrs Balfour Beatty won the port contract. Colonel Howarth, who had been concerned with the building of the Hoogly Bridge at Calcutta and with the Beit Bridge on the South African/Rhodesian border, was their experienced and able senior executive based in Kenya. The agent at Mtwara had been his first Lieu- tenant. This was his first major such assignment. His professional competence was undoubted but he should have been given his chance in command when he was younger. As it was, he seemed to be filled with unnecessary self-doubts. As a result it was depressing to take one’s VIP visitors to see progress in port con- struction. When being shown plans, one was likely to meet such remarks as: “This is what it’s supposed to look like if we can ever get it built”; “This is the design for the sea-berth blocks . . . if we can ever make them and then sink them in place”; and so on!

l5 ‘H.E.’ an abbreviation for ‘His Excellency’; the Governor was always known informally as ‘H.E.‘, as, of course, are many other office holders su;h as Ambassadors and, in many countries, Ministers.

!IhR,:,,?-P

14 Peter Johnston

In 1948, an important distraction to groundnut preoccupation came with the first post-war census. Frank Petrie had arrived to survey the Mtwara site for the proposed port and town; he and the District ~o~nmissioner divided the district into two and each held a one week school for enumerators. The form to be used was exceedingly simple, but to start with it seemed that the ‘students’ would never learn to fill it in properly. But suddenly ‘the penny dropped’ and all went well. It should be noted that one clasped to one’s bosom the handful of those with six years of education as the most talented census-taking potential; and one used a sturdy office messenger to enumerate the out islands in the knowledge that he would carry out his job by canoe undeterred by high seas or strong winds, despite his education having been for only two years. The census was completed successfully and as far as could be determined with surprising accuracy.

SOME LIGHT RELIEF

Mtwara could offer some light relief. There was the tough Swedish driller who drank immense quantities of gin and proclaimed his intention to commit sui- cide - proclaimed so loudly that one was safe to ignore his threat. There was the middle-aged Government surveyor (under Petrie) who feared thieves and so, each night, laid out fish hooks all round his tent; and to make doubly sure would, once a week, in the dead of night, disturb nearby sleepers by letting off his shotgun into the air. Tl1ere was the Resident Engineer supplied with a fine motor launch and a saloon car, and in receipt of better than average emoluments, who never failed to claim reimbunement for every glass of lime juice he supplied to the District ~oIli~nissio~ler when the latter called to give him a lending hand. There was Leslie Moore (who did not amuse the ne~vly-in~iepei~dent government of Tanzania when he lightheartedly declared his own UDI for Ras Msimbati shortly after Independence) who rarely wore more than a sarong, plimsols and an old straw hat; he retired to a lonely state in his Arab-styled house with its long lovely golden-sanded beacl1 and its giant palm trees, and who still expected labour to work for him at Shs.3 per month. There was the smuggler of deini-jol1ns of in- expensive Portuguese wine who had to be warned that his useful trade must cease ‘or else’ now that the groundnut invaders had arrived.

Once the Coles had left, after the chart of Mtwara Bay had been completed, their cliff-top home was taken over by Harry Ford, an experienced architect from Alexander Gibb & Partners whose design for the port construction was followed. Harry Ford, as Taitganyika’s first Town Planner, drew up plans for Mtwara which would have created a model East African coastal town had the port prospered. His balanced and constructive attitude to the varied Mtwara scene brought a sen- sible perspective to the ongoing ‘alarums and excursions’.

Beyond these asides, the main purpose of the Mtwara developments were not seriously in question during the early days. As John Strachey put it:

“A purely economic approach to the Scheme, in terms of pounds, shillings and pence is in itself too narrow. This is a Scheme not only for the growing of groundnuts. , . it is also . . . a part of that general development which is going on in East Africa. . . [The Scheme] is changing the whole economic situation of the potentially very rich (Southerll) Province . . . al~plications indicate a [future] city of some 40,000 people at ~ik~daIli _ . . it may well be that in ten years time... the Groundnut Scheme in the Southern Province will be thought of as one part of the major general development which the port and the railway have made possible.“‘6

The Groundnut Scheme - a Personal Memoir 15

No doubt, political rhetoric blended appropriately on this occasion with some of the ideals which were never entirely lacking from the Scheme. But, by 1950, stark Treasury realism had won the day. The railway through Mikindani to Nachingwea was being completed despite diminished prospects of the Scheme succeeding and it was decreed that

“the Tanganyika Government will assume responsibility for the net operating deficits and the East African Railways and Harbours (with which Tanganyika Railways had since been merged) will find . . . the further capital needed to complete the project and will forego fixed annual renewal charges for so long as there are deficits.“’ ’

./’

BURUNDI ! \. /

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/

J’

Groundnut

Kongwo

Urambo

ZAMBIA

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i\

i /’

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asongea

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Nachlngwea w ! / ( -‘- ~‘MOZAMBIQUE \

Ill11111111 I I 1 Mties 0 IO0 200 300 400 -

Fig. 3. Sketch map of the Tanganyika mainland of Tanzania.

CONCLUSION

When the dust had finally settled, how stood the balance sheet? The Southern Province had obtained an excellent harbour with fine deep sea berths, with ancil- lary port facilities, an all-weather airport, better road communications, a new piped water supply; and a very great deal of experience had been gained in the overall field of what would today be regarded as a major aid programme. A little was done to bring Tanganyika Africans forward, particularly in the areas of community development and labour relations, and one remembers that His Honour Mr Justice Kimichi proved his worth as the senior African labour official with the Scheme at Kongwa. But, in the south, missionaries sometimes felt that the ungodly European contractors were in much greater need of their mini- strations than the local African population.

1 ’ Cmnd 9158.

I6 Peter Johnston

On the other hand, those on the Board of the Overseas Food Corporation had the ultimate responsibility for the Scheme’s inordinate land greed. That the Wake- field report was feasible was largely due to the geographical extent of Tanganyika, with its vast land space and small population (even now 35 years on, well under 20 million people occupy some 363,000 sq. miles). So, in a good cause, land could be and was obtained on a very large scale at Kongwa, Urambo and Naching- wea; and all without any measure of hardship to the local people.‘* But to many of us, there was great relief that the fold-up of the Scheme tneant the abandon- ment of the greedily sought new land in the tiwale District, north of Nachingwea and known as ‘Block B’, particularly the fairly pop~~lous Kipule chiefdom. The specious argument that the Scheme would by its occupation eradicate the tsetse fly and thereby the endemic slecpinl: sickness in the area was no answer to the sturdy Wagindo who complained that the Angoni (spearhead of the Zulu advance northward) had destroyed many of them and their homes, that the Germans had then decimated them after the Maji Maji rebellion,’ 9 and that the British were about to finish them off altogether. It was a poignant and deeply moving occasion when Ted Pike,” on taking over the Province substantively, went to the Mbem- kuru river, met the Wangindo and told them that he had stopped any question of their having to move --- and so informed the powers-that-be in Dar-es-Salaam of the j$t uccompii.

Above all, the most i]~iportaIlt message carried to the United Kingdom by the Groundnut Scheme was that voiced by John Strachey when he said: “The only Britain that can and will survive, is a Britain which has the courage and the imagination to launch - and the vitality to carry through major new national enterprises both at home and overseas“” - words that justified the Groundnut Scheme attempt and words that need to be reasserted in 1981 if Britain is to emerge successfully and 1lo~loL~rably from the present world recession.

18 Sadly, the charming little fishing village at the foot of the Mtwara cliffs had to be evacuated for port construction. Its demolition was left to the last possible moment. It involved about a dozen homesteads. This was the only bitter pill of the Mtwara operations; those concerned at least obtained generous compen- sation, transport for their removal and jobs locally for all who wished for employment.

Subsequently Mtwara village, at the northern end of the sisal estate that became Mtwara port, was also taken over for urban development despite a considerable measure of local protest and very limited justifi- cation.

19 The Maji Maji rebellion of 1905-1907 when the Wangindo of Liwale joined hands with their erst- while enemies, the Angoni of Songea, to oppose German rule. The writer served in the isolated Liwale Dis- trict 1941-1942, and was made very conscious of the harshness with which the rebellion had been re- pressed . . large areas of fertile valleys stiIl lying empty some 35 years later.

20 Later to become Sir Theodore Pike, Governor of British Somaland. 21 John Strachey, op. cit.