South-West Africa

It must not be concluded from what has been written about the blunders of the colonial administration in dealing with the native people that little or nothing has been done in the way of developing the country’s resources, for many solid achievements stand to the credit of Germany.

While many and grievous mistakes have been made, it must be remembered that success in the difficult sphere of colonial enterprise rarely, if ever, comes save with experience. To provide in South-West Africa a home for German emigrants and a market for German trade, considerable effort and large sums of money have been expended, and that success is not more marked is partly due to the fact that so much energy has been devoted to warlike operations rather than to the task of colonisation.

For purposes of administration the country was divided into fifteen districts (excluding Ovamboland and the Caprivizipfel), Grootfontein, Omaruru, Outjo, Okahandja, Karibib, Windhoek, Gobabis, Rehoboth, Gibeon, Maltahoehe, Bethanien, Keetmanshoop, Warmbad, Luderitzbucht, and Swakopmund. There are no very large towns in existence, but the few small towns and villages compare very favourably with those of similar size in the Union of South African, while several of them are considerably in advance as regards public buildings and modern improvements. The principal towns are Windhoek, Swakopmund, Luderitzbucht, and Keetmanshoop. Windhoek has a picturesque situation in the best part of the territory, 180 miles from Swakopmund in a direct line. As the seat of Government and the military headquarters, it has long been the most important town in the country. About a thousand Europeans resided here, and 800 natives. The principal thoroughfare is a wide street nearly two miles in length. There are substantial churches, a park, a public library, a museum, Government buildings, clubs, fort, barracks, a fine marble monument to the soldiers who perished in the native wars, and the inevitable brewery. Houses nestle among the trees in pleasing fashion, and there are many well-cultivated gardens.

Swakopmund, at the mouth of the Swakop River, is the principal port, and for some years it has been the busiest town in the country, but it has a poor harbour, lying as it does on the open Atlantic seaboard. Immense sums of money have been spent in order to provide good landing accommodation, but Swakopmund has too many natural disadvantages to make it a safe and satisfactory harbour. Thousands of tons of sand are deposited yearly in the bight by the Benguella current, and the pounding of the big Atlantic waves would destroy any but the strongest and most massive jetty. A new jetty was nearing completion when the war broke out. Some very fine Government buildings have been erected, as well as hospitals and churches and business establishments; the streets are wide, with wood-paved footpaths, and the town has an air of solidity and neatness quite unusual to a young colonial township.

But the natural entry into the country is the spacious and sheltered harbour at Walvis Bay, twenty-five miles to the south of Swakopmund, which though undeveloped has enormous possibilities as a naval base, and a port for the hinterland. A good railway from Walvis Bay to Swakopmund will go far to solve the problem of the future of a town which is a good monument to German industry and enterprise.

Luderitzbucht was formerly nothing more than a dilapidated trading station for the interior, but with the discovery of diamonds in the vicinity the settlement grew into a town with almost magical swiftness. It had a white population of 800 in 1914. Many substantial and even handsome buildings have been erected. The town has a fine harbour, an electric power station, a powerful plant for condensing sea-water, and a good telephone system, but the roads are merely tracks in the sand, and when the wind blows; as it often does, the sand is everywhere, indoors and out. Goggles are a necessity for every one.

Keetmanshoop was the capital of the southern territory, and was important on account of its position as a military headquarters. The town is small, but well laid out, and has a church, a Government school, a number of hotels, stores, and some neat residences.

Other centres of population, of more or less importance, are Karibib, some 125 miles from Swakopmund, a busy railway centre, which has grown very rapidly since 1901; Omaruru, about 150 miles from Swakopmund, with rich grazing lands; Okahandja, north of Windhoek, noted for its good water supply; Gobabis, the chief town on the eastern border; Grootfontein, in North Damaraland, founded by Boer settlers in the ’eighties of the last century; Tsumeb, the centre of the valuable copper mining industry; Outjo, a military station in the Kaokoveld; Bethanien and Warmbad, old mission stations in Great Namaqualand; and Gibeon, the centre of some good farm lands.

Recent years have seen marked progress throughout the country, mainly owing to the extension of the railways. It is true that the railways have been built with a view to their strategic importance, and altogether in advance of the population, but they have been a most important factor in increasing the economical value of the territory. A line from Swakopmund, managed by the Otavi Mining and Railway Company, connects the port with the copper mining districts at Otavi and Tsumeb, and is some 419 miles in length. It is of approximately two-foot gauge. A branch extends from Otavi to Grootfontein. A second railway, managed by the State, extends from Swakopmund almost parallel with the narrow-gauge line to Karibib, then curves south to Windhoek, from which place it proceeds due south to Keetmanshoop and Kalkfontein.

From Luderitzbucht a line of the standard South African gauge, 3 feet 6 inches, worked by the Lenz Company, has been laid to Keetmanshoop via Seeheim, so all the important districts have been linked up. A branch line, 66 miles in length, runs parallel with the coast, from Kolmanskuppe to Bogenfels, and intersects diamondiferous country practically all the way. The locomotives on this line are driven by electricity generated on the engines. In all there are some 1,400 miles of railways, 780 of which are narrow gauge, while the rest are of Cape gauge.

Kalkfontein is 172½ miles from Upington, in the Cape Province, and since the war broke out the two places have been linked up by rail as a result of magnificent record construction work by the engineers and men of the Union Railways. From De Aar to Windhoek it is now 876 miles by rail, and 1191 from Luderitzbucht to Johannesburg.

Roads have been improved between some of the larger centres of population, but in many places they are nothing more than mere tracks across the country. In regard to the telegraph and telephone service, the colony is well in advance of many parts of the Union of South Africa, since many of the farm settlements are linked up with the villages and towns, and many of the military stations and police posts are similarly joined. At Windhoek, a high-power wireless station, consisting of five towers, 360 feet high, was erected in 1914, to form a link in the chain of stations between Germany and her overseas possessions, stretching from Nauen to East Africa. Wireless stations were also erected at Swakopmund and Luderitzbucht. There are seventy post offices in the country, and fifty of these are also telegraph offices. The schools for European children have increased of late, but the medium has been compulsory German, even for the children of the Dutch settlers. Numerous wells have been sunk, dams made, irrigation work undertaken; and it is estimated that in addition to the natural springs, there are now 1,613 wells, 130 dams, and 59 water-boring holes. The Windhoek district is favoured with no less than 12 springs, 231 wells, 35 dams, and 20 water-boring holes.

Trade has shown some advance, and the traffic of the two ports has steadily increased. In 1913 the imports were valued at £2,171,200, and they consisted mainly of foodstuffs, liquors, coal, building materials, textiles, galvanised iron, and rails. No less than 81 per cent. of the imports came from Germany, while less than 1 per cent. came from England, and about 12 per cent. from British South Africa. Far more coal came from Germany than from the coalfields of South Africa. The exports for 1913 were valued at £3,515,100, but the diamond production was responsible for no less than £2,945,975. Other exports were copper, £396,436; tin, £31,568; wool, £5,500; cattle, small stock, meat, hides, skins, and ostrich feathers. Germany received 83 per cent. of the articles.

The finances of the colony show improvement. The revenue, accruing mostly from railways, harbours, and taxes on minerals, showed a surplus for 1913; and in budgeting for the year 1915, revenue and expenditure were estimated to balance at £2,081,157. Public works of some importance were contemplated for 1914-15.

Minerals

One of the immediate results of the German occupation was an influx into the country of mining prospectors who were eager to secure concessions. Mineral rights over large areas were bought from native chiefs, and prospecting was actively carried on. The concessions were in many instances transferred to third and sometimes fourth parties, until at length the mining rights of the whole country were held by the following: The Deutsche Kolonial Gesellschaft, the Kaoko Land und Minen Gesellschaft, the South-West Africa Company, the Otavi Minen und Eisenbahn Gesellschaft, the Hanseatische Land und Minen Gesellschaft, the Gibeon Schuerf und Handels Gesellschaft, the South African Territories Company, and the Government. For some years each of these parties kept to its own laws, which regulated or prohibited prospecting operations. The Government recognised the need for greater uniformity, and in 1913 the various companies, with the exception of the South-West Africa Company, entered into agreements with the Government. The royalties payable to the different companies were fixed by these agreements.

Next to the valuable diamond fields, the copper mines rank in importance. The rich deposits in the Otavi district were known to South Africans some years before the German occupation. They were worked by the Bushmen, who quarried and smelted the metal, using as a flux the ash of a tree, and by the Ovambos, who adorned themselves with heavy copper ornaments. The fine outcrop at Tsumeb was discovered in 1892. The Otavi Company is a German concern with issued capital which has been fully paid up in cash, of £1,000,000 in 200,000 £5 shares. The Company took over from the South-West Africa Company 1,000 square miles of mining rights and 500 square miles of freehold rights contained therein, in order to work the group of copper mines in the Otavi area, but by virtue of its shareholding the South-West Africa Company holds an interest in the Otavi Company of about 55 per cent. This holding is the chief asset of the South-West Africa Company. The ore mined is divided into a high-grade copper product, principally copper glance, which has been exported to America, and lead ores, largely galena, and low-grade carbonate copper ores, which have been smelted at the mine. Since the completion of the Company’s railway from Swakopmund in 1908, the yearly output has averaged 36,000 tons. Other deposits are found at Grootfontein, Grossotavi, and Gochab, while recent discoveries include finds in the Bobos Mountains in the Tsumeb district, and at Okatumba, north-east of Windhoek. The Khan mine has been opened up to a considerable depth, and development work was proceeding in other promising mines when war was declared.

Tin

Large deposits of tin ores have been found, mostly in alluvial deposits, situated in the neighbourhood of outcrops of pegmatite and quartz, which occur in the hinterland of Swakopmund.

Marble

There are immense layers of good quality marble in the Karibib district. The quarrying rights are held by the Afrika-Marmor-Kolonial Gesellschaft.

Gold has been found at several places in the South-West Africa Company’s territory, and occasional nuggets have been unearthed in the Neineis tinfields, but as yet there are no discoveries of the precious ore in payable quantities. Coal has not been found.

Agriculture and Live Stock

There is a surprisingly small proportion of the land of the country under cultivation, since only 13,000 acres have been treated. Four-tenths of this total is in the well-watered Grootfontein district, while the Windhoek region has another three-tenths. Mealies, potatoes, lucerne, vegetables and melons are the principal articles grown, but a good beginning has been made with fruit and tobacco.

There are 1,330 farms, and they cover an area of over 32,000,000 acres; they vary in size from 6,000 to 50,000 acres. In 1913 they carried 205,643 cattle, 53,691 woolled sheep, 17,171 Persian sheep, 472,585 Afrikander sheep, 485,401 goats, 13,340 Angora goats, 18,163 half-bred Angoras, 15,916 horses, 13,618 mules and donkeys, 7,772 pigs, 709 camels, and 1,507 ostriches. All these figures, with the exception of those relating to the camels, show a considerable increase on the preceding year, and while they may be of no value in estimating the quantity of stock in the country at the close of the war, on account of the inevitable slaughter following on a siege, they serve to show how much advance has been made in pastoral development, in spite of the rinderpest of 1896-7, the droughts of more recent years, and diseases such as anthrax and lamziekte.

Great improvements have been made in the stock since the German occupation. The cattle owned by the natives, while hardy and useful, were of little value as sources of milk, and the meat was of an inferior quality. Goats and fat-tailed sheep were the other animals possessed by the natives. But the Germans have imported stock of the best quality and of every description.

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.