my journey is at an end, the tale is told, and the reader who has followed so faithfully and so far has a right to ask what message i bring back. it can be stated in three words. concentrate upon uganda!
over the greater part of the north-east quarter of africa, british influence or authority in one form or another is supreme. but when i turn my mind over all those vast expanses, excluding only egypt, there is no region which offers prospects to compare in hopefulness with those of the protectorate of uganda. the soudan is far greater in extent and importance, and great britain is at no charge in respect to it. but the soudan is clearly inferior in fertility. the east african protectorate possesses not only enormous coast-lands of great value, but noble plateaux where the air is as cool as an english spring. but 210 we already spend on east africa—and upon the needs of its expensive white settlers—more than the whole revenue of uganda; and yet the promise is not so bright. northern somaliland is a desert of rocks and thorn bushes peopled by rifle-armed fanatics, on which we spend nearly half as much as the whole annual grant-in-aid of uganda. and between somaliland and uganda there is this contrast presented in its crudest form—a barren land with dangerous inhabitants; and a fruitful land with a docile people. what is least worth having, is most difficult to hold: what is most worth having, is easiest.
the union under scientific direction in uganda (and i include in this popular name usoga, unyoro, toro and ankole, etc.) of unequalled fertility with a population of high intelligence and social quality, in a region of extraordinary waterways, must, unless some grievous error or neglect should intervene, result in remarkable economic developments. already more than half the traffic which passes down the railway to mombasa comes from beyond the lake. yet scarcely any money has ever been spent on uganda. no european roads exist, no railways have been built, no 211 waterfalls are harnessed, no public works of any serious description have been undertaken. a poor little grant-in-aid has barely supported the day-to-day cost of european administration, and practically nothing in cash or credit has been available for the development of the country. but it is alive by itself. it is vital; and in my view, in spite of its insects and its diseases, it ought in the course of time to become the most prosperous of all our east and central african possessions, and perhaps the financial driving wheel of all this part of the world. it is far from my desire to disparage the east african protectorate, or to suggest diminution of activity or support. both protectorates are necessary to each other and should advance together; but in view of their relative positions, and looking at the situation as it is to-day, my counsel plainly is—"concentrate upon uganda!" nowhere else in africa will a little money go so far. nowhere else will the results be more brilliant, more substantial or more rapidly realized.
cotton alone should make the fortune of uganda. all the best qualities of cotton can be grown in the highest perfection, a hundred thousand intelligent landowners occupying 212 twenty thousand square miles of suitable soil are eager to engage in the cultivation. an industrious and organized population offers the necessary labour. merely at the request of the government cotton has been planted experimentally on a considerable scale throughout uganda. the figures of production—though of course they are only the first beginnings—show a surprising expansion. great care is required, and steps have already been taken to secure that the quality of cotton exported from uganda is not deteriorated or its reputation prejudiced by hasty or untutored action, that only the seeds which yield the best results should be distributed, and that no indiscriminate mixture should be permitted. the government must control the culture. experts must watch the ginneries and educate the native cultivator. roads must be made to enable the crop to be marketed. the scientific organization of the cotton-growing resources of uganda has now been definitely undertaken. a special grant of ￡10,000 a year will in future be devoted to this purpose, and the whole process will be supervised by european officers in close touch through the colonial office with the highest manchester 213 authorities and the british cotton-growing association. in the opinion of the ablest observers the next five years will see a very remarkable development in cotton production, even though the means available to foster it continue to be slender.
but cotton is only one of those tropical products for which the demand of civilized industry is almost insatiable, and which can nowhere in the world be grown more cheaply, more easily, more perfectly than between the waters of the two great lakes. rubber, fibre, cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, sugar may all be cultivated upon the greatest scale; virgin forests of rare and valuable timber await the axe; and even though mineral wealth may perhaps never lend its hectic glory to uganda, the economic foundations of its prosperity will stand securely upon a rich and varied agriculture. a settler's country it can never be. whatever may be the destinies of the east african highlands, the shores of the great lakes will never be the permanent residence of a white race. it is a planter's land, where the labours of the native population may be organized and directed by superior intelligence and external capital. for my own part i rejoice that the 214 physical conditions of the country are such as to prevent the growth in the heart of happy uganda of a petty white community, with the harsh and selfish ideas which mark the jealous contact of races and the exploitation of the weaker. let it remain a "planter's land." let the planters, instead of being the agents of excited syndicates with minds absorbed in the profits of shareholders thousands of miles away, be either europeans of substance and character who have given proofs of their knowledge of natives and their ability to deal skilfully and justly with them, or better still—say i—let them be the disinterested officers of the government, directing the development of the country neither in their own, nor any other pecuniary interest, but for the general good of its people and of the empire of which it forms a part.
but if the immediate inflexion of british policy in eastern africa should be, without prejudice, but with precedence of other provinces, to accelerate the economic and social development of uganda, what are the first steps to take? i might have much to say of forestry and agriculture; of an extended system of technical education similar to that 215 given at the gordon college at khartoum, here perhaps in part to be achieved through grants in aid of the existing missionary schools; of road-making, indispensable to progress, of motor-transport, and of water-power. but let me make my message brief and unclouded, and as before expressed in three words, "build a railway."
the clusters of colonial possessions which have been acquired on the east and west coasts of africa, so rapidly and with so little cost or bloodshed, will unquestionably prove an invaluable, if not indeed a necessary feature of the british empire. from these vast plantations will be drawn the raw materials of many of our most important industries; to them will flow a continuous and broadening train of british products; and in them the peculiar gifts for administration and high civic virtues of our race may find a healthy and an honourable scope. some of these great estates, like southern nigeria on the west coast, are already so prosperous as not only to be self-supporting, but able to assist with credit and subvention the progress of neighbours less far advanced. others are still a charge upon our estimates. we are annually put to the expense of grants-in-aid more or less considerable for northern 216 somaliland, the east african protectorate, nyassaland and uganda. heavy upon the finance of all the east coast hangs the capital charge of the uganda railway. in no way will these charges be eased or removed except by the rise of one or more of the territories concerned to economic buoyancy, or by the growth of railway traffic down the uganda trunk consequent upon development. under present conditions the progress made from year to year is steady and encouraging. the charges upon the colonial estimates diminish regularly every year. every year the administration of the different governments increases in elaboration, in efficiency and consequently in cost. the extra charge is met ever more fully by the returning yield of a grateful soil. except for the chances of war, rebellion, pestilence, and famine which brood over the infancy of tropical protectorates, but which may be averted or controlled, it would be easy to calculate a date—not too remote—by which all contribution from the british tax-payer would be unnecessary. the movement of events is encouraging; but there is one method by which it can be made far more sure and far more swift, by which all adverse chances are 217 minimized, and all existing resources stimulated and multiplied—railways.
i would go so far as to say that it is only wasting time and money to try to govern, or still more develop, a great african possession without a railway. there can be no security, progress, or prosperity without at least one central line of rapid communication driven through the heart of the country. where, as in northern somaliland, the land itself is utterly valueless, a mere desert of rocks and scrub, or where the military dangers are excessive and utterly disproportioned to any results that can ever be reaped—withdrawal and concentration are the true policy. but if for any reason it be decided to remain and to administer, a railway becomes the prime of absolute necessities. till then all civilized government is extravagant and precarious, and all profitable commerce practically impossible. these considerations have lately led a british government to sanction the extensive railways, nearly 600 miles long, now being rapidly constructed in northern and southern nigeria; and the same arguments apply, though in my view with increased force, to the uganda protectorate. 218
it is not usually realized that the uganda railway does not pass through uganda. it is the railway to uganda and not of uganda. it stops short of the land from which it takes its name, and falls exhausted by its exertions and vicissitudes, content feverishly to lap the waters of the victoria nyanza. uganda is reached, but not traversed by steam communication in any form. yet the extension of the railway from the western shores of the victoria to the albert nyanza would not only carry it through much of the most valuable and fertile country within its radius, but as i shall show could far more than double its effective scope.
it may be accepted as an axiom that in the present state of development in these african protectorates, it is scarcely ever, and indeed i think never, worth while to build railways in competition with waterways. railways should in new countries be in supplement of, and not in substitution for, lakes and navigable rivers. no doubt direct through-routes of railway, where bulk is not broken and all delays and changings are avoided, show an imposing advantage in comparison with a mere alternation of water stages and railway links. there could be no doubt which was the better if only 219 you leave out the question of cost. but it is just this question of cost which cannot be left out, which clamorously dominates the proposition from the beginning. for first-class countries may afford first-class railways and trains de luxe, but second-class countries must be less ambitious, and young new jungle-born countries are satisfied, or ought to be, if they get any railway at all. the differences between the best railway in the world and the worst, are no doubt impressive; but they become utterly insignificant when contrasted with the difference between the worst railway in the world and no railway at all. for observe, the comparison is not with perfect lines of european communication, nor with anything like them, nor even with a waggon on a turnpike road. it is with a jogging, grunting, panting, failing line of tottering coolies, men reduced to beasts of burden, that the new pioneer line must be compared—that is to say, with the most painful, most degrading, slowest and feeblest method of transportation which has ever disgraced the world. and compared with that, any line of steam-communication, however primitive, however light, however interrupted, is heaven. 220
i am endeavouring to guide the reader to a positive proposal of a modest and practical character, i mean the construction of a new railway which might be called "the victoria and albert railway," although it would virtually be an extension of the existing uganda line. this railway should traverse the country between the great lakes, and join together these two noble reservoirs with all their respective river connections. the distance is not great. two hundred and fifty miles would exceed the largest computation; and perhaps a line of one hundred and fifty miles would suffice. if the cost of this railway were estimated, as i am informed is reasonable, at a maximum figure of ￡5,000 a mile, the total sum involved would be between ￡1,250,000 and ￡750,000.
the supreme advantage of making a railway debouch upon a great lake, is that every point on the lake shore is instantly put in almost equal communication with railhead. steamers coast round on circular tours, and whatsoever trade or traffic may offer along the whole circumference, is carried swiftly to the railway. lakes are in fact the catchment areas of trade, and it is by tapping and uniting them that the 221 economic life of central africa can be most easily and swiftly stimulated.
two routes present themselves with various competing advantages by which the victoria and albert railway may proceed. the first, the most obvious, most desirable and most expensive, is straight across the highlands of toro, through the best of the cotton country, from a point on the victoria lake in the neighbourhood of entebbe, to where the semliki river runs into the southern end of lake albert. the second would practically follow the footsteps recorded in these pages. it does not offer a direct line. it does not pass during the whole of its length through cultivated and inhabited country. it does not reach the albert lake at the most convenient end. but it is far cheaper than the other. it is only 135 miles long instead of nearly 250. it connects not only the two great lakes, but also lake chioga with all its channels and tributaries, in one system of unbroken steam communication.
briefly this latter project would consist of two links of railway: the first about sixty miles long from jinja (or ripon falls) to kakindu, the first point where the victoria nile 222 becomes navigable: the second about seventy-five miles long from the neighbourhood of mruli to the nile below the murchison falls and near its mouth on the albert. by these two sections of railway, together only 135 miles in length, a wonderful extent of waterways would be commanded; to wit: 1. thirty miles of the victoria nile navigable from kakindu to lake chioga. 2. lake chioga itself, with its long arms and gulfs stretching deeply into the whole of the fertile regions to the south-west of mount elgon, and affording a perimeter of navigable coastline accessible by steamers, of certainly not less than 250 miles. 3. all that reach of the victoria nile navigable from lake chioga to foweira when the rapids ending in the murchison falls begin again—70 miles. 4. thirty miles from below the falls to the albert lake. 5. the whole of the albert lake shores—250 miles. 6. the semliki river navigable (once a sandbar has been passed) for sixty miles. 7. the glorious open reach of the white nile from the albert lake to nimule—120 miles. thus by the construction of only 135 miles of railroad, swift modern communication would be established over a total range of 800 miles: or for an addition of one-fifth to its length 223 and one-eighth to its cost the effective radius of the uganda railway would be more than doubled. such railway propositions are few and far between.
i do not prejudge the choice of these two routes. both are now being carefully surveyed. the advantages of the longer and more ambitious line across toro are perhaps superior. but the cost is also nearly twice as great; and cost is a vital factor—not merely to the government called upon to find money, but still more to the commercial soundness of an enterprise which is permanently crippled, if its original capital charges are allowed notably to exceed what the estimated earnings would sustain. the question is one which will require severe and patient examination, the nicest balancings between competitive advantages, the smoothest compromises between the practical and the ideal.
but let us now look forward to a time—not, i trust, remote—when by one route or the other the distance between the victoria and albert lakes has been spanned by a railway, and when the mountains of the moon are scarcely four days' journey from mombasa. the british government will then be possessed of the 224 shortest route to the eastern congo. the uganda railway will be able to offer rates for merchandise and railway material with which no other line that can ever be constructed will ever be able to compete. the whole of that already considerable, though as yet stifled trade, which feebly trickles back half across africa by boma to the atlantic, which is looking desperately for an outlet to the northward, which percolates in driblets through uganda to-day, will flow swiftly and abundantly to the benefit of all parties concerned down the uganda trunk, raising that line with steady impulse from the status of a political railway towards the level of a sound commercial enterprise. in no other way will the british tax-payer recover his capital. the advantages are great and the expense moderate. larger considerations may postpone, and the imperative need of the fullest surveys will in any case delay construction; but i cannot doubt that the victoria and albert railway is now the most important project awaiting action in the whole of that group of protectorates which sir frederick lugard used proudly to call "our east african empire."
but let us proceed one step further in the 225 development of the communications of north-east africa. when an extension of the uganda railway has reached the albert nyanza, only one link will be missing to connect the whole of the rail and waterway system of east africa and uganda with the enormous system of railways and riverways of egypt and the soudan, to connect the uganda with the desert railway, to join the navigation of the great lakes to the navigation of the blue and white niles. only one link will be missing, and that a very short one; the distance of 110 miles from nimule to gondokoro, where the nile is interrupted by cataracts. of the commercial utility of such a link in itself i have nothing to say; but as a means of marrying two gigantic systems of steam communication, it will some day possess a high importance; and thereafter over the whole of the north-east quarter of the african continent under the influence or authority of the british crown, comprising a total mileage by rail and river of perhaps 20,000 miles, uninterrupted steam communication will prevail.
the adventurous and the imaginative may peer out beyond these compact and practicable steps into a more remote and speculative region. 226 perhaps by the time that the junction between the uganda and soudan rail and water systems has been effected, the rhodes cape to cairo railway will have reached the southern end of lake tanganyika: and then only one comparatively short hiatus will bar a complete transcontinental line, if not wholly of railroad, at least of steam traffic and of comfortable and speedy travel.
then, perhaps it will be time to make another journey; but as the reader, who will no doubt take care to secure a first-class tourist ticket, will no longer require my services as guide, i shall take this opportunity of making him my bow.
