BANTU INDUSTRIES. 



193 



people are working, the output being about five million tiles a 

 year. Another factory, at Malpe, near Udipi, was started in the 

 year 1886; the fifth at Codacal, near Edakulam, where two hun- 

 dred and eighty-five people are working; the sixth at Palghat, 

 where two hundred and forty persons are now working, and in the 

 year 1905 the seventh factory was established at Ferok, about 

 seven miles from Calicut, where two hundred and thirty-three 

 persons are engaged in tile making. All these seven factories are 

 equipped with up-to-date machinery and are conducted under 

 expert European engineers. All works are carried on under fac- 

 tory rules and regulations, and the factories are periodically 

 visited and inspected by Government officials, such as factory 

 inspectors, sanitary and medical officers, and the district magis- 

 trates. The products of these seven factories are sold throughout 

 the Indian Empire, Burma, and Ceylon, and are also exported to 

 foreign countries. In British East Africa the railway buildings 

 on the Uganda Railwav from Mombasa to Port Florence, the 

 railway terminus at the Lake, are all covered with mission roofing 

 tiles. In Tanganyika Territory, Basel Mission tiles were also 

 being stocked at different places. Tiles are also exported to Aden, 

 and to Basra on the Persian Gulf at the mouth of the Euphrates. 

 They are also being exported in rather large quantities to the 

 Straits Settlements, to Sumatra, British Borneo, and even to 

 Australia. So it is evident that these tiles have won a wide repu- 

 tation. They have been shown in many exhibitions in India, such 

 as those held in Madras, Bombay, Cawnpore, Allahabad and 

 Benares, and more than a dozen gold and silver medals were 

 awarded them at these exhibitions. 



I have dealt at some length with these successful enterprises 

 because they present accomplished facts, and because I believe 

 that what has been done in India can be done in Africa to the 

 great advantage o f whites and natives alike. 



The problem is to make a start, and it seems very difficult 

 to get a start made. A certain unvoiced and indefinable, but 

 nevertheless very real, opposition appears to emanate from high, 

 or official, quarters. One of my reasons for arriving at this con- 

 clusion is that it seems to be the considered policy of the "South 

 African Journal of Industries" to exclude from its pages any 

 reference to the development of native industries. Even the 

 Advisory Board of Industry and Science is apparently powerless 

 to change this policy, for I have been informed that it decided 

 at one of its meetings in Johannesburg some considerable time 

 ago that a paper was to be inserted in that Journal on Native 

 Industries, but that decision has evidently been turned down, for 

 the paper in question has not yet appeared. 



Is this a wise or a safe attitude at this time of day 1 Let me 

 pass on to you the words of one who knows the Native and the 

 Transkeian Territories as few know them. He says: — 



" (1) The people as a whole are far poorer than they were in 

 1890. 

 (2) They are spending far more than they did then. 



