SECTION E.— GEOGRAPHY. 



THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF 



TROPICAL AFRICA AND ITS EFFECT 



ON THE NATIVE POPULATION. 



ADDRESS BY 



THE HON. W. ORMSBY-GORE, M.P., 



PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 



Four million square miles of Africa lie within the British Empire. In 

 fact there is more of the British Empire in Africa than in any other 

 continent. British North America and Australasia are both smaller 

 in area than the African possessions of the Crown. Approximately three- 

 quarters of this African area lie within the Tropics, and it is only outside 

 the Tropics, in the Union of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia, that 

 European colonisation has yet succeeded in establishing the European 

 race m any considerable numbers. 



I define Tropical Africa as that part of Africa which lies south of the 

 Great Sahara and north of the Zambesi River. As far as the British 

 Empire is concerned this area comprises three main blocks of territory : 

 first, the East African group, consisting of British Somaliland, Kenya 

 Colony, Uganda, Tanganyika Territory, Zanzibar, Nyasaland, and Northern 

 Rhodesia. This block contains a population of approximately 12,500,000 

 Africans, 50,000 Asiatics, and less than 20,000 Europeans. 



The second block, almost equal in area to the East African group, but 

 with less than half the population, is formed by the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. 



In West Africa we have four colonies with a total area of half a million 

 square miles and a population of over 24,000,000 Africans. In British 

 West Africa there are no permanent European settlers or colonists, and 

 owing to climatic reasons the European is only a temporary resident, 

 usually for quite brief spells at a time. A small exception is found in 

 the German plantations on Cameroon Moimtaiu. 



The greater part of these vast territories has only been brought under 

 the guidance of British administration within the last forty years, conse- 

 quently the problems of economic development as well as of policy and 

 adminstration are comparatively new. . We are beginning to realise, 

 however, that this new African Empire is one of enormous potentialities 

 and great natural riches. These riches are in the main agricultural, as 

 the mineral deposits so far discovered are comparatively few. History 

 shows that the discovery of valuable minerals is one of the most fruitful 

 causes of the rapid opening up of new country. There is copper, zinc, and 

 lead in Northern Rhodesia ; tin and coal in Nigeria ; gold and manganese 

 in the Gold Coast ; but so far, at any rate, the value of these products is 

 1926 I 



