E.— GEOGRAPHY. 123 



There are, of course, many varieties of labour engaged in work on the 

 same plantation. There is often the nucleus of permanent labour — 

 squatters, as they are often termed — who live permanently with their 

 families on the estate. Then there are the contract labourers, recruited 

 often from great distances, who work for six months or a year and return 

 to their homes at the conclusion of their contracts. Thirdly, there is 

 casual local labour — usually harvest labour — drawn spasmodically from 

 the neighbourhood. Each category requires special investigation. 



Without going deeply into these questions I should like to quote some 

 of Major Orde Browne's conclusions. 



He writes : ' The impact of the capitalistic system upon the African 

 social organisation in Tanganyika has not the dangers that it would have 

 elsewhere ; the almost entire absence of any class earning a living by 

 industrial crafts eliminates the tragedy of the gradual crushing of such 

 a class by mechanicalised competition, and there is no fear of a duplica- 

 tion of the situation which has arisen from this cause in Indian industrial 

 centres. The African is self-supporting through his own agriculture, and 

 if he goes to work for wages it is primarily to secure money for hitherto 

 imrealised needs or luxuries. The class sometimes termed " wage slaves " 

 — i.e. people who are forced by economic pressure to work willy-nilly at 

 some particular task — is non-existent in Tanganyika and likely to remain so. 



' The introduction of non-native enterprise has conferred a real boon 

 on the African, since it has tended to regulate and equalise the extreme 

 fluctuations resulting from the success or failure of the harvest. Whereas 

 in former years a bad season might entail literal starvation for great 

 numbers, it is now largely mitigated by the possibility of work on a 

 property that provides foods as well as money ; while improved transport 

 consequent upon economic development has also done much to ease the 

 situation created by a bad harvest. 



' In . another direction the native benefits to a minor though still 

 appreciable extent from work on a plantation, it secures him adequate 

 food at a time when the natural improvidence of the African has possibly 

 led to a shortage before the new crop is reaped. That this aspect is fully 

 appreciated is proved by the flow of labourers seeking work during the 

 hungry months ; I have, in fact, frequently been told by natives that 

 they were going to work because the food in the village was growing 

 scarce. It is, indeed, quite possible that this feature will have a beneficial 

 effect on the whole population in time, for there is no doubt that at 

 present many tribes are definitely under-nourished towards the approach 

 of the new harvest, not through any failure of the previous one, but because 

 the thriftlessness of the African frequently leads to inadequate storage 

 or excessive sales. 



' The creation of large industrial centres with workers completely 

 divorced from food production would be an entire innovation of very 

 doubtful desirability ; it appears most unlikely to occur. The African 

 man, and still more the woman, is firmly attached to the soil, and the 

 whole fabric of social organisation is based upon the right to cultivate ; 

 it thus seems probable that the native will always aim at having his 

 own home among his own crops, whether in a distant village or as a 

 " squatter " on an estate.' 



