Recommendations Concerning Utilization. 
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Province, or gradually burned out. There is an enormous value, both in hardwoods and in softwoods, within the Province ; it will gradually be burned out to make way for 
cultivation unless utilised as occupation is in progress, and it can only be utilised if conditions allow of its being delivered at about the rate mentioned. Of course, among it is 
much valuable timber fit for export to Europe for furniture and hardwood purposes at a much higher rate than that mentioned for mining timber, and this may assist to bring up 
the general average value, but the most important factor is that the Transvaal can be relied to take all hardwood props between 8 and 14 inches diameter in so far as they are 
not too valuable for that purpose. The soft woods on the other hand are not in demand except as plain and grooved flooring-hoards, ceiling-boards, &c., and until local factories 
are erected for making them so, any trees felled are practically wasted. 
I have already indicated that unless Government is itself prepared to undertake huge development schemes, and sufficiently free from Home control and sufficiently 
permanent in its policy to guarantee stability to any work undertaken, the path to progress lies in the direction of Development Companies, granted concessions or occupation 
under such favourable and permanent agreements as will allow them to spend money freely with some reasonable prospect of a good return. Any such Company has to overcome 
innumerable and unforseen difficulties and must have a talented local manager as well as an enterprising board, but given the right manager, the right board, and the right capital, 
few areas in the world have now such opportunities of development as Magenja da Costa. With timber upon it to pay for its own clearing and cultivation, produce sleepers for 
local use, and leave a cash surplus ; with fairly abundant and exceedingly cheap labour ; with numerous waterways and several ports ; with gradients that allow tramway service 
everywhere, with soil everywhere which will carry some crop saleable for export as well as for local consumption, and with a present land value sufficiently low to tempt anybody, 
the surprise is that the Government has not been pestered with applications from speculative financiers as to terms on which huge concessions could be taken up. It is only 
ignorance of the actual value, especially of the timber, which allows this to be the case. 
But if, on the other hand, no scheme is adopted, either by Government or by Concessionaire Companies, destruction will go on, followed up by fire and weeds, no 
return will be drawn from the forest while it is being destroyed, and the land will be left in a condition more difficult and costly to handle than before. The district includes its 
cocoa-nut belt, its sugar valleys, its sisal fields, its half-swamps fit for rice or New Zealand flax, and its huge area of rolling dry lands fit for mapira, mealies, cassava, dohl, sesame, 
m-dumbes, pea nuts, earth-nuts, sweet potatoes, beans, pine-apples, tropical fruits, cotton, coffee, tobacco, and probably also jute, cocoa, rubber, and palm oil (Elaeis guineensis). 
How many more products can be grown with advantage remains to be seen, but all the above kinds can be introduced more satisfactorily, at less cost and with more profit as 
soon as the forest is cleared than after a mixed regrowth of weeds. 
For the development of this and other districts better transport is absolutely necessary ; tram service is the one solution to this problem, and the utilization of the timber 
in sleepers and in traffic is the only present means of laying down tram lines inexpensively, each truck carrying out rails returning with timber as the work proceeds. Considering 
the difference in cost of construction between a line laid for steam power and one laid for hand power, and the abundance and low cost of labour, the latter method appears to 
me to be preferable, especially as it can so much more easily be moved from one locality to another as clearing proceeds. Such a line through any district at once allows each 
man employed to transport on every journey many times the amount of produce he could previously carry. If oil nuts can be carried by hand one to two hundred miles to the 
coast for shipment, as I saw being done, then the culture would be comparatively remunerative with such improved transport, while the owners of the line would have a sub- 
stantial return. I know that there is prejudice against anything less than steam power, and for a main line would not advocate such, but what is wanted here is not so much a 
permanent line as a light development line which can be moved from valley to valley, and from ridge to ridge as clearing proceeds, maintaining however a through service for 
agricultural produce wherever that is required. Such lines handle all the produce of the sugar estates to the mills ; such lines have answered all purposes on the very extensive 
sugar plantations of Natal ; and such lines meet the present requirement of this Province. 
Though this is written in connection with Zambesia it applies with equal force to other parts of the Province. A through line from the main line to the Limpopo, and 
thence to the Inharreme and Inhambane, is urgently wanted to connect up these waterways with the sea and with the railway, but until such can be taken in hand, a tram 
service, as described above, connecting M’Chopes and Inharreme with one or other of the ports is an immediate necessity. 
Together with improved transport, local manufacture is a desideratum. Whether owned by Government or by private owners, sugar-mills, oil factories, grinding mills 
and sawmills are necessary. Central mills owned by Government, and each serving the producing public of its district, best answers the purpose, unless where a strong company 
has the local development in hand, and there replaces the Government in that respect. The reduction of bulk and weight before transport is the first clement in economy, 
consequently all waste materials and by-products, which cannot be realised with profit, should be dismissed before freight commences. 
Under the scheme here sketched, which applies with equal force to almost any locality, the men, instead of being shipped out are retained in the Province for local 
development ; the forest produce instead of being burned out pays the cost of clearing and development, with something over ; and the land becomes available as a huge 
producing area of first quality and with transport carefully arranged. This is no idealist’s fancy ; it is all practical and practicable. 
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