Swaziland report / Commonwealth Relations Office.

  • Great Britain. Office of Commonwealth Relations
Date:
[1965]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Swaziland report / Commonwealth Relations Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    134/156 (page 122)
    exchange of notes on this issue in 1927, L. S. Amery, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, considered that “the best thing was to await a further approximation of native policy between the Protectorates and the Union as the result, first of all, of the working out of the new Native policy of the Union, and secondly of a more active educational and development policy in the Protectorates.And although there were further exchanges of letters, this is where the issue of incorporation rested until it was shelved by the start of the second World War. Its consideration did, however, highlight the miserable state of the three Protectorates, and following the visit of Mr. Amery in 1927 serious efforts were made to improve their material condition. Mr. Amery’s visit generated an immediate and remarkably strong spirit of confidence within the Territory, and it also resulted in greater participation in the affairs of Swaziland by the British Government. In only a few years had a budget surplus been achieved, and then only because large sales of Crown Land had been credited to revenue. This source began to run out in the mid-1920s, and from 1928 onwards budget deficits were covered by parliamentary grants-in-aid for both recurrent and capital expenditure. Two other developments, directly attributable to Mr. Amery’s visit, were the establishment of a Land and Agricultural Loan Fund in 1929 and an enquiry into the financial and economic situation of Swaziland by Sir Alan Pirn in 1931. Financed by the Imperial Treasury, the Loan Fund was intended to serve the same purpose as a Land Bank. Arrangements were also made to finance the Swaziland Tobacco Co-operative formed in 1931 as a result of marketing pressure from the Union. Economic Recession Limited funds had precluded all but the most essential expansion of social and welfare services, and the passing of the 1929 Colonial Develop¬ ment Act was of fundamental importance to Swaziland. The first issue of £13,074 in 1930 was devoted almost entirely to the improvements of communications and medical services. Later developments financed from this service included water conservation dams, the low level bridge across the Usutu River at Sipofaneni, and several dairies in Swazi Area. But before this source of development finance could make much impact, the world wide depression of the early 1930s severely affected the primary export commodities on which Swaziland’s economy was largely dependant. By 1934 tobacco production had fallen to one-sixth of that in 1929. In 1930 and 1931 gold production was again suspended, and in the two years from 1929 to 1931 the value of tin exports dropped from £38,692 to £8,875. Production of cotton fell from a record total of 2,149 bales in 1929 to only 197 bales in 1933, a situation very largely the result of low prices and unstable currency conditions. Towards the end of the 1930s conditions in some measure improved. The number of European immigrants, although still small, rose to nearly