the British South Africa Company

BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY, THE. This company owes its existence mainly to the creative genius of the late Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who in the early 'eighties of the last century saw that, unless Great Britain bestirred herself, large tracts of valuable country ruled by savage native chiefs in the interior of Africa would pass into the hand of the continental Powers then engaged in a scramble for new colonies. The reports of explorers had convinced him that the high lands north and south of the Zambesi river not only provided favourable fields for colonization and agricultural development but contained the promise of great mineral wealth. Upon these tracts the eyes of 'Transvaal Boers and Germans were already fixed, while Portugal, after centuries of apathy, was beginning to assert historical claims to their ownership.

Rhodes first tackled the problem of acquiring a foothold in the Matabele and Mashona country, and with that object secured the despatch to King Lobengula of a diplomatic mission to establish an understanding between him and the Government of Queen Victoria. This, being successful, was followed in 1888 by a more special mission which succeeded in obtaining from Lobengula a concession of mineral rights over the whole of what is now South ern Rhodesia. Other financial groups which claimed to have secured local mineral concessions and trading rights were per suaded to throw in their lot with Rhodes, and he was thus enabled to approach the British Government with a petition for a charter authorizing him to undertake the development and administra tion of all that part of the interior of south Central Africa not definitely appropriated by Belgians, Germans, and Portuguese.

Royal Charter, 1889.

The Royal charter was granted on Oct. 29, 1889. By adroit handling Lobengula was next induced to permit the entry of an expedition composed of settlers and police. This arrived on Sept. 12, 1890, at the site of the modern town of Salisbury, which thereafter became the headquarters of the Chartered Company's government and the focus of its activi ties. Simultaneously Rhodes despatched expeditions to various regions north of the Zambesi and obtained land and mineral con cessions over Barotseland, and, in concert with the late Sir Harry Johnston, over a great part of the territory lying between Lakes Nyasa, Tanganyika, Mweru, and Bangweulu, which districts were afterwards administered by the British South Africa Company under the names of north-western and north-eastern Rhodesia respectively.

During the years immediately following the occupation of Mashonaland the European settlers, as was almost inevitable, had to encounter opposition from the savage Matabele on their bor ders, who were loth to abandon their traditional practice of raid ing and plundering the weaker tribes whom the company had taken under their protection. To this cause was due the Matabele War of 1893, which resulted in the defeat of Lobengula's army by a small body of the settlers headed by the Company's admin istrator, Dr. L. S. Jameson, and the flight, followed by the death, of the chief himself. The Crown then consented to extend the administration of the Chartered Company over Matabeleland and gave effect to this by an Order in Council dated July 1894.

For some years the fortunes of the new settlements fluctuated.

A determined rebellion broke out in Matabeleland in March 1896 and was immediately followed by a rising of most of the tribes in Mashonaland. In both a large number of isolated settlers were trapped and murdered in cold blood. In Matabele land, after some months of indecisive fighting, Rhodes, with great courage, went almost alone into the rebel stronghold and arranged terms of peace with the leaders. In Mashonaland the hostilities were more protracted, but were finally brought to an end by the surrender of the rebels in Oct. 1897. Thenceforward the record of the country is one of unbroken progress. A legislative council was instituted and the principle of popular representation was in troduced, agricultural industries established, and mining for gold and other minerals actively carried on.

Rhodes successfully financed the construction of a trunk line of railway connecting the Cape system with the north, and Mashona land with the more convenient port of Beira in Portuguese East Africa. The Chartered Company was thus the parent of the Rhodesia railway system, which now extends from Vryburg in Bechuanaland to the borders of the Belgian Congo, and from Bulawayo to the east coast of Africa—some 2,500 miles of rail way line in all.

The whole expense of the Chartered Company's operations, in cluding the cost of quelling the various native disturbances, was borne by its shareholders without assistance from the British taxpayers.

Southern Rhodesia and

1923 the settlers of Southern Rhodesia felt themselves strong enough to demand self-government. An alternative proposal that the terri tory should become incorporated in the Union of South Africa was submitted to a referendum and rejected by a large majority. Southern Rhodesia was granted self-government in 1923, and in the following year the territories lying north of the Zambesi were given the status of a protectorate of the Crown. In both cases the company was relieved of the administrative obligations which it had faithfully carried out for 33 years. During that period, besides developing the agricultural and mineral resources of the countries embraced within its charter, the company succeeded in completely eradicating the slave trade, which from time imme morial had been carried on by many of the native chiefs en couraged by Arabs from Zanzibar and other parts of East Africa; it had strangled the traffic in alcoholic liquor, prohibiting its sale to the natives under the most rigid penalties; it had established a system of native education and had set aside reserves whereon the natives could continue to live under tribal conditions, and had given facilities to Christian missionaries of all creeds to carry on their civilizing work in every part of the territory.

At the termination of the Chartered Company's administration the Imperial Government arranged to refund to it a portion of the heavy expenditure which it had incurred in discharging the obligations of the charter, and the Southern Rhodesia Government assumed its share of this expenditure as a public debt. The Chartered Company was also allowed to retain such areas of land as it had appropriated for agricultural and ranching purposes and the benefit of extensive land concessions in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland. It retains also the mineral rights originally ac quired from native chiefs, which cover the whole of Rhodesia north and south. As holding the great majority of the shares in the companies operating the various sections of the railways it is virtually the proprietor of the whole system.

During the period of administration the financial burdens im posed upon the company were too heavy to permit of any return to the shareholders, but within a year of being relieved of these burdens the directors were able to refund 5s. on every LI share, and since that date dividends have also been regularly paid. The capital of the company, originally L1,000,000, has by successive increases been raised to £6,750,000. The president of the com pany is Sir Henry Birchenough, Bt., K.C.M.G., who is also chair man of the companies controlling the Rhodesia railway system.

BmLIOGRAPHY.-Annual Reports issued by the British South Africa Company ; F. C. Selous, Travel and Adventures in South East Africa (1893) ; P. F. Hone, Southern Rhodesia (1909) ; Basil Williams, Cecil Rhodes (1921) ; Ian Colvin, Life of Jameson (192 2) ; H. Marshall Hole, The Making of Rhodesia (1926) .