Stabilization, Town Planning and Land Tenure
| Date | 01 October 1958 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/j.1099-162X.1958.tb01177.x |
| Published date | 01 October 1958 |
Stabilization, Town Planning and Land Tenure
SECTIONS
II-IV
II.
STABILIZATION
OF
AFRICANS
AS
TOWN
DWELLERS
5.
The
establishment
and
growth
of
towns in
East
and
Central
Africa has
been
almost
entirely
the
result
of
non-African initiative,
and
they originally
grew
up
primarily
as centres for non-African residence
and
commercial
and
industrial
activity. Africans were increasingly
attracted
to
the
new towns,
first
by
the
opportunities for
earning
the
money
that
they
required
to
pay
their
taxes or to
buy
the few
imported
goods they were
beginning
to
regard
as
necessities,
and
later
also by
the
lure
of
town life
which
has
proved
so powerful
all
over
the
world.
But
until
recent
years
they
seldom
stayed
for long,
they
seldom
brought
their
families
with
them,
and
they
kept
their
roots
and
indeed
their
land
and
homes in
the
rural
areas
where
their
security lay.
They
were
what
have
come to be called
migrant
labourers.
6.
In
the
early days this system
had
its advantages.
On
the
one
hand,
at
a
time
when
industrial
employment
and
town
life were
quite
new to Africans,
it
gave
them
an
opportunity
to
try
their
hand
at
these things
without
any
long
or final
commitment;
and
also it was a very effective
insurance
against
the
emergence
in
the
early life
of
the
towns
of
problems
of
unemployment
or
destitution in old age similar to those
which
have
arisen in
the
western world.
On
the
other
hand,
at
atime
when
the
non-African
entrepreneur
was a
pioneer
and
when
African
labour
was necessarily unskilled
and
inexperienced,
the
migratory
system
ensured
that
the
establishment
and
expansion
of
industry
and
commerce
was
not
made
impossible by high costs.
7.
The
system has, however,
many
social as well as economic disadvantages,
and
in
particular,
is
apt
to be disruptive
of
family life.
The
time
spent
in
travelling
and
the
high
labour
turnover
within
industry
has serious adverse
effects
both
upon
the
efficiency
and
output
of
labour
and
upon
the
migrant
worker
himself.
Moreover
conditions
are
now
rapidly
changing.
In
many
parts
of
East
and
Central
Africa growing populations
and
the
introduction
of
cash
crops
are
leading to
land
shortages
and
to a
change
[rom
customary
to
individual
forms
of
land
tenure. At
the
same
time employers
are
coming
more
and
more
to feel
the
need for skilled
and
experienced
workmen
rather
than
for
cheap
casual
labour.
In
these circumstances
the
process
which
the
economists
call
'the
division
of
labour'
is accelerating. An essential
part
of
this process is
the
stabilization
of
some Africans as town-dwellers.
The
first question
which
we
have
to consider is
whether
or
not
this is a process
which
should be
encouraged.
8.
This
process
of
the
division
of
labour
and
the
stabilization
of
some Africans
as town dwellers is likely to he a
gradual
one
and
could in fact
have
considerable
danger
if it
were
not.
Few
if
any
of
the
territories in
East
and
Central
Africa
could
to-day
afford a full system
of
social security.
The
problem,
for instance,
of
providing
for old people is therefore likely to be a severe
one
unless some
at
any
rate
of
those
who
are
no longer fit for
industrial
employment
can
return
to
spend
their
old age in
their
villages. Again,
the
closing
of
Bancroft
Mine
in
Northern
Rhodesia
has recently
provided
astriking illustration
of
the
fact
that
in
the
early
stages
of
its development,
when
it is largely
dependant
on
187
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