Colonial Economic Policy Research Articles

Government, the Business Community, and Quality Control Schemes in the Agricultural Export Trade of Nigeria, 1889-1929

he development of produce inspection as the thrust of the colonial policy of quality control in Nigeria has received some attention in the literature. For Northern Nigeria, Shenton and Adebayo have, in separate studies, examined colonial economic policy relating specifically to groundnuts, cotton, and hides and skins.2 In the only major study of pre-1936 Southern Nigerian produce inspection, Njoku dealt with the palm produce trade of Southeastern Nigeria while making passing reference to Lagos, and to parts of the Western Niger Delta which belonged to the Niger Coast Protectorate.3 Although Njoku shed much light on the evolution of quality control schemes in Nigerian agriculture, he neglected the operation of produce inspection in the Yoruba hinterland of the port of Lagos. This article examines the evolution of policies aimed at enhancing the quality of Western Nigerian palm produce and cocoa exports which passed through the port of Lagos.4 The study is significant not only for covering a region and its agricultural produce which have not before received in-depth treatment in the literature, but also for highlighting and analyzing debates within official circles, and between the government and vested interests, on the content, operation, and impact of official policy.5 It sheds light on aspects of pressure group politics in the agricultural export sector of the colonial economy, especially the role of the state and the business community.6

The Prospects for African Economic History: Is Today Included in the Long Run?

The World Bank, in its controversial 1981 report on problems of African development, came down particularly hard on African governments for having inflated the state sector (World Bank, 1981: 40): During the past 20 years the public sector has greatly extended its economic role in Africa, as it has elsewhere. This growth has come not only from expansion of government per se, but also by extension of the state into commercial or productive activities—manufacturing, mining, transport, marketing—activities which were largely in private hands before independence. A recent World Bank study…showed that the public sector now employed between 40 and 74 percent of those recorded in paid employment. The Berg report, as it is known after its principal author, Elliott Berg, praises African governments for their accomplishments in education and health, but otherwise condemns them for following mistaken, state-centered economic policy. This is not to say, however, that the report praised colonial economic policies by comparison. Here is one of the few paragraphs in the report addressing the era before 1960 (World Bank, 1981: 11): Modern economic growth has a relatively brief history in Sub-Saharan Africa. Colonial administration established itself in most cases in the last two decades of the 19th century. Economic expansion came quickly in a few countries — Ghana, Senegal, Uganda, and Zaire, for example — and spread elsewhere later, with interruptions during World Wars I and II and the depression of the 1930s. However, general and sustained development came only after World War II in most of the countries of the region.

Federal Perceptions and Policy Versus Virgin Islands Reality

There is a long-standing tradition of discrepant perceptions of development problems and remedies in many present and former colonial areas. Thus it is not surprising that conflicts have often infested the coordination of colonial economic policy since these arrangements generally involve two distinct groups separated by distance, experience, context, and decision-making authority. Such has been the case in the United States Virgin Islands.

European Settlers, African Apprehensions, and Colonial Economic Policy: The North Nyasa Native Reserves Commission of 1929

This article discusses the little known Native Reserves (North Nyasa) Commission of 1929, set up to recommend suitable land to be reserved for African use in the North Nyasa district.l It examines the context within which the Commission was. established and the relative position of Africans at the time. The article also assesses the Commission's recommendations pertaining to the economic development of the area and argues that many of the suggestions, though fairly progressive, were doomed not to go beyond discussion because of three main factors: the development philosophies of particular colonial officers, imperial decisions not in Nyasaland's best interest, and Nyasaland's position as a labor reserve for the settler states of Southern Rhodesia and South Africa. Finally, it demonstrates that because of these reasons North Nyasa remained poor and, like the rest of the country, underdeveloped. The article is thus in many ways a study in contrasting ideas as well as realities, which in Nyasaland's case seem to have been little affected by policy discussions.

Colonial Economic Policy in Uganda after World War I: A Reassessment

Colonial Economic Policy in Uganda after World War I: A Reassessment

Political Economy of Railways in British India, 1850-1900

Historiography of the 19th century India is replete with lively debates on several aspects of the colonial economic policy such as Laissez faire, Free Trade, De-Industrialization, Land Tax, Economic Drain, etc. The railroad was one such issue that engaged the minds of the contemporary commentators, British civil servants, Indian Nationalist thinkers and the later-day academicians.

The Impact of Colonialism on Health and Health Services in Tanzania

This article is about the problems of malnutrition and disease in a rural area of an underdeveloped country, Tanzania. The particular way in which health problems were conceptualized during the colonial era, the structure of the medical services established, and the effects of health care on the health status and size of the rural population of Songea District in Tanzania are shown in the article to have been determined by the economic, social, and political requirements of German and British colonial rulers rather than by the health needs of the African population. Colonial economic policy emphasized the production of cash crops for export, whether by African peasant farmers or by European plantation owners. To provide workers for the plantations, a system of labor migration was instituted. Songea District became an area that supplied male workers to other parts of the country, with grave consequences to the health and nutrition of the women and children left behind. Domestic food production was neglected by Africans forced to migrate in search of cash to pay taxes and by those enganged in the cultivation of cash crops. Extensive malnutrition and persistent ill health related to poor diet are thus traced directly to capitalist underdevelopment of th Tanzanian economy and the structural distortions of a dependent relationship between Tanzania and the metropolitan power.

The British Government and Colonial Economic Policy, 1919-39

The British Government and Colonial Economic Policy, 1919-39

The British Government and Colonial Economic Policy, 1919–391

The British Government and Colonial Economic Policy, 1919–39¹