GD2: De las macropolíticas a las micropolíticas

As we saw in chapters 3 and 4 fears about land degradation and its impact on Lesotho’s struggling agricultural economy increased rapidly during the early 1930s.

These fears were not, however, turned into policy until after the middle of the decade.

This was largely because of the perceived inability to intervene in the rural economy until the system of administration had been reformed and external funding was made available. Whatever the desires of the colonial officials to intervene they were

essentially hamstrung until they could move some way towards overcoming these two constraints.

In the wake of Russell Thornton’s 1931 report on grazing in the mountains, F.A.

Vemey, the Principal Veterinary Officer, made a number of suggestions for livestock development policies and other environmental protection measures. He placed particular blamed for the situation on the system of administration:

The greatest weakness at the moment is the calibre of our Chiefs. It is to be regretted that so few of our Chiefs take any real interest in the ‘general agricultural’ welfare of the people.39

His report was not well received by Sturrock who had been forced to abandon his own attempt at reforming the system of chiefly rule in 1929. Beside Vemey’s comment that he agreed with Thornton’s recommendation that people be stopped ploughing up grazing land and that he had ‘advocated this sometime ago’, Sturrock wrote:

39 LNA 212, Vemey to Foord, 28 September 1931. Vemey also complained that: ‘most o f our important chiefs today are far too sedentary; few ride a horse or go amongst their people and see what is really taking place, and the majority o f them do all their travelling in a luxurious motor car and I am perfectly certain, at their stage of evolution, the Almighty never intended this’. Beside this Sturrock commented ‘I fear that this is also a characteristic o f many European administrators’.

Intriguingly a similar complaint about chiefs driving around in cars had been made by Keable

‘Mote, the Provincial Secretary o f the Orange Free State Branch of the ICU (the ‘Lion o f the Free State’) only a few months previously (though obviously without the racist social Darwinism): ‘The chiefs tour around in big motor cars and have no association with the peasants’. ‘Mote, K. ‘The awakening of Basutoland’, Ikwezi le Afrika, 18 April 1931, in Edgar, Prophets with Honour, p.168.

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We have all advocated it, but how to establish control. We have never really annexed this country and the relations between us and the Native Government are hopelessly undefined.40

A letter from Vemey suggested that the Paramount Chief should be ‘ordered to institute the old method of the ploughing board, which in our experience does not exist today’: beside the suggestion Sturrock simply wrote ‘By whom!’.41

In subsequent correspondence with the Sir H.J. Stanley, the High Commissioner, Sturrock made it clear why he believed the Basutoland administration could do little in the way of rural development:

I would ... stress the fact, so often stressed before, that all improvements of present agricultural practices, in as far as it is based upon accepted European principles, does in fact tend to undermine the traditional system of land tenure and on that account is apt to meet with suspicion and opposition from the Paramount Chief and his Chiefs.

He went on to say that any change in land tenure would represent a ‘social revolution’

and that the introduction of individual land tenure ‘could only be effected after a change in the relative position of Chiefs and people’.42

Sturrock also pointed out that the administration’s efforts to improve the productivity of the livestock sector benefited only the wealthiest members of the population who

owned large herds of sheep and goats. Whilst Lekhotla la Bafo complained vigorously about the dipping campaign, opposition within the National Council tended to be

muted.43 Owners of larger flocks may have been more willing to put up with the loss of some livestock in exchange for better returns on wool or mohair, especially if they were benefiting from the highly subsidised sale of high quality rams. The chiefs were not, however, willing to contemplate any moves to reduce the livestock population; in 1925 the Council had discussed a recommendation from Vemey to reduce the livestock population, but every speaker was opposed to the plan and nothing came of it.

The National Council were much more supportive of a plan to introduce a national soil conservation scheme. When this was discussed in the 1932 session many chiefs expressed support for the idea. Some went so far as to suggest that commoners should provide free labour, presumably under the system of matsema labour.44 Chiefly abuse

40 LNA 212, margin note [by Sturrock] on Vemey to Foord, 28 September 1931.

41 LNA 212, Vemey and Wacher to Foord, 23 November 1931 and margin note [by Sturrock].

42 LNA 212, Sturrock to Stanley, 4 December 1931.

43 In the 1927 two prominant chiefs, Makhaola and Sekonyana, both requested that more dip tanks be built in the mountain areas, Basutoland National Council, Proceedings o f the 22nd Session, 1927, pp.21-22.

44 Pirn, Financial and Economic Position o f Basutoland, p. 139.

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of matsema labour was, however, the issue over which Lekhotla la Bafo was most consistently vocal45 and the colonial authorities appeared to be more sensitive of the political ramifications of expanding the use of matsema labour for public works than some of the chiefs.46 Without the necessary funds, or a clear locus for intervention, the colonial authorities were unable to take forward the national anti-erosion project.

Nevertheless the colonial authorities kept the idea in mind and when the Pirn Commission arrived in the territory it was one of the things that the Department of Agriculture particularly stressed in their submission.47 Though the publication of the Pirn Commission report is often seen as a pivotal point in the history of Lesotho its real significance was simply that it gave what Machobane calls ‘moral support’48 to pre­

existing concerns amongst the Basutoland administration and led directly to the opening of Whitehall coffers. The section of the report on soil erosion was based largely on the submission from Thornton49 and the Commission was convinced of the necessity and feasibility of a national soil conservation plan after visiting the scheme initiated by Thornton in Herschel.50 Thornton’s detailed estimates for a similar programme were included as a annex to the report and these formed the basis of the funding subsequently granted from the Colonial Development Fund.

45 Edgar Prophets with Honour p. 10.

46 Rugege argues that the colonial state used matsema labour to ‘extract surplus labour from the peasants for all kinds o f public works such as building court houses, roads, bridges etc.’ Rugege, S.

‘Chieftainship and society in Lesotho’, p.24. He does not cite any evidence to support this

contention and I believe it may be somewhat of an exaggeration. Sheddick (to whom Rugege refers later in the thesis when discussing matsema labour, p. 338) states that matsema labour was used in the construction o f ‘native courts’, pulling up burr-weed from pastures and the construction of dams, Sheddick, Land Tenure, p. 151. The abuse of matsema labour by chiefs was a major complaint from Lekhotla la Bafo and they would have raised an out-cry if the colonial authorities made heavy demands on this form of labour. In 1943 they did complain to the Paramount Chief about matsema labour being used to plant trees in dongas on behalf o f the government, Rabase Sekike to Chieftainess ‘Mantsebo Seeiso, 30 May 1943, MA 1/33.1937-1946 in Edgar, Prophets with Honour, p.137-140, but on the whole the complaints tended to be directed against the senior chiefs. Furthermore concerns about fulfilling the labour demands o f South African mines and farms would have discouraged the Basutoland authorities from extracting large amounts o f labour within the territory.

47 PRO DO 119/1051, Commission of Inquiry: Financial and Economic Mission to Basutoland, Department o f Agriculture, Answer to Questionnaire sent by Sir Alan Pim in preparation for Commission, 31 August 1934.

48 Machobane, Government and Change, p. 187.

49 PRO DO 119/1051, Commission o f Inquiry: Financial and Economic Mission to Basutoland, Dept, of Agriculture, Answer to Questionnaire sent by Sir Alan Pim in preparation for Commission, 31 August 1934.

50 Pim, Financial and Economic Position o f Basutoland, pp. 137-140.

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When the Colonial Development Fund agreed to grant £160,233 over a ten-year period to institute the national soil conservation project51 the Basutoland administration was able to overcome the first of the two stumbling blocks outlined above. The prior acceptance of the principal of a soil conservation programme by the National Council might have suggested to the Basutoland administration that they could count on the support of the major chiefs and overcome the second major stumbling block.

Nevertheless they remained extremely wary of the possible reaction to the policy amongst the Basotho population.

One good reason to be wary was the potential opposition from Lekhotla la Bafo to any external development funding. As Edgar notes in the introduction to Prophets with Honour:

Lekhotla la Bafo opposed any assistance - whether for soldiers’ pensions or anti­

erosion schemes - over which the Basotho had no control. It reasoned that no matter how positive a contribution development assistance might make, it was a subtle way of distracting the Basotho and paving the way for European

settlement.52

Despite the fact that they tended to dismiss Lekhotla la Bafo as unhinged trouble­

makers the Basutoland authorities were wary about their opposition to any policy. Not only was the organisation able to claim widespread popular support in many areas of the country they were also, on occasions, able to muster support in the National Council. The Basutoland administration had already experienced the ability of Josiel Lefela to rally support within the National Council, despite his antagonism to some of the most important chiefs. Machobane argues that it was largely the influence of Lefela that led the 1929 National Council to reject Sturrock’s reform programme.53

According to Kate Showers and Gwendolyn Malahleha, Paramount Chief Griffith was opposed to the idea of the national anti-erosion scheme and only agreed to it at the last minute:

Discussion about implementing this programme took place between the British administration and the Paramount Chief Griffith in private meetings and with the chiefs and representatives of the National Council. Chief Griffith refused to consider any kind of soil conservation programme until he was quite old and weak. He finally agreed to the national soil conservation programme in a series of bargaining sessions in which concessions were made to him about nominating his successor in exchange for agreement to certain British administrative

activities.54

Showers and Malahleha cite an unnamed oral source, a historian and teacher in Quthing district, as evidence for this secret bargaining session. Though Showers and Malahleha

51 Basutoland, Department of Agriculture, Annual Report, 1936, p. 1.

52 Edgar, Prophets with Honour, p.15.

53 Machobane, Government and Change, p. 177-182.

54 Showers and Malahleha, ‘Oral Evidence in Historical Environmental Impact Assessment’, p. 287.

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make no reference to it there is a published source that appears to support their analysis:

a letter from Rabase Sekike of Lekhotla la Bafo to Paramount Chief ‘Mantsebo. The letter starts by complaining about the anti-erosion campaign and later states that ‘in secret your father-in-law [Griffith] signed documents yielding [the rights of Basotho] to Europeans’.55 There is, however, some evidence to suggest that Showers and

Malahleha’s informant and Rabase Sekike may have been mistaken. Firstly the

Basutoland authorities did not make concessions to Griffith over the nomination of his successor. Indeed, as Machobane shows, they consistently refused formally to accept the nomination of his son Bereng over his other son Seeiso and, in fact, engineered the accession of Seeiso on Griffith’s death.56 Furthermore the official record of the

discussion between Griffith and the Basutoland authorities over the succession question contained nothing about amending the administrative arrangements or about soil

conservation. Essentially these discussion took place in the late 1920s, before the soil conservation scheme was mooted, and when discussion between the chiefs and colonial state was dominated by Sturrock’s’ draft Regulations.

Given the potential for opposition in the National Council the Basutoland authorities did not re-introduce the policy in 1935 and took the 1932 vote of support as their locus for action 57 Acceptance of the anti-erosion scheme did not, however, mean that the Basutoland authorities had overcome the constitutional difficulties concerning their rights to intervene in land tenure arrangements. In order for the project to go ahead the Basutoland authorities had to accept as a ‘first principal’ that contour banks would cut through and across fields 58 In 1937 there was no legislation under either the

‘customary’ Laws of Lerotholi or from a High Commissioner’s Proclamation which gave them the right to intervene in land use in this manner.59

55 Rabase Sekike to ‘Matsaba Seeiso Griffith, 2 February 1941, MA 1/33,1937-1946, in Edgar, Prophets with Honour, p. 140-141.

56 See Machobane, Government and Change, p.188-196.

57 Showers and Malahleha make no reference to these discussions in the National Council, which they simply dismissed as a ‘talking shop’ full o f ‘yes men’, Showers and Malahleha ‘Oral Evidence in Historical Environmental Impact Assessment’, p. 284.

58 The colonial authorities may have been willing to construct contour banks across fields but they stopped short o f rearranging the pattern o f field allocations so that fields were bounded by the banks, arguing that ‘the adjustment o f fields is regarded as a matter to be settled between the people and the Chiefs’; LNA 1486, Thornton, R.W., Outcome o f Investigations, March 1938.

59 It was not until 1941 that an Order was passed by the Paramount Chief (Order No. 1/26, Office of the Paramount Chief, Matsieng, 26 March 1941) which stated that: ‘It shall be lawful to lay down anti-erosion works, such as contour terrace banks and contour grass strips anywhere in Basutoland where these measures are considered necessary, irrespective o f field boundaries’. See below for further details on this Order.

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The Basutoland authorities would also have been well aware that acceptance of the scheme by the National Council did not mean that individual chiefs would actually support its implementation in their wards or villages. Their concerns appeared to have been well founded: Showers and Malahleha’s oral informants in Quthing and Maseru districts reported that the local chiefs never arrested or fined anybody who removed or adapted the contour banks constructed across their fields.60

This concern about the willingness of chiefs at a local level to administer the construction and maintenance of contour banks may explain why the Basutoland authorities used mechanical power rather than labour power to build the contour banks.61 In his original plans for the scheme Thornton envisaged that contour banks would be built by teams of paid labourers.62 Indeed this is how the Herschel contour banks had been constructed. Showers and Malahleha report that the contour banks in the Mobu valley, which were probably the first to be constructed under the scheme, were built by hand but by 1938 manual labour had been largely replaced by mechanical labour.63 By relying on professional construction teams the anti-erosion scheme was able to free itself from having to rely upon teams of labourers organised by local chiefs and headmen. Showers and Malahleha cite the fact that contour banks were driven across the landscape with no reference to the local population as an example of the absolute authority of the British,64 but ironically it was the lack of control over the chiefly administration that probably led to the decision to use mechanical power.

60 Showers and Malahleha, ‘Oral Evidence in Historical Environmental Impact Assessment’. Though until 1941 there were no regulations pertaining to the maintenance of contour banks and it is not clear under what legislation people could have been fined before that date. There is one archival report prior to 1941 of someone being ‘strongly dealt with’ (by Chief Bereng on behalf o f his father at Matsieng) for ploughing up and down the contours, LNA 1486, Thornton, R.W., Outcome o f Investigations.

61 PRO DO 119/1096 includes a set of photographs o f contour banks being constructed by tractors in 1946. Also see South African National Film Archive, FA1912 - 3 ‘The Story o f Matsele’, filmed by Lewis, L. for the National Veld Trust, which includes footage o f contour banks being

constructed in c. 1947.

62 Thornton’s original estimates were based on gangs o f 100 men, paid a rate o f 9d per day, Pim, Financial and Economic Position o f Basutoland, Annex XIX, Estimate of Sum Required for Soil Erosion Work, p. 221

63 Showers and Malahleha, ‘Oral Evidence in Historical Environmental Impact Assessment’, p. 290, footnote 60. Showers and Malahleha report that the contour banks in this valley were built

sometime in mid-1937. Jacks and Whyte (The Rape o f the Earth) include a picture (taken on 9 June 1937) o f contour banks near to Matsieng which they report were built in December 1935. If this is correct the banks at Matsieng were built before the CD&W funding was available and may explain why they were built by hand.

64 Showers and Malahleha, ‘Oral Evidence in Historical Environmental Impact Assessment’, p. 295.

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Another possible explanation may be British concerns about removing workers from the migrant labour system. It is likely, however, that labour would have been

forthcoming within Lesotho at wage levels that would not have provided competition with either the mines or Free State farms. In Herschel District labourers were paid six pence a day, plus a ration of mealie meal valued at three pence. These rates were significantly lower than those for miners on the Rand65 and the Pim Commission noted that ‘the gangs employed consist... mainly of labourers who are unfit or unwilling to work on the mines’.66

The Basutoland Department of Agriculture saw the anti-erosion works begun in 1937 as very much a first stage in a more comprehensive anti-erosion programme. The

degradation of mountain pastures was being examined in an ecological survey, also funded from the Colonial Development Fund67 and it was anticipated a programme would be begun there on the basis of the survey’s recommendations. There were also a number of changes in the system of agriculture in the lowlands which Thornton and others in the Department of Agriculture saw as being crucial if the anti-erosion works were going to be a success. In an internal report Thornton likened these changes to a spiked wheel ‘which stab into or through Native agricultural practice’, but argued that accelerated soil erosion would continue ‘until the whole wheel with all its points revolves freely’.68

Thornton recognised that it was beyond the abilities of the Department of Agriculture to constantly ensure that the contour banks were in good condition and that the funds available for maintenance under the Colonial Development grant were inadequate for the task. He therefore urged the Resident Commissioner to introduce regulations making people liable for the maintenance of contour banks driven through their fields.

He was aware, however, of the political sensitivity of what he was proposing and suggested they should ‘avoid the use of Proclamations [from the High Commissioner]

65 According to the African Mineworkers Union Statement Submitted to the Witswatersrand Gold Mines Native Wage Commission, in the late 1930s mineworkers on the Rand were earning wages of about 2s3d per shift and those employed in secondary industry significantly more; Appendix II in Allen, V.C. The History o f Black Mineworkers in South Africa (Volume 1, Keighley, 1992).

65 According to the African Mineworkers Union Statement Submitted to the Witswatersrand Gold Mines Native Wage Commission, in the late 1930s mineworkers on the Rand were earning wages of about 2s3d per shift and those employed in secondary industry significantly more; Appendix II in Allen, V.C. The History o f Black Mineworkers in South Africa (Volume 1, Keighley, 1992).