Colonial Development

Mauritius Times – 70 Years

By Peter Ibbotson

It is time again to look at some of the developments under way or planned for the very near future in territories other than Mauritius. By so doing, we may see how other colonies are progressing in ways different from our own; we may, perhaps, get ideas about developments we would like to see here.

A few months ago, it was announced that a grant of £540,000 (Rs 7,200,000) had been made under the Colonial Development and Welfare (CD&W) Acts towards the cost of improvements at Port Louis harbour. Only a few days later, it was announced that an even larger sum — £881,728, or Rs 11.5 million — had been granted towards the cost of providing new deep-water wharf facilities at Lautoka, the second port of the Fiji Islands. This grant is one-quarter of the cost of the whole scheme which will improve export facilities for newly developed industries in the western region of Fiji. When the new wharf is completed, ocean-going vessels will be able to discharge their cargoes direct to Lautoka, instead of these cargoes having to be discharged at Suva and transported 150 miles overland to Lautoka. Dredging will provide a deep channel at Lautoka, and the material dredged up will be used in reclaiming an area for open storage on land next to the wharf.

Other recent grants under the CD&W Acts have included a total of over Rs 10 million for educational purposes. This sum includes provision for a girls’ grammar school and a boys’ technical school, both in Malta, and an overall sum for the development of secondary education in Jamaica. British Guiana and Sierra Leone have had grants towards the cost of drainage and irrigation works and water supplies; Sarawak and North Borneo have had grants earmarked for road development.

Mauritius’ little sister, the Seychelles, has had a comprehensive £2.5 million (Rs 33 million) development plan approved by the island Government. The UK Government has allocated £1 million (over Rs 13 million, or two-fifths of the total cost) from CD&W funds towards the plan. What is planned in the Seychelles?

One of the most important projects is to set up a Tourist Board and Industry on the lines of the West Indian model. The emphasis of the plan falls fairly and squarely on projects with a high economic content (like the Mauritius Five-year Plan, in other words). Roads, electricity supply, water supply, and in conjunction with Cable and Wireless, telephone supply are all to be developed. Improved communications are planned with the outside world, by establishing a new shipping service or, if possible, a new air service. These last are essential if the Tourist Industry is to be fully developed. Private enterprise is to be assisted in the hotel and tourist industries, as well as in agriculture.

(As a UK taxpayer who is helping to provide the CD&W allocation, I protest against this assistance for private enterprise in the tourist industry which is to be developed by the state. I feel that where the government is financing the industry, it should reap the benefits of any profit which may accrue by having its own state-run hotels, etc).

Animal husbandry, fisheries, and forestry are all to be developed; tax concessions are being introduced. Among these are concessions designed to attract retired people from overseas to settle in the Seychelles and so provide local employment opportunities, especially in the service occupations.

Social and welfare matters also figure in the Seychelles plan. A new technical school is planned; this will help young Seychellois to get skills which will be of use to them in the new industries it is hoped to set up. A trained Seychellois will also be able to emigrate and get work abroad. Hospital facilities are to be extended. Anaemia is widespread (as in Mauritius) among the poorer people, and a survey of its incidence has been started by the Welcome Research Laboratory. In 1960, the World Health Organization is to make a TB survey of the islands. It is intended also to tackle the housing problem.

I referred above to Sierra Leone. In view of the Labour Party programme at the last general election, which included the establishment of a university college in Mauritius, it is interesting to note that just before Christmas it was announced that Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone, has been granted University College status, in relationship with the University of Durham.

The latest colony where constitutional developments have been adumbrated is Uganda. On December 23, the Governor’s Constitutional Committee published its report, known as the Wild Report, making many far-reaching recommendations. The most important are that: direct elections shall be held in early 1961 or earlier; universal adult suffrage shall be established; there shall be a common electoral roll, with no device for the representation of non-African minorities; there shall be no representation of special interests; and the political party which gets a clear majority at the general election shall form the government side of the Legislature.

We see no nonsense proposed in Uganda such as we have in Mauritius. There is no foolishness about an Executive Council reflecting in its composition the composition (the Wild Report wants this to be called the National Assembly). Instead, we have the fair and square proposal that the majority party shall form the government. Nor is there any stupid proposal that minorities not represented by elected members shall be able to have nominated representation. And people who might have wanted special representation for sectional interests or racial minorities have been, rightly, rebuffed.

The proposals put a premium on the development of political parties. The Report says that it might be possible to get one or two of those concerned with party political organisations in the UK to visit Uganda and take part in a course on political party organisation. The Wild Committee has in fact recommended this as a possibility to be pursued by the Uganda government in consultation with the leaders of the various political parties now in existence. One wonders if something on these lines might not bear profitable fruit in Mauritius, where the parties opposed to the Labour Party exist on very tenuous philosophies, and where the Labour Party seems to need guidance on organisational lines.

7th Year – No 282
Friday 15th January, 1960

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 20 September 2024