VII
THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF EXPORTS AND .THE INTERNAL MARKET
FOR THE AGRICULTURE OF THE CAPE COLONY, 1770-1855*
Robert ROSS
Figuring African Trade
Proceedings of the Symposium on the Quantification and, Struoture of the Import and Export and Long Distance Trade of Africa in the 19th Century (c.18OO-1913)
St. augustin 3-6 January 1983
248
Robert ROSS
It is well known that .the exports of the Cape Colony grew r a p i d l y d u r i n g the course of the nineteenth Century. Between 1815 and the early 1840s the most important coramodities s.ent overseas from the Cape were wine products,, hut, thereafter, a change in British tariff policies and the increase in wool production meant that wpol pecame by far the most important, cotjimodtty in the.Cape's export trade. The 1840s and 50s were a period -of true boom in the wo.ol business. In terras of v a l u e wool exports increased by 18% per annum over the period from 1840-.4 to 1855-9.. During the same period th.e total leve! of So.uth African .exports increased by 12% and the main centre of export production shifted to the east. In 1850, for the first time Port Elizabeth exceeded Cape To.w.n in terms of the v a l u e of gpods exported, and by 1856 (the last year for w h i c h d.ata for the distinct ports are ayailabl.e) 59% of the colony's total export went through Port Eliz.abeth. The basic figures for this .growth are given in Table VII.ï.
Thi.s would a l l seera to iraply an .economy which was expanding fast as a result of the introduction of .a new staple export - not such an unlike.ly state of affairs as the underdevelopinent theo-rists would have us believe. Nevertheless, there are indica-tions that things were not quite that simple. In Column IV of Table VII.l the Cap.e Colony's balance of trade is given. This shows that throughout the period from.1805 to 1860 the Cape's imports.considerably exceeded its exports. In the short term, between 1815 and the early 1820s this probably made a major con-tribution to the devaluation of the Cap.e's money, the Rixdollar, After 1827, however, the Rixdollar was tied to sterling, and this could no longer play a role. Rather ther.e is in genera! no in-dication that the d e f i c i t was due to major economic troubles. Cl.ear-ly there must h a v e been a syfficient flow of cash to the Cape to bring the deficit on the balance of trade back into e q u i l i b r i u m when the total balance of payment is consistent.
249 Importance of Exports and the'Internal Market
considerable sura of money - over one m i l l i o n pounds before de-duction of agent's fees and other h a n d l i n g costs - was indeed the f i n a n c i a l basis for the Cape's country barrking system. In addition there was a steady trickle of funds into the colony, as private i n d i v i d u a l s decided to set up sheep farms and so forth. It seems unlikely, howevers that this was sufficient to
finance the chronic balance of trade deficit. Nor, in those ' days., were international banking institutions prepared to do sos
in the long term.
It was the presence of a large establishment of British troops that allowed the Cape's Imports to exceed its-exports to such an extent. In column V of Table VII.l data on the money. transfers to the Cape fèr the payment and p r o v i s i o n i n g of the British troops there are given. As can be seen, these sums are more or less .equivalent to the deficit on the balance,-of trade. Moreover, in these years, during and after Mlanjeni's war (in the early 1850s), when the military,expenditure was h i g h e s tst h e
colony's deficit on the balance of trade was also largest., Clear-ly, the a v a i l a b i l i t y of the large military market was of major importance. . _
The major benefi eiaries in the first instance, were the large Cape Town merchants. Even though South Africa's exports were increasingly directed through Port Elizafaeth, this was not the case with the imports. In 1856, 53% of the colony's imports came through Cape Town and Simonstown. Possibly a proportion of these goods were transshipped to the Eastern Province, but evi-dently the Cape Town meraantile class maintained its grip on the colony, to the evident displeasure of the easterners (or at least the Grahamstown clique).
250
Robert ROSS
the absurdity that in the 1770-s the colony's exports of wheat exceeded its recorded .production. In this paper, therefore, the eighteenth Century data on grain production has been corrected on the basis of estimations of the colony's consumption.
This was not necessary for wine productiön since taxes were collected on entry tnto the market, at a tol! gate on the only road to Cape. Town. There was therefore no fnCentive for farmers to underrecord theirproductions and they do not seem to have
don,e so.
i f the eighteenth Century estimates are correct (and the abnormally high figure for wheat produ-ctiön in 1798 .is not evi-derice against thist in itself) then the bas-ic pattern of
agri-•cu'ltural grow.th is clear. As régard's grain products, there was a s-harp Hse in wheat production apparently in the years of the first British oc'cupation (1795-1803'), but thereafter the amounts grown reraained relativëly stéady until the 1850s. In contras-t thé quantities of barley, öats and rye grown continued increas-ing unto the 1820s, as d i d , ev'ëh more spectacularly,- the produc-tion of wine. These increases were made feaslble by very large imports of slave's during the first British o c c u p a t i o n , when the sTave poputation gréw from 17,000 in 1795 (assuming the opgaaf figures are correct) to riearly 30,000 in 1806.4 On the other
hand lab'our problems later do not seéro to h a v e been as d i f f i c u l t as in other col on i es in which the laboür force was Targely slave. thus êmancipation (effêctively in 1838) produced no more than a minor hiccough, probably because the r u l i n g class of the Cape -had evolved effective means for forcing norainally free labou.r (,the Khoisan) to work for it at m i n i m a l wages an,d these measures could be transferred to the siaves.5
raar-251 Importance of Exports and the Internal Market
ket. It is indeed notable that it was the lesser grains, often used, for fodder, which increased most dramatically. For the pe-riod 1830-1855, van Zyl has estimated the market-value of grain production. In no quinquenniurn does the v a l u e of exported grain products exceed 15% of the production v a l u e , and by the 1850s this production had fallen to 5%, even though the data cer-tainly tend to exaggerate the amount exp.orted, comparatively sp,eaking, probably by as much as IOQ%, since only in the latter case are the costs of transport and mechants' profits included. As against this, the i n i t i a l increase in wine production in the early part of the nineteenth Century was lafgely a response to improved possibil ities for exports. The VOC had not managed -and indeed had scarcely attempted - to create a market in Europe for other than the h i g h quality Constantia wine. The wine-farmers therefore had to rely on satisfying the thirsts of the i n h a b i -tants of Cape Town, both permanent and transient, and on sales to p a s s i n g s h i p s , on which wine was used to keep the crews not only happy but also free from scurry. After 1806, however, it became possible to seil large quantities of wine in Great Bri-tain. Hot only were raany of the traditional suppliers for the British market now in enemy hands, temporarily, but also the Cape enjoyed preferential tariff arrangements within the British empire that made its wine attractive despite the h e a v i e r trans-port costs, compared to Europe, and its reputation for low qua-lity. Thus in 1824, 11.8% of the wine inïportëd through the 4 ma-jor harbours into Britain came from the Cape and in 1825, 8,5%, despite a change in the tariffs to the advantage of Francë., Spain and Portugal. Nevêrtheless, in genera! this change caused a sharp decline in the amount of wine that was sent to Britain. Thé Cape was, however, able to find other markets for its w i n e , largely in Australia, at least for another decade, so that i n ~ t h e late 1820s no less than 50% of Cape wine was export-ed. When these export markets dropped away, this did not mean a total collapse of Cape wirie production (although there were nu~ merous bankruptcies).7 Evidently the interna! market was able
approxi-252
Robert ROSS
mately the ,santé leve! , a reasonable proposition. A considerable increase in brandy production» almos.t entirely for the South Afric.an market, also made life easier for the wine farmers.
Further, it is at least arguable that even the enormous in-crease in wool prod-uction did not make the Cape stock keepers fully, or even largely, dependant on expor.t for th-eir earnlngs. The developments o-f Cape sto.ck holding are shown in Table VII.4. This s.hows that, even- as late as 1855, 25% of the Cape sheep were still of the oldnon-wool bearing variety, and that they were only slowly b e i n g replaced by merinos. In other words sheep that were kept purely for their meat s t i l l made up a quarter of thé Colony's flock.s. This was not purely the result of conservatism, but rather an economically sensible choice, made especially in the Western Karoo, to r.etain the superior quallties of Cape sheep for droving in areas wher.e Communications were difficult.8 At the santé time, obviously a certain
percen-tage of even th/e merin.os wou!d have been slaughtered annually to provide-meat for consumption on the farms ,and for sale to th,e market. Clearly» the problem is to discover what percentage of the sheep farmers' income came from the sale of meat, and what from the sale of wool , in addvtion to the expenditure saved by the farmers being able to cut their gwn meat. It would appear that by 1855S the sale of wool brought in less than half the
to-tal income of the colony's stock farmers. The basis for this cal-culation.is to.be found in Table VII.5. It should, of course, be considered to be no more than a rough approxiraation which is in-deed made peculiarly vulnerable, by the gre.at difference in the price of washed wool .while the v a l u e based on unwashed wool has been placed in brackets in the relevant places.
253 Importance of.Exports and the Internal Market
the total was reduced by 20%, to take account of those hides which were traded from the Xhosa, an estimate which derived from a comparison of the proportions of the colony's hides purchased in Albany district with the proportion of cattle found there. This shows that wool made up no more.than 46% of stock products
(or 30% if unwashed is taken).
2 5 4
Robert RoSs
Table VII.1.
The Cape C o l o n y ' s B a l a n c e ' o f Payment
255 Importance of Exports and the Internal Market
Y e a r I II III IV V 1837 1838 1839 . 1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849 1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 368 369 776, 1,101 678 372 347 440 526 • ,489d 44 i'e 514 595 637 651 773 1,065 764 1,061 281 260 . 243 238 236 257 264 304 432 341 205 296 322 415 437 528 687 621 897 763 1,051 1S403 1,451 911 766 807 775 998 1,073 1,,349 1,088 944 1,277 1,676 1,862 1,649 NA, 1,175 - 395 - 682 - 627 - 350 - 233 - 394 - 406 - 335 , - 472 - 584 - 908 - 574 - 349 - 640 -1,025 -1,089 - 584 NA - 114 181 170 186 182 182 195 256 257 225 676 713 572 , 503 346 939 1,122 694 320 321 N o t e s :
All. figures in £OOO
a
Inoludes all bills drawn by the Commissariat, ördinance, Victtialling, Naval, Prisoners-of-nrar, Transport, and other departjnents.
b
s urn of exports of wine, wool, grain, hides, and skins. föxcludes Simons Bay.
d
excludes 5O.OOO specie.
e
257 Importance of Export and the Internal Market
T a b l e V I I . 3 G r a i n s a c e
g
j
Year 1770-4 1775-9 1780-4 1785-9 1790-4 1795-9 1800-4 1805-9 1810-4 1815-9 1820-4 1825-9 1830-4 1835-9 1840-4 1845-9 ,1850-4 1855 reconstructed 18O6 only 1828-9 only 3 yearsI
Production wheat (hectolitres) 56,000a 64,000a 54,00öa 4 5 , 0 0 0a 72,000a 138sOOOb NA 137,993 173,603 173,000 136,000 157,OQOe 136,000f 133, OOO9 166,000f 175,000f 260,000h 298,300 figureThis figure corrects the error II :' PYodiiction other graihs (hectolitres) . 5,000a 6 , 0 0 0a 5,000a 8sO O Oa 14,000a 67,438b NA 99,000C 100,000d 126,000 189,000 213,000 173,000 135, OOO9 174,000f 172,000f 321sOOOh 342,000j b 1798, barley only d 1812 only, not f 4 years h 2 years
258 Y e a r 1770-4 1775-9 1780^4 1785-9-1790-4 1795' 1815-9 1820-4 1825-9 1836-4 Robert; Röss-> T:abïè?-VTI>4'' .,''••/•. ' • / ' • . ' : . '..S.t&'fefe'-'Hï.lidï^av-.- • • " . ' •
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-; Ab\: • : 3 - v4:92e:'V'. ' •.-.-.-'. 45Ö# ' / 1840^4' 1645-9 1850-4' 1855a ' TBèse ax& estimated values/ showing-the range given by, assuming unäer-coüntin'g of 67% and' 8O%'.
b 4:' years.
C 2 years.
d unavailable* becaüs'e o£ the' devas'tatiion df üie- 1835 war. C 3 years.
259 Importance Export and the Internal Market
T a b l e V I I . 5
The V a l u e of AgH cul tural Produce ia 1855
Produce Quantity wool 8, butter tal low soap hides skins
sheep (si aughtered) cattle (expended} 220,233 Ib 399,983 I b 664,235 T b 289S955 Ib 42,286 697,739 697,793b £ 3, Price 11 3/4 d ( unwashèd Is 2d 5d 7d 7s 2d 6d 8s lOd lis 6d
Total stock products
wheat
barley and rye oats
raaize,
peas & beans potatoes
dried fruit 1, wine
brandy
Total agri'cul tural Grand total 994,273 (bushels) 400,237 " 740,373 " 192,543 " 29,489 " 263,507 " 431S262 Ib 34,221 pipes £ 5,496 " til products 7s 6d 3s6d 3s lOd, 4s lOd 7s ld 4s ld 5d 6.1s4dc .17s Od c V a l u e (.£) 402,448 6d) (205,505) 23,332 13,859 8,457 , . 15,152 15,193a c. 268, 418 c. 121, 900 c. £ 867,895 (670,916) 372,852 61,703' 141,902 46,5310 10,440 48,287 29,818 207,667 6-5,128 £ 984,331 £ 1,852,190 (1,655,247)
a It is assuffled that these are all sheep skins. b See text.
260
Robert ROSS
Notes:
* My thanks are due to Pieter van Duin and Marianne Vaes for help in the pre-paration of this paper.
1) The data for this paper are taken from three basic sources:
I. For the eighteenth Century, van Duin, P.C. and Robert ROSS. The Eaon'omy
of the Cape Colontj in the Eighteenth Century, Intercontinenta No.5,
Centre for the HistOEy of European Expansion , forthcomirig. In this the basis for the reconstruötion of eighteenth Century production figures
(which diverge considerably from these in the original source) is ex -plained.
II. ' For 1795-1826, Theal, G.McC. (ed.). 1-89G-19O6. Records of. the Cape
Colony,36 volumes? London, notably XXVIII:493. Mhere necessary I have
converted sums cfiven in- Rixdollars into pounds according to the table 'in Kantor, Brian. 1970. 'The Rixdollar and foreign Äxchange', South african Journal of Eoonomics, XXXVIII. The figures for army etc. expendit'ure de-rive from Swart, H.L.-G. 1953. 'Developments in currency and banking at the Cape between 1782'and' 1825, with an account öf contemporary contro-versies, Ph.D. thesis, University of Cape Töwn, .p.439.
III. For 1827-186O. The Cape of Good Hope Blue Book and Statistical Register. Ontil 1837, availab:le in the Public Record- Office/London (CO 53/65 - CO $3/74);' thereafter in print.
2) Qn this, see Kantor, Brian, 197O. 'The .Rixdollar and foreign exohange',
SoutR Afriean Journal of Sconomics, XXVIII.
3) Lê Cordeur, Basil A. 1981-. the Politics of Eastern Cape Separatism, 182O~
1854. Cape town, p.123-9
4) The 1795 opgaaf figure is artificially low, because it does not include-the considèrable numer of slaves owned by Company offic'ials, where these indivi-duals, ä're included in subsequent figures. This accounts for some, but by no means all, of the increase in the total number of slaves recorded in the co-lonybëfore 1798, when that figure was 25^OOO.
5) On this, see van Ärkel, D., G.G. Quispël and S.J, ROSS. 19B3. "De Wijn-gaard des Heeren?": Die -oorsprong van "die blanke baasskap" in Zuid-ilfxika. Leiden.
6) van Zyl, D.J. 1975. Kaapse Wyn en Brahdewyn, 1795-1860. Cape Town and Pretoria, pp.227-9
7) This will be thonroughly investigated in Mary Rayner's forthcoming thesis for Duke University, tforth Carolina.
CapsTown,
1652
The Cape Coiony to 1855
After: R.Cornavin, Histoir® de l'Äfrique, H. Paris 1976, p, 116.
1700 M.PVII.1
Tulbagh Towns with year of foundation Approximate soythern limit of Great ^^__^ and Little Karrso
[::::: • :| over 20 inches S = 516mm )of rain
