PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.885
BE REPROD~~--
19 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE
9811
34
No. 9.
NORTH EASTERN RHODESIA.
THE BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY to COLONIAL OFFICE.
(Received 20 March, 1908.)
[Copy to Governor, Nyasaland, April 28, 1908. Confidential. L.F. See No. 15.]
2, London Wall Buildings, London, E.C.,
19 March, 1908.
SIR,
I AM directed to forward, for the information of the Secretary of State, the enclosed copy of the minutes of a meeting of my Directors, held on the 12th instant, together with the documents relating thereto.
SIR,
I am,
&c.,
A. P. MILLAR,
Assistant Secretary,
Enclosure in No. 9.
(Annexure No. 10.)
Administrator's Office, Fort Jameson, 20 January, 1908. FORWARDING Dr. Spillane's report on his journey to Katanga and on his examination for sleeping sickness along the River Luapula, Lakes Mweru and Tanganyika, and the Northern border. The amount of work compressed into the short time at Dr. Spillane's disposal could only have been done by one of his known energy aided by his long experience of the country and its natives, and though, as he says, he cannot have found all the existing cases of sleeping sickness, the exami- nation of 17,000 people in 240 villages and his method of tracing palpali's up the streams to its limit, have certainly determined the foci of infection in the northern and western districts, and given information as to the country which must now be considered liable to immediate infection.
Dr. Spillane is of opinion that a line drawn parallel to, and about 10 miles distant from, the Luapula River, Lake Mweru, the Northern border, and along the high land immediately south of Lake Tanganyika, would cut off from the rest of North-Eastern Rhodesia "all infected villages, all villages in direct communication with infected villages, and the entire distribution of Glossina palpalis as far as this has been ascertained," that is to say, all the country within which the disease is likely to spread. This area he calls the sleeping sickness area (divided into three parts for the sake of Administration). He recommends that all emigration from this area should be prevented in order to keep the disease from being carried to other places outside of it which may be capable of infection; and that, as many natives living east of the sleeping sickness area have been working in the Congo Free State, and still probably surreptitiously visit the Luapula and Tanganyika, a further area to the east and south of the sleeping sickness area, called a guard area, should be defined from which no emigration should be allowed, and into which no natives from the east should be allowed to come; it would be, in fact, an area nearly as strictly guarded as the infected area, though it consists of high land in which it is believed sleeping sickness cannot spread, but within which imported cases are probable. Its eastern boundary would form a line across which no carriers would be permitted to pass, and all goods for transit across it would be changed to carriers resident on the side to which the goods were being taken. This is for the protection of the country lying to the east and south of that line, preventing the natives resi- dent there from approaching anywhere near where sleeping sickness is known to exist. In June last I started the rule for changing carriers at Kasama, and in November I made the boundary line of the guard area from Abercorn through Kasama, Mpika, and Serenji. On the advice of Dr. Spillane I am now diverting it
† Annexure 10 only printed.
• Not printed.
35
at Kasama to Luena and down Bangweulu and its swamps to the Congo border. This will include all the country necessary, and Bangweulu forms on part of the line An Assistant Native Commissioner resident in the a nearly impossible barrier. district at the time of Dr. Spillane's visit was appointed to each of the stations Madona and Chienji within the sleeping sickness area and instructed in his work by Dr. Spillane, and a third is now on his way to Sumbu. The instructions given will in the main Le carried out, at least for some months, until it can be seen how they work.
It is undoubted that as far as possible further infection from without should be prevented, but I have little confidence in the efficacy of patrols, as they can be so On the easily evaded. They will serve, however, to impress on the natives that such com- munication is prohibited, and a few punishments may help to prevent it. south-east of Mweru I am certain that patrolling will be of no avail. The descrip- tion given by Dr. Spillane of the people living there, opposite to Kilwa Island, is a very true one, and these swamp people have never been under control. Origi nally probably driven to live in the swamps by more warlike tribes, it is now their pride that they pay and never have paid tribute to anyone, and the Administration has never insisted on taxes knowing that such insistence would be useless, and might drive these people, who are not aggressive, to retaliation. (The same class of people live on the swamps of Bangweulu, and they, too, have been left unmolested, and are now voluntarily coming in to the Native Commissioners' stations asking for work so that they may pay taxes as others do, and be allowed to live on the main- land.) Those of the swamp people of Mweru who visit Kilwa are liable to get infected there, but as there is no tsetse in their swamps, there is little chance of the infection spreading among them, and as they never travel eastward, except to barter fish for other food to the natives in the mainland near (where there is no fly), they are unlikely to leave the sleeping sickness area to carry infection further.
The danger of infection and re-infection within the sleeping sickness area will be, as far as possible, got rid of by moving villages actually in contact with Palpalis to country free from the fly, and where this is too difficult, by compelling the natives to clear the jungle for 300 yards round their villages and watering places.
One doctor is stationed at Madona, and the one on his way out will probably go to Sumbu; a third is wanted for Chienji. It will be at first as much as these doctors can do to visit the villages and report to the Native Commissioners the necessity or otherwise of their removal, and to study at the same time the distribu- tion of Palpalis and other species of Glossina. It seems to me more important that this should Le done before hospital camps are much used for the treatment of patients, who would need the doctor's constant attention, and so prevent his travelling for the other work.
Dr. Spillane's recommendation as to the regulations necessary are practically those which the Native Commissioners had already been instructed to carry out in so far as the movement of natives is concerned, except as to the adoption of registra- tion of natives and general pass regulations. Regulations similar to the Natives' Pass Ordinance of Southern Rhodesia would be of great use in the control of move- ments of natives, but except on account of sleeping sickness are hardly necessary yet. If they were put in force I do not think they should be a part of the sleeping sickness regulations, to disappear with the disease, and I hope to be able to submit some registration and pass regulations which the present staff in the Native Depart- ment will be able to carry out.
The regulations now being drafted provide:-
I. For the power to put into segregation hospitals or areas any native found in North-Eastern Rhodesia with sleeping sickness.
II. For the prohibition of the entry into North-Eastern Rhodesia of any natives from countries infected with or suspected of sleeping sickness, except at certain points where medical officers will be placed and permission would only be given there for special reasons.
(Congo and German East Africa are the two countries, and Madona and Aber- corn the only two ports of entry.)
III (a) For the prohibition of all emigration of natives resident in an area. declared to be a sleeping sickness area, and for the regulation of any traffic which must pass in or through such area.
(There are white men and mission stations in the area, and it is better to be able to pass regulated traffic through safe routes than to prohibit it altogether.)
$2655
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