Friday 6 July 2012


When Uganda gave aid to Britain



A missionary poses for a photo with Ugandan children between 1867 and 1955. Uganda donated money to the British World War II Fund, in form of special gifts and interest free loans to enable it stay afloat during the wars. Photo by Cambridge University and Royal Commonwealth Society Library. 
By Monitor Reporter   (email the author)

Posted  Wednesday, June 27  2012 at  13:00
In Summary
Turning tables. Financial aid from Britain is one of the key sources of Uganda’s revenues today but less than a hundred years ago, during a time of Britain’s need, it was Uganda, along with other colonies, which were the donors.

It is one of the least reported stories. While many Ugandans know that some of their ancestors fought in World War I and II on the side of the British and their allies, few know of the financial contribution that the country made to keep Britain afloat in that period.


This series has already noted the nature of the colonial economy and how it was structured to support the factories in England produce goods for sale back to the colonies.
It was an economy designed to produce what it did not consume, and consume what it did not produce with any surplus mopped up by the colonial administration through taxes and repatriated back to London.
Citing studies from the time, Prof. Mahmood Mamdani has argued, for instance, that the creation of monopoly marketing boards which skimmed off 38 per cent of Uganda’s total earnings had, by 1958, channelled £30.8 million from Ugandan growers to the cotton and coffee Price Assistance Funds, and about £30 million in various export duties. These were all deposited in the Bank of England and contributed to the British war effort.
Outstretched hands
These, however, were not the only such contributions. In 1931, the Colonial Secretary James Henry Thomas sent out a circular to all Dependencies appealing for financial aid to help Britain navigate through the Great Depression and the slump it found itself in. It is useful to quote extensively from the appeal.
“I feel it my duty to call the attention of the responsible authorities in all territories for the administration of which I am responsible to Parliament to the extreme difficulties with which His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom are faced in consequence of the present financial crisis,” he wrote.
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“My object in writing this dispatch is to remind you of the fact that the interests of the United Kingdom and of the colonies and dependencies are inseparably bound up with one another…it is not unreasonable to look for some common effort and common sacrifice on the part of communities which are face-to-face with a common peril.”
He argued that although the Dependencies were also affected by the global slump, a collapse of the British economy and currency would pose a calamity for coloniser and colonies. It was a situation not too dissimilar to contemporary discussions in the Euro zone!
Although affected by the global slump, Uganda had money – an annual surplus of £900,000 by 1940.
Prof. Tarsis Kabwegyere notes that by 1943, Uganda had offered interest-free loans to Britain worth £700,000.
The money was collected through the Uganda War Fund in which people were encouraged to make voluntary contributions (which some did), although in other cases they were pressured to do so. In Teso District, for instance, each county chief paid Shs50; the sub-country chief Shs20; the parish chief Shs10 and the village chief Shs5.
All Native Government employees paid a shilling each and every adult male paid 50 cents. The people of Mbale sent £200 to buy a mobile canteen, one of 13 that different people of Uganda had contributed to the War Fund. In a speech in 1941 the Governor revealed that such contributions amounted to £110,000.
More money was still to come in the form of loans and gifts to Britain. Some of the Ugandan districts which lent money to Britain included Teso (£15,000), Busoga (£11,250), Bukedi (£10,000), Bugisu (£3,000), and Karamoja (£1,000).
By June 1948, Britain owed £650,000 to these and other groups in Uganda.
As far as gifts go, Uganda gave £10,000 towards Sir Winston Churchill’s 67th birthday but Prof. Kabwegyere argues that this was “clearly understood as a contribution to the war”. The following districts also offered a ‘special gift’ to the Mayor of London: Buganda (£10,250), Busoga (£6,000), Teso (£6,000), Bugisu (£3,500), Bugwere (£2,500), Budama (£1,500) and Karamoja (£300)

When Uganda gave aid to Britain

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A missionary poses for a photo with Ugandan children between 1867 and 1955. Uganda donated money to the British World War II Fund, in form of special gifts and interest free loans to enable it stay afloat during the wars. Photo by Cambridge University and Royal Commonwealth Society Library. 
By Monitor Reporter   (email the author)

Posted  Wednesday, June 27  2012 at  13:00
In Summary
Turning tables. Financial aid from Britain is one of the key sources of Uganda’s revenues today but less than a hundred years ago, during a time of Britain’s need, it was Uganda, along with other colonies, which were the donors.

The Kabaka of Buganda’s birthday celebration in 1940 was postponed and the money put into the War Fund instead; the Omukama of Toro offered a fortieth of his £1,220 salary for the duration of the war; schools in Nkokonjeru and Nsambya dipped into their meagre funds; and even the Ongino Leper Colony in Kumi made a contribution.


In a statement issued in September 1944, the War Fund committee noted that it had received and passed on to Britain £1,084,125 in the four years up to that time excluding the ‘gifts’ but it is not clear how much more money it handled until its closure in 1946.
The figure does not also include £278,000 paid by the Uganda Protectorate or the £17,000 a year paid since 1939 by Buganda, East and Western provinces, contributions in kind, or monetary contributions made during World War I.
Weakening economy
“Some [colonies have been so generous as to offer their surpluses as gifts towards the war effort,” Lord Moyne (Walter Guinness) noted at the time.
“We accepted the gifts gratefully, but with a certain doubt whether we were morally right to do so.”
Speaking about the contributions, Prof. Kabwegyere notes: “The money, which might have been invested in development projects was siphoned off to Britain to maintain that nation through the war and later to assist in its recovery from the war…this outward flow of money must have caused a contraction in the economy. Especially affected were those areas which were poor like Karamoja and in no way with a surplus, who deflated their coffers in order to help the mother country.”
Apart from the money, there was a human contribution to the war effort as well.
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Continues Tomorrow.
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