Manica and Tete and alluvial
deposits are known to exist near
Villa de Manica and Alto Ligonha.
Coal is mined in the Zambezi
Valley near Tete. Surveys have confirmed the existence of a large basin
of coal estimated to contain about
1,000,000,000 tons.
A company with Belgian capital,
the Companhia Carbonifera de
Mozambique supplies the Portuguese railways and the port of
Beira with coal. It also exports coal
to Nyasaland. It does not however,
supply Southern Mozambique with
coal which receives its imports from
Settler South African Republic.
Another company, the Alto
Ligonha Company, has exclusive
rights over parts of Zambezia. It
mines beryl, colombite, bismuth and
mica.
Graphite is mined near Nacala in
Angonia. The Mozambique Gulf
Oil Company entered into a ten
year contract (1948-1958) with the
Portuguese government to prospect
for petroleum in the region of Sul
do Save. There are Radio-active
minerals in the Tete area. Prospecting for these is through a concession granted by the Portuguese
government only.
MINERAL RESOURCES
For 450 years now the mineral
resources of Mozambique "have been
exploited not for the benefit of the
indigenous African people but for
that of the Portuguese, their settlers
and other outsiders.
The Mozambique economy is
mainly agrarian, and this too is
oriented towards colonialist interests.
The greater part of Mozambique
is thinly populated bush country.
A good part of it, however, consists of densely populated soil of
high fertility. The most important
areas of high fertility are the Southern lowlands between Catuane and
Inhambane. These contain the
lower reaches of the Limpopo and
other rivers. The valleys of the Save
and the Limpopo and of the Queli-
mane rivers are included in these
areas, as also are the Macondes
highlands on the Tanganyika frontier.
Tiie agriculture of Mozambique
is.organised on three basic lines:
for subsistence, for cash crops and
for the European-owned plantation.
The European-owned plantations
produce copra, sisal, sugar-cane,
tea,, rice, potatoes, maize, tobacco
and wheat. These put together, contribute one-third of the colony's
exports.
The company estates in the Zambezi, Sul do Save and Manica areas
produce sugar. There are 6,000,000
trees of copra-producing coconut
palms in the coastal area of Zambezia.
Raw cotton is the most valuable
single export     of the colony.
Between 1946 and. 1950 it accounted for one-quarter of the total exports.
Africans are forced by their Portuguese masters to produce this raw
cotton. They are given the seeds
and have the dates for sowing harvesting and so forth set for them by
their masters. • They receive next to
nothing for their efforts in the production.
Africans have been forced to produce this even at the expense of their
ovyn food crops. In 1949, for example they were so short of maize,
which makes up their staple diet,
that it had to be imported. Other
crops that Africans are forced to
produce while their Portuguese
masters derive all the benefit are:
Copra, peanuts, sesame, maize, tobacco and vegetables.
Having disrupted the African's
own subsistence economy the Portuguese have proceeded to force
him to produce cash crops not for
his own benefit but for their own.
Having robbed the African of huge
tracts of his own land they are now
forcing him to work on their plantations where he cannot even eke an
existence.
Small wonder that over 1,000,000
Africans have escaped into Nyasaland and Tanganyika to avoid the
abysmal new form of slavery in
which they now 'find themselves entangled.
Mozambique has considerable resources of timber which include a
large area of forest behind Beira.
During the years of World War II
the export of timber and wood-
products increased from 10,960 tons
in 1939 to 80,596 in 1946.
These forests and its products
which once belonged to the Africans
are now being alienated in the form
of concessions and the African's
task is merely to drudge a slave in
their preparation and production.
The benefits go to the Portuguese.
Since die metropolitan country,
Portugal, is herself an under-developed country it would be too much
to expect high industrial development in Mozambique.
ECONOMY
Government policy in Mozambique is to encourage first metropolitan then colonial production by the
use of protective tarriffs and the
grant of monopolies for certain products.
Villa Pery has a textile factory
and Beira a cement factory producing 50,000 tons a year.
Among local industrial projects
were 6 tobacco and 32 oil and soap
producing factories in  1955.
For a long time now the colony
of Mozambique has been paying her
way, largely as a result of steady ,
income derived from the supply services and African labour used in
the neighbouring territories to the
West. At the end of 1951 the exchange reserves were £3.3 million
in foreign currencies and £4.5 million in gold. Since 1937 there has
been a surplus of income over expenditure. About £7 million were
devoted to extraordinary public
works between 1946 and 1950.
In 1947 the Salazar regime made
a loan of 1,000,000,000 escudos
(£12.5 million sterling) to Mozambique. The Chief sources of revenue
are customs duties and the sale of
African contract labours and
income tax. The monetary unit is
the Mozambique escudo of 100
centavos equal in value to the
Portuguese escudo. The exchange
value is about 80 escudos to £1
sterling. The foreign trade of
Mozambique colony shows an
excess of imports over exports.
In 1950 imports were valued at
1,654 million escudos and exports
at 944 million escudos.
Re-exports, largely consisting of
mineral from South Africa were
valued at 604 million escudos and
transit traffic at 7,963 million
escudos.
DECEMBER, 1964       19