BRITISH AND GERMAN EAST AFRICA, AND UGANDA 117
ports increased correspondingly — from £106,000 to £1,330,
000 — in the same period, while the total trade of Uganda
was growing from a merely nominal sum to the very promis-
ing figure of £1,017,000, considerably more than half of
which was with Great Britain.
In 1920-21 Kenya and Uganda, which had been united in
a customs union in 1917, had combined imports of £6,912,-
000 and exports of £5,061,000.
The British investments in East Africa, outside of the cost
of the Uganda Railway, have not been excessive, while the
revenue has been steadily approaching the expenses. In
1902, the expenditures were £312,000 and the receipts
£95,000, but in 1911-12 the sum expended in both pro-
tectorates reached £1,055,000, while the income equaled
£932,000. In 1919-20 the figures had grown to £2,490,000
and £2,222,000 respectively. Any deficits in recent years
have been covered by borrowing, and not by grants-in-aid.
In 1920, a £5,000,000 loan was floated, to be expended
mainly for railway extensions and Kilindini Harbor. The
prosperity of 1920 gave way to severe economy, and in 1923
the budget was cut by nearly £500,000, and the number of
civil servants was reduced by 300.
Of East Africa, Great Britain obtained the best and most
promising portion. Italian Somaliland is the least valu-
able.! It comprises some 180,000 square miles (including
the recent acquisition of Jubaland), but the soil is poor, the
climate dry, and the population only about three to the
square mile. Its coast is forbidding, and until the acquisi-
! See “Les Conditions actuelles et I’Avenir de la Somalie Italienne,” in
the supplement of L’Afriqgue Frangaise, March, 1923, pp. 101-03. The
territory actively administered is only about 75,000 square miles, and the
total Italian population is only about 700. Less than 1000 miles of roads
have been made and about a dozen miles of railways. The Duke of the
Abruzzi conducts the chief agricultural enterprise and is obtaining yields of
cotton equal to Egypt’s best.
