The Development of Labour Migration from Nyasaland, 1891–1914

Nyasaland has never been significant as a field of economic exploitation; mineral wealth is lacking and the territory's comparative inaccessibility has severely hampered agricultural development. However, she does possess an abundance of labour, the only mobile form of capital held in a subsistence economy. Today approximately one-third of the total male adult population is employed abroad; for, although Nyasaland is one of the most densely peopled areas in Southern Africa, she cannot provide regular paid employment for more than one-fifth of her male adults. An estimated 123,000 of the 169,000 migrant workers are in European employment in Southern Rhodesia where less than half that colony's requirements are obtainable from her own resources; the rest work mainly in South Africa and in Northern Rhodesia.