ABSTRACT
With victory in the long war against the Dervishes the stage was set for the conversion of what had become, effectively, a country under military occupation into just another imperial backwater. The initial auguries were not good: Somaliland ranked lowest in the Empire for revenue locally raised. When the cost of security – bloated by the war – was factored in, expenditures typically outran revenues 300%. Even allowing for the security requirement expenditure was low, with only Gambia and Nigeria spending less per capita than Somaliland, and with only strategically significant posts (Hong Kong and Gibraltar) costing more per capita to garrison. There was no European population at all, exclusive of the tiny community of soldiers and administrators. In some years, no other Europeans even appear to have visited the place. In 1938, for example, there were 66 resident officials and family members. The only resident Europeans who were not officials were the Italian Consul and the representative of a shipping line. In that year, only two non-official visitors entered the country. 2 A survey team reported in 1938 that during an entire year in the country it only ran across Europeans of any description three times: an Oxford University botanical expedition and the officers commanding two military patrols. 3 The only other non-Somali element in the population consisted of a small contingent of Indian and Adeni clerks employed by the Government – 94 of them in 1938 – and a few merchants residing in the Protectorate’s few towns. Communication with the outside world was difficult, and the first stop was invariably Aden whence passage in or out would have to be arranged either on the weekly mail boat, or on one of the small trading ships which occasionally found it worthwhile to make the voyage. 4
