Fire as a form of energy

The Energy Sector Under the Northern Rhodesian Government (NRG) NORTHERN Rhodesia was a protectorate in Central Africa, formed in 1911 by amalgamating the two earlier protectorates of North- Western Rhodesia and North-Eastern Rhodesia.

It was initially administered, as were the two earlier protectorates, by the British South Africa Company, (BSAC), a chartered company on behalf of the British government until 1924 when it was administered by the British government as a protectorate under similar conditions to other British- administered protectorates.

The territory attracted a relatively small number of Europeans. These settlers when they secured political representation, they started agitating for white minority rule, either as a separate entity or in association with Southern Rhodesia and possibly Nyasaland.

The mineral wealth of Northern Rhodesia made full amalgamation attractive to Southern Rhodesian politicians, but the British government preferred a looser association to include Nyasaland to protect Africans in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland from discriminatory Southern Rhodesian laws.

British common law became the basis of the administration of Southern and Northern Rhodesia, unlike Roman Dutch law which applied in South Africa.

In 1889, the British South African Company was given the power to establish a police force and administer justice within Northern Rhodesia. In the case of African natives appearing before courts, the Company was instructed to have regard to the customs and laws of their tribe.

An Order in Council of 1900 created the High Court of North-Eastern Rhodesia which took control of civil and criminal justice; in 1906 North-Western Rhodesia received the same. In 1911 the two were amalgamated into the High Court of Northern Rhodesia. The British South Africa Company constructed the Rhodesian railway system which ended in 1911, when the main line through Northern Rhodesia crossed the Congo border to reach the Katanga copper mines. A line from Kimberley reached Bulawayo in 1897; this was extended to cross the Victoria Falls in 1902. The next section was through Livingstone to Broken Hill, which the railway reached in 1906. The British South Africa Company had been assured that there would be plentiful traffic from its lead and zinc mines, but this did not materialise because of technical mining problems.

The railway could not meet the costs of the construction loans, and the only area likely to generate sufficient mineral traffic to relieve these debts was Katanga. Initially, the Congo Free State had concluded that Katanga's copper deposits were not rich enough to justify the capital cost of building a railway to the coast, but expeditions between 1899 and 1901 proved their value. In Northern Rhodesia copper was discovered in the late 1920s, and the colony acquired considerable economic importance.

White settlement nevertheless remained small as it did in Nyasaland. The British government considered the possible consolidation of the central African territories into a single political and economic entity.

In a 1927 White Paper Leo Amery argued the case for closer union. Policy towards Rhodesia was reconsidered over 1930 and 1931.