Trouble Spot

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30965, 22 January 1966, Page 5

Trouble Spot

(Specially written for "The Press” by KENNETH ANTHONY.) \VHEN this stamp was ’ v issued in 1937, one of a set of four celebrating the coronation of King George VI, the Victoria Falls bridge depicted on it was still one of the great engineering achievements to Central Africa. It was a worthy subject, to be portrayed with pride on the stamps of Southern Rhodesia, but of little international significance. No-one then envisaged a time wh,- the bridge would be right in the centre of a world trouble-spot. Back in 1905, when the bridge was opened, considerations of international boundaries did not arise; the whole vast area was administered by the British South Africa Company, which issued its own stamps. But in recent times the Zambesi river, spanned by the bridge, has become the border between Rhodesia and Zambia. Nowadays, the Victoria Falls bridge is Zambia’s only rail outlet to the south, and much of Zambia’s economy depends on it. Northwards over the bridge goes Zambia’s coal, while in the opposite direction go her valuable exports of copper, one eighth of the world's supply. When first opened, it was a double-track railway bridge. But, to 1929, the growing importance of road transport

was recognised and the bridge was widened and altered to provide a single railway track, a roadway and footpaths. Its dual road-and-. rail character can be clearly seen on the stamp illustrated. The bridge was originally designed as part of Cecil Rhodes’ never-to-be-realised dream of a Cape-to-Cairo railway. Rhodes himself died in 1902, three years before the bridge was opened, but it was Ms wish that it should be constructed close enough to the Victoria Falls so that passing trains would catch the spray. It was an imaginative idea, but one which has caused extra work ever since to railway maintenance men who have to paint the bridge at regular intervals to prevent corrosion. It seems ironic that this great structure, which Rhodes planned as a unifying influence to Africa, should have become a symbol of discord since the seizure of indepen-

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