French during the Madagascar Campaign, and in Burma against the Japanese during the Burma Campaign. Tanganyika became an important source of food and Tanganyika's export income greatly increased from the pre-war years of the Great Depression. However, despite the additional income, the war caused inflation within the country. Transition to independence In 1947, Tanganyika became a United Nations trust territory under British control. "Its geography, topography, climate, geopolitics, patterns of settlement and history made Tanganyika the most significant of all UN Trust Territories." But two-thirds of the population lived in one-tenth of the territory because of water shortages, soil erosion, unreliable rainfall, tsetse fly infestations, and poor communications and transportation infrastructures. Multi-ethnic population In 1957, only 15 towns had more than 5,000 inhabitants, with the capital Dar es Salaam having the nation's highest population of 128,742. Tanganyika was a multi-racial territory, which made it unique in the trusteeship world. Its total non-African population in 1957 was 123,310 divided as follows: 95,636 Asians and Arabs (subdivided as 65,461 Indians, 6,299 Pakistanis, 4,776 Goans, and 19,100 Arabs), 3,114 Somalis, and 3,782 "coloured" and "other" individuals. The white population, which included the Europeans (British, Italians, Greeks, and Germans) and white South Africans, totalled 20,598 individuals. Tanganyika's ethnic and economic make-up posed problems for the British. Their policy was geared to ensuring the continuance of the European presence as necessary to support the country's economy. But the British also had to remain responsive to the political demands of the Africans. Many Africans were government servants, business employees, labourers, and producers of important cash crops during this period. But the vast majority were subsistence farmers who produced barely enough to survive. The standards of housing, clothing, and other social conditions were "equally quite poor." The Asians and Arabs were the middle class and tended to be wholesale and retail traders. The white population were missionaries, professional and government servants, and owners and managers of farms, plantations, mines, and other businesses. "White farms were of primary importance as producers of exportable agricultural crops." Co-operative farming started Britain, through its colonial officer David Gordon Hines, encouraged the development of farming co-operatives to help convert subsistence farmers to cash husbandry. The subsistence farmers sold their produce to Indian traders at poor prices. By the early 1950s, there were over 400 co-operatives nationally. Co-operatives formed "unions" for their areas and developed cotton ginneries, coffee factories, and tobacco dryers. A