Rain cycles and plague forced S.A.I.S. back to coerced labour.

Evidence

However, while between 1920 and 1922, when the rains were poor, and poverty and lack of work at home drove many people to seek employment with the Company, after the floods which followed in 1923, the labour force melted away and a local outbreak of bubonic plague provided little inducement to return. This marked reduction in the supply of labour during the critical work of bonification created a serious situation for the Company which was then driven to apply the old methods of coercing people into joining its labour force. — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 267