TRADE DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSPORTATION.
Liberia’s very existence depends upon her development of trade. If the Liberians push forward in this direction, her future may be assured. If, however, she neglects it, her neighbors, France and England, can not be expected to permit their opportunity to pass. The area of the Black Republic is far too rich by nature to be overlooked; if its legitimate owners fail to develop it, others will do so.
The past of Liberia was built on trade in wild produce; its immediate prosperity must depend upon the same source of wealth. For the moment the trade of Liberia must be in such things as palm nuts, piassava, and rubber.
The oil palm has been the most important source of wealth Liberia has. The tree produces great quantities of nuts, growing in large clusters, from which an oil is easily extracted, which finds enormous use in soap- and candle-making. This oil is derived from the stringy, fleshy coating of the nut; the nuts are thrown into pits dug in the ground, where they are allowed to ferment for some time; the mass of fermented nuts is then squeezed in a sort of press run by hand, and the oil is extracted. This is the primitive, native style of production. The oil may also be produced by boiling and pounding the nuts and then stone-boiling the mass in wooden troughs, the oil being skimmed off from the surface of the water. In Liberia palm oil is chiefly produced in the counties of Bassa and Sinoe. Liberian oil is not the best quality on the market, as carelessness in preparation leaves considerable dirt and impurities in it; it has, however, brought good prices—up to £24.10.0 a ton. Inside the palm nut is a hard kernel which remains after the oil has been extracted; this kernel at first was wasted; to-day it is known to yield a finer oil than the pulp; the idea of exporting palm nut kernels originated with a Liberian, and the first shipment was made in 1850; to-day there is a large demand for palm kernels which sell at prices ranging from $60 to $68 per ton, the oil derived from them selling at $130 to $133 per ton.
Second, certainly, in importance, among the raw products exported from Liberia is piassava; it is the fiber of a palm—raphia vinifera. Large use is made of this extremely resistant fiber for brooms and brushes for street sweeping and the like; its use, too, was suggested by a Liberian in 1889; it was first exported in 1890 and for a time brought the astonishingly high price of from $300 to $350 per ton; as the fiber was easy to prepare and the trees were plentiful, a rapid development took place; Liberia was for a long time the only source of supply; carelessness ensued in the preparation of the fiber, the demand lessened and the price dropped; it went down to £10 per ton; at present the price is somewhat better and is stationary at £20. Sir Harry Johnston, from whom these details are borrowed, says that it is difficult to judge the quality of raphia, that it shrinks in weight, and that trade in it is somewhat speculative and uncertain; still, piassava fiber occupies an important position in the Liberian trade to-day.
Africa appears to be the continent which presents the greatest number of rubber-yielding plants; in Liberia the precious exudation is obtained from some sixteen different kinds of trees and vines, varying as to the quality and character of rubber yielded. The rubber of Liberia is not considered of the highest class, but it is of good grade; the natives of the interior are skilled in its collection; there is no doubt that great quantities of wild rubber are still to be obtained within the limits of the Republic and experiments in rubber-planting have already been made with promise.
Sir Harry Johnston gives a long list of other natural products which have been exported from Liberia at one time or another in varying quantities. There was a time when camwood found a ready market and formed perhaps the most important element in Liberian trade—of course with the invention of other dye-stuffs, the use of camwood, annatto, etc., has practically ceased; the name “Grain Coast” or “Pepper Coast” was long given to this country on account of the malagueta pepper which was exported in great quantities—this, too, has ceased to be a product of practical importance; kola nuts are to some degree exported from Liberia, and with the ever-increasing use of the kola in America and European countries, trade along this line should develop; ivory has always been among the export products of Liberia, though it has never had great significance; vegetable ivory nuts are produced here and to some extent form an article of trade—the demand for them in button-making is large and increasing, and exportation of them may reasonably be developed; hides and oil-yielding seeds complete the list of actual native export products. Sir Harry Johnston calls attention to the fact that the country is rich in ebony, mahogany, and other fine woods, in copal and other gums, in ground nuts, fruits, and minerals; these, however, have never been actual materials for export; all are valuable, however, and trade in them might be developed.
All of these raw products of natural production are valuable, but that they shall form an element in trade depends upon the natives. These things all come from the forests of the interior; if they are to be traded to the outside world, they must be collected and transported by the people within whose territory they are found; this dependence is an uncertain thing. The natives have few needs; in their little towns they take life easily; they have no sentimental interest in the development of trade as such nor in the upbuilding of the country; they care comparatively little for the returns of trade; they will work when necessary, but only as they please; when they need some money for buying wives, they will prepare some piassava fiber or dig a pit, ferment some nuts, and squeeze some oil. When they have enough for the immediate and pressing necessity, work stops, and with it the supply of oil or fiber or whatever they may have seen fit to produce. More than this, the native is little concerned about the quality of his production. So long as he can sell it and raise the resources that he needs, he does not care whether the oil is clean, whether the piassava fiber is of good quality, or whether the rubber contains dirt and stones. Impurity, however, of products is a very serious matter to the outside world; a district which neglects quality loses trade. Liberian oil, fiber, rubber, all are at a disadvantage at present through the carelessness of the producers.
It must, then, be the policy of the Liberian Government to encourage, by every legitimate means within its power, the increase of the production of the natural resources. Nor is the simple question of production the whole difficulty. Transportation is quite as important. The product, no matter how good or how precious, has no value as long as it remains in the bush. There are different methods of dealing with this matter of getting the natural products down to the coast settlements. The simplest and most natural is to let the native bring it out—but the natives are as little inclined to travel and carry as they are to produce; they will fetch down their product when they feel inclined—but the demand from without is constant. Liberians may go into the bush to bring out the products; there are always little traders who divide their time between the settlements and the interior; they travel in, sit down for several days at native towns, trade with the natives for whatever stuff they have on hand, then have it carried out; such traders are usually independent men of small means who are trading on their own account. It is not uncommon for the large trading-houses to hire agents,—Liberians or natives,—and send them into the interior to buy up and bring down products. Another method—which, in the long run, will prove no doubt the most satisfactory,—is to establish here and there in the interior permanent trading stations, supplied with a fair stock of goods, to be traded with the natives against their raw products—trading stations of this kind are already established by the Monrovia Rubber Company and by various of the great trading-houses.
In some way or other the Government should adopt a method of encouraging the natives of the interior to gather, to properly prepare, and to bring in raw produce; a definite scheme of practical education and encouragement must be devised.
While raw products offered by nature have been and are the chief element in Liberian trade, another element is immediate, and will ultimately be the chief dependence of the nation. Agriculture, though far from being in a satisfactory condition, has always contributed material for export. The country can not forever count upon a supply of raw products. Gradually the value of the forests will become secondary to that of produce of the fields. There is no reason why the Liberian coffee should not be fully re-established in the foreign market. The tree seems to be a native of the country; Ashmun reported that it was found everywhere near the seacoast and to an unknown distance back from there. Under natural conditions, the tree grew often to a height of thirty feet and a girth of fifteen inches. Coffee berries from wild trees were brought in by hundreds of bushels to the early settlers by the natives. Plantations were soon established, and many of them met with great success; in fact, coffee was once the principal export of the Republic; it was mainly shipped from Monrovia and Cape Mount; the more important plantations were located along the St. Paul’s River. Liberian coffee was much appreciated in the European market; at its period of greatest vogue it used to bring twenty-five cents a pound; the price has now fallen so low as eight or nine cents a pound. This decline is due, in part, of course, to the enormous development of the Brazilian coffee trade; it is, however, largely due to the carelessness of the Liberian planters, who had only primitive machinery for its preparation and who neglected proper care, with the result that the coffee berries reached the market broken and impaired. It is a delicious coffee, of full flavor, and improves with age. Sir Harry Johnston claims that about 1,500,000 pounds are annually produced, and reports that the output is increasing slightly. At the Muhlenberg Mission School, coffee is cultivated; care is taken in its preparation, and the price is rising; if the Liberians will give serious attention to the matter, there is no question that the old importance of the culture may be restored. It will require improved methods of cultivation, the use of better machinery, greater care in the preparation of the berry, and constant attention to proper packing and handling.
Discouraged at the fall in price of coffee, some Liberian planters introduced the culture of cacao, from which our chocolate and cocoa are derived; this culture has long been successful in some of the Spanish possessions of West Africa; in Liberia the plant grows well, and the cacao seems to be of superior quality; it is said that a good price for it may be received in Liverpool. This culture must be considered as only in its infancy, but there appears to be no reason why it should not become of great importance.
The rubber so far sent out from Liberia has been wild rubber; it would seem that a wise policy in national development would be to encourage the establishment of plantations of rubber trees or vines. One such plantation has already been established by an English company, who hoped to gather the first harvest of latex in 1912; one would suppose that the best tree for planting would be the funtumia which is native to the country and a good yielder; it is chiefly this plant which is being set out by the Belgians in the Congo colony; the English company in Liberia, however, claims that their experiments with funtumia were not encouraging, and the species actually planted is the hevea—the one which yields the famous Para rubber. While coffee, cacao, and rubber will no doubt be the earliest important plantations to be developed in the country, other products should not be neglected. Ginger has already been well tested in the Republic—there have been times when it was quite an important article of export; sugar-cane grows well, and from the earliest days plantations of it have yielded something for local consumption—if capital were available, there seems no reason why profitable plantations of cane might not be made; cassava has always been to some degree an article of export in the past,—it is of course the main food product of the natives—it is the source of tapioca and other food materials abundantly in use among ourselves. Liberia at present imports rice from abroad, yet rice of excellent quality is easily cultivated in the Republic and forms a staple food in native towns—effort to increase its local production would be good economy from every point of view; fruits of many kinds—both native and imported—grow to perfection in Liberia; experiments have been made, without particular results, in cotton raising—there are species of wild cotton in the country and experiments with both wild and foreign grades would determine to what degree culture of this useful fiber might be profitably carried on. This list of cultivated vegetable products might be enormously extended; we are only interested here in indicating those plants which would be important as trade products if their cultivation were seriously undertaken. In the matter of fruits, we may add a word; here is the suggestion of a beginning of manufacturing interests in the country; some of these fruits are capable of profitable canning or preservation, others might be dried, while still others yield materials which could be utilized outside; it would seem as if the natural beginning of manufacturing interests in the Republic would be in the establishment of factories to deal with these fruits and various derived vegetable materials.
It is to be anticipated that there will be a development in mining in Liberia; it is not an unmixed blessing to a country to possess mineral wealth; it may be disadvantageous to a little country, of relative political insignificance and actually weak, to possess great wealth of this sort. But there are certainly deposits of gold and diamonds in the Republic; these will in time be known, and their development will be undertaken. When that time comes, ores and other mineral products will form an element in national trade.
Closely associated with the matter of production is the question of transportation. It is one of the most serious that faces Liberia.
If produce can not be taken to the coast, it is of no value in the development of trade. There are practically no roads in Liberia to-day. As in the Dark Continent generally, narrow foot-trails go from town to town. The travel over them is always in single file, the path is but a few inches wide and has been sharply worn into the soil to a depth of several inches by the passage of many human feet. As long as transportation is entirely by human carriers, such trails are serviceable, provided they be kept open. A neglected trail, however, is soon overgrown and becomes extremely difficult to pass; that a trail should be good, it is necessary that the brushwood and other growth be cut out at fairly frequent intervals. Often, however, the chief of a given village does not care to remain in communication with his neighbors and intentionally permits the trail to fall into disuse. There is a feeling too, surviving from old customs, that trails are only passable with the permission and consent of the chiefs of the towns through which they run; chiefs have always exercised the right of closing trails whenever it pleased them; they have expected presents (“dashes”) for the privilege of passing. If now, large trade is to be developed in the matter of native produce, it is absolutely necessary that the trails be kept in good condition and that free passage over them be granted to all. Much of the energy of the Government must of necessity be directed toward these ends. At the best, however, there is a limit to the distance over which produce can be profitably transported on human backs; there must be very large inherent value in such produce to warrant its being carried more than a three days’ journey by human carriers. It is not only the labor involved in the transportation, but the loss of time which renders this problem important. The richest resources lie at a great distance in the interior; even with good trails it is impossible to utilize them.
In time, of course, the foot-trails must be developed into actual roads; some other mode of transportation must be devised than that of the human beast of burden. Horses have never prospered in the neighborhood of Monrovia; yet there are plenty of them raised and, it is said, of good quality, among the Mandingo. Serious efforts should be made to introduce their use as beasts of draft and burden; if, as is likely, these experiments should come to naught, attempts should be made to use oxen for hauling produce to the market. Improved trails and roads are of the highest importance to the Republic for several reasons. (a) For intercourse: only by means of them can ready and constant intercourse be developed between the different elements of population; no great development of trade, no significant advance, can be made without constant intercourse; it must be easy for the Government to reach and deal with the remotest natives of the far interior; it is equally important that peoples of neighboring towns have more frequent and intimate contact with each other; it is necessary that the members of different tribes come to know other tribes by daily contact. (b) For transportation; there is no reason why even the existing trails should not be covered with caravans carrying produce to the coast. (c) For protection; at present the movement of the Frontier Force from place to place is a matter of the highest difficulty; if trouble on the border necessitates the sending of an armed force, weeks must elapse before the enterprise can be accomplished; until the present unsatisfactory condition of trails be done away with, Liberia is in no position to protect her frontiers.
The construction by the English of the Sierra Leone Railroad running from the port of Freetown across the colony through the interior to the very border of Liberia, was a master stroke of policy; it not only developed the resources of the British area through which it passed and carried British products to the sea, but it tapped the richest part of the Liberian territory; formerly the production of that wealthy and well populated area found its way to Cape Mount and Monrovia; now it all goes out through a British port, in British hands. No single work would better repay an outlay by the Liberian Government than a good road running from Monrovia up the St. Paul’s River, out to Boporo, and on through the country of the Mandingo to the region where this British road ends. Such a road would bring back into Liberia her part of a trade which has always been legitimately her own. The idea would be to construct upon such a road-bed a light railroad; such an enterprise would very probably soon be upon a paying basis.
With the exception of one or two short stretches built by foreign companies for their own uses, there are neither roads nor railroads at the present time in the Republic. In 1912 the legislature granted a concession to the Cavalla River Company to make roads along the Cavalla River, to negotiate with the inhabitants of those parts for the development of the rice industry, etc. At the same session the right was granted to Wichers and Helm to negotiate a railroad scheme for the construction of a light railway from White Plains to Careysburg, and from Millsburg to Boporo, the right was also granted to construct a railroad from Harper to Dimalu in Maryland County. It is to be hoped that these three enterprises may all develop; they would mean much for the progress of the country.
We have spoken of the exports of Liberia; the imports consist chiefly of cotton goods, hardware, tobacco, silks, crockery, guns, gun-powder, rice, stock-fish, herrings, and salt. Most of these items are the staples which for centuries have maintained the trade of Western Africa. The total value of this import trade is estimated by Sir Harry Johnston at about $1,000,000 annually. It is curious that rice should need to be imported; 150,000 bags, equal to 700 tons are brought in every year; this rice is used entirely by the civilized Liberians; certainly they should be raising their own rice or buying it from natives. That salt should be introduced into a coast district where salt, by evaporation from seawater might be easily produced, is less strange than would appear at first sight; the salt from Europe is, on the whole, better in quality and is more cheaply produced than the local article of Liberia. The stock-fish is brought from Norway and is especially in demand among the Kru. Intoxicating drinks do not occur in the list above quoted; Sir Harry Johnston says that gin and rum are introduced, but that there is not much drunkenness among the people. Measures are taken to prevent the introduction of gin among the natives, but a great deal must be surreptitiously introduced among them; when we were in the Bassa country, our interpreter’s constant regret was that we had not loaded up with a large supply of gin which, he assured us, would accomplish much more with the chiefs of the interior towns than any other form of trade-stuff. The bulk of the cotton goods taken into Liberia is intended for trade with the interior natives; the patterns brought vary but little and are extremely old-fashioned—taste having been long ago established and the natives being conservative in such things.
As to the actual volume of trade and its movement, some words are necessary. Recent figures are supplied in a little table issued by the Republic in a small pamphlet entitled Some Trade Facts; it covers the period extending from 1905 to 1912. As will be seen, during that period of time, the customs revenue of the Republic more than doubled. Part of this favorable result undoubtedly was due to the fact that the administration of the customs service was for that time largely in the hands of a British Chief Inspector of Customs. There is no reason why this encouraging movement of trade should not continue. There is wealth enough in Liberia, if it can only be properly developed. The resources are enormous; the difficulties have been in handling them. The Republic has usually been in financial difficulties; it has been hard work to make ends meet; but there is no question that with good management and legitimate encouragement the national income may be more than necessary to meet all obligations, to pursue conservative policies of development, and to attract favorable assistance from the outside world.
STATEMENT OF CUSTOMS REVENUE OF THE REPUBLIC
OF LIBERIA FOR YEARS 1905-1912
(1st April-31st March)
| Port | 1905-6 | 1906-7 | 1907-8 | 1908-9 | 1909-10 | 1910-11 | 1911-12 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monrovia | $114,098 | $129,077 | $128,030 | $117,524 | $135,916 | $144,292 | |
| Cape Mount, etc. | 38,128 | 31,901 | 19,327 | 25,907 | 27,809 | 36,125 | |
| Marshall | 11,195 | 18,412 | 16,666 | 8,211 | 12,761 | 23,579 | |
| Grand Bassa, etc. | 103,494 | 112,168 | 105,273 | 109,876 | 118,782 | 140,457 | |
| Sinoe, etc. | 30,228 | 32,784 | 27,172 | 33,960 | 28,208 | 31,784 | |
| Cape Palmas, etc. | 30,603 | 41,413 | 48,314 | 66,018 | 78,028 | 86,615 | |
| Kabawana, etc. | 166 | 3,483 | 1,808 | 206 | 1,238 | 3,841 | |
| Rubber Duties collected in London | 7,443 | 8,614 | 8,725 | 4,655 | 4,637 | ||
| Total | $230,580 | $327,913 | $376,684 | $355,208 | $370,431 | $407,400 | $471,335 |
It is interesting to notice with whom Liberia’s trade is carried on. Britain of course has always led; Germany comes second, Holland third, and other nations follow. Sir Harry Johnston says that in 1904 the total value of British trade with Liberia was £112,779, while the total trade of the British Empire with the Republic was £132,000; the £20,000 difference represent trade with Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast chiefly. On the whole it would seem that Germany is crowding Britain and bids fair to lead. A little table will show this clearly; the first statement shows the amount of British imports, exports, and entire trade for the years 1904, 1908, and 1909 in pounds sterling; a second statement shows the corresponding items for German trade for the years 1908 and 1909 in marks; a third statement changes the totals figures to dollars at the rate of five dollars to the pound and four marks to a dollar, which of course is only approximate. It shows, however, that Germany is actually crowding her longer established rival.
(a) BRITISH TRADE WITH LIBERIA (Soler)
| Imports | Exports | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1904 | £60,350 | £62,710 | £123,060 |
| 1908 | 74,348 | 75,137 | 149,485 |
| 1909 | 69,511 | 63,500 | 133,011 |
(b) GERMAN TRADE WITH LIBERIA (Soler)
| Imports | Exports | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1908 | 1,177,000 mks. | 1,856,000 mks. | 3,033,000 mks. |
| 1909 | 1,095,000 mks. | 2,282,000 mks. | 3,377,000 mks. |
(c) ENGLISH AND GERMAN TRADE (1908-1909)
| 1908 | 1909 | |
|---|---|---|
| English | $747,425 | $665,055 |
| German | 758,250 | 844,250 |
The Liberian nation is to be made up of the Negro civilized to some extent in the United States and repatriated, and of the aboriginal tribes. At present it is composed of a small number of civilized and a large number of aboriginal communities in varying degrees of dependence. The problem is how to blend these into a national organism, an organic unity.—A. Barclay.