Two stops on the Congo River deserve special attention. In the Congo there began in 1911 an industry that will have an important bearing on the economic development of the Colony. It was the installation of the first plant of the Huileries du Congo Belge. This Company, which is an offshoot of the many Lever enterprises of England, resulted from the growing need of palm oil as a substitute for animal fat in soap-making. Lord Leverhulme, who was then Sir William Lever, obtained a concession for considerably more than a million acres of palm forests in the Congo. He began to open up so-called areas and install mills for boiling the fruit and drying the kernels. He now has eight areas, and two of them, Elizabetha and Alberta,—I visited both—are on the Congo River.
For hundreds of years the natives have gathered the palm fruit and extracted the oil. Under their method of manufacture the waste was enormous. The blacks threw away the kernel because they were unaware of the valuable substance inside. Lord Leverhulme was the first to organize the industry on a big and scientific basis and it has justified his confidence and expenditure.
Most people are familiar with the date and the cocoa-nut palms. From the days of the Bible they have figured in narrative and picture. The oil palm, on the other hand, is less known but much more valuable. It is the staff of life in the Congo and for that matter, practically all West Africa. Thousands of years ago its sap was used by the Egyptians for embalming the bodies of their kingly dead. Today it not only represents the most important agricultural industry of the Colony, having long since surpassed rubber as the premier product, but it has an almost bewildering variety of uses. It is food, drink and shelter. Out of the trunk the native extracts his wine; from the fruit, and this includes the kernel, are obtained oil for soap, salad dressing and margarine; the leaves provide a roof for the native houses; the fibre is made into mats, baskets or strings for fishing nets, while the wood goes into construction. Even the bugs that live on it are food for men.
The "H. C. B." as the Huileries du Congo Belge is more commonly known in the Congo, really performed a courageous act in exploitation when it set up shop in the remote regions and devoted itself to an absolutely fresh enterprise, so far as extensive development is concerned, at a time when the rich and profitable products of the country were rubber, ivory and copal. The company's initiative, therefore, instigated the trade in oleaginous products which is so conspicuous in the economic life of the country.
The installation at Alberta, while not so large as the Leverville area on the Kwilu River, will serve to show just what the corporation is doing. Five years ago this region was the jungle. Today it is the model settlement on the Congo River. The big brick office building stands on a brow of the hill overlooking the water. Not far away is the large mill where the palm fruit is reduced to oil and the kernels dried. Stretching away from the river is a long avenue of palms, flanked by the commodious brick bungalows of the white employes. The "H. C. B." maintains a store at each of its areas, where food and supplies are bought by the personnel. These stores are all operated by the Société d'Entreprises Commerciales au Congo Belge, known locally under the name of "Sedec," formed as its name indicated, with a view of benefiting by the great resources opened to commerce in the Colony.
For miles in every direction the Company has laid out extensive palm plantations. In the Alberta region twenty-five hundred acres are in course of cultivation in what is known as the Eastern Development, while sixteen hundred more acres are embodied in the Western development. An oil palm will bear fruit within seven years after the young tree is planted. The fruit comes in what is called a régime, which resembles a huge bunch of grapes. It is a thick cluster of palm fruit. Each fruit is about the size of a large date. The outer portion, the pericarp, is almost entirely yellow oil encased in a thick skin. Imbedded in this oil is the kernel, which contains an even finer oil. The fruit is boiled down and the kernel, after a drying process, is exported in bags to England, where it is broken open and the contents used for salad oil or margarine.
Before the war thousands of tons of palm oil and kernels were shipped from the West Coast of Africa to Germany every year. Now they are diverted to England where large kernel-crushing plants have been installed and the whole activity has become a British enterprise. With the eclipse of the German Colonial Empire in Africa it is not likely that she can regain this lost business.
RESIDENTIAL QUARTERS AT ALBERTA
