LIBERIA AT WAR

Evening Post, Volume XCIV, Issue 67, 17 September 1917, Page 2

LIBERIA AT WAR

WHERE NEGRO REPUBLIC . COUNTS

A QUESTION OF GEOGRAPHY.

When it was announced, a few days ago that Liberia had declared war against Germany, presumably in sympathy with Amorica, most of those who knew what Liberia was were inclined to treat the mutter as merely amusing. It was a grave step for Liberia, of course, with its 400 organised volunteers, militia, and police; but it was apparently merely a comic opera declaration so far as Germany was concerned. As a fact, however, the entry into the- war cf Titans of this curiosity among States may have a deeper significance than may appear at first sight. Liberia is a remarkable negro republic upon the West Coast of Africa, situated between Sierra Leone and the French Ivory Coast, with a coast line of about 350 miles and a total area of some 40,000 miles. Of this, the Government administers a strip of land about twenty miles in breadth along the coast. The rest—a mass of tropical forest—is inhabited by > especially^ fierce hinterland tribes, who by no means recognise . the President's authority. For Liberia is governed by a native President. It was first established in 1822 as a colony for freed American slaves, and has since maintained its independence along American lines, building up a State of rather comic opera description. The President, who must be thirty-five years of age and have real property to the value of £120, is assisted by secretaries of state, of the treasury, of the interior, of war and the navy—of course, there is no navy to speak of—a postmaster-general; and an attorney-general. There is a Parliament, consisting of a Senate and House of Representatives, and electors must be of negro blood and the owners of land. They are practically all of Americo-Liberian descent, the actual natives of the country taking little part in politics. It may be noted that the organised military forces number about 400, but every citizen capable of bearing arms between the ages of 16 and 50 is liable to serve for defence, so that Liberia has a compulsory service scheme in theory; and in another way this strange State, which travellers have described as being a laughable, tatterdemalion travesty upon a white republic, set a good example. For in 1915, owing to the war's effect on the revenue, no Budget could be declared; so the administration wits carried on with a departmental establishment of less than half the normal and all "public servants" worked on reduced salaries. ' Nevertheless, despite its possession of over 100 elementary schools, of a college where three professor* teach 20 students, of & motor launch or two, and a good deal of domestic trouble caused by the cannibals of the interior, Liberia's entry into, the war would scarcely have been important save for the fact of vit» geographical situation.

Before the war Germany, of course, had her trade interests in Liberia; German steamers called there; there was a German wireless station at Monrovia, the capital; and a German cable. Situated, as it is, next door to Sierra Leone, Liberia's long coast line might well.have offered a strategic threat to the Empire's important sea traffic there, for if Germany could have obtained land concessions and secretly established submarine bases on that,.coast, she,.could,.havje threatened the sea route from Britain to the Cape, and so from Britain to Australia. If she could obtain possession of par.t of the Liberian coast now she could do so, striking across tha main lane of sea traffic with her submarines. But this contingency is scarcely likely to occur, and now that the. tiny black republic has officially thro\Vn down the gauntlet to the German Titan, German submarines are not likely to find harbour in any of the Liberian bays or rivers, nor German land speculators any sympathy from the republican police. It all makes for the preservation df the safety of the sea route.