PROGRESS OF LIBERIA

Evening Star, Issue 19005, 29 July 1925, Page 10

PROGRESS OF LIBERIA

A GROWING AFRICAN STATE 'The few independent native kingdoms left in Africa are becoming of increasing international interest. Abyssinia and Basutoland have been to the fore lately, and now we have from Liberia., in the address in its Parliament of President C. B. D. King, its modest, constructively-minded President, a document of no little general interest (states a correspondent of the ‘Manchester Guardian’). During the latter part- of the war and immediately after the Armistice Liberia, was greatly excited at the prospect of getting a. loan of live million dollars from the United States. That hope was disappointed, though, curiously enough, the African republic—which is not a. native kingdom in quite the same sense as Abyssinia or Basutoland, been use it L officered largely by Afro-Americans, though Mr King himself, i believe, is Lihorian-born—mav get_ much more out of the United States indirectly Mian it would have got directly by the loan, because the Firestone Company, one of the great American rubber concerns, in planting rubber in Liberia to an extent which some Americans say will eventually enable the States to get in this way about 15 per cent, of the rubber required from outside America. But that apart, the failure of the loan negotiations is proving n disguised blessing to Liberia, because it has forced the people to rely on their own efforts, and forced the Government to rut down expenditure which can be done without meanwhile. But, very wisely, the Government recognises that the making of good roads and the improving of harbors does not come under this last heading, and such things arc being got on with as far as funds allow; while, at Mie same time, not only are payments on the foreign debt being kept up. hut when these claims have been met the lodger shows somthing on the right side. It is not a great deal, just as the country’s trade turnover is as yet scarcely comparable with any of the four British colonies of the West Coast, save, perhaps, the tiny Gambia colony; but it is a, favorable balance. Moreover, Liberia, which some time age. out of the moneys paid by vessels under a Harbor Duos Act, erected and is keeping up excellent lighthouses along its coast, is continuing that praiseworthy policy. The country has been helped" not only by the regime of economy forced upon it, but also by a better tendency in West African trade, and in this latter connection one wonders if British-African commercial houses are paying as close attention to trade opportunities in Liberia as the address indicates the United States .and several Continental nations are paying. The address was delivered before the President’s recent visit to Sierra, Leone, when our Colonial Office and the Governor of Sierra. Leone, Sir Eansford Slater, went out of their way to do honor to President King in_ circumstances winch have greatly impressed native races of British West Africa as a whole. i