Free Grown Cocoa.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13892, 1 May 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

Free Grown Cocoa.

ROMANCE OF THE WEST AFRICAN INDUSTRY. By E. D. Morel. " The Work which- the British have accomplished in introducing the cultivation of cocoa among the natives of the Gold Coast is worthy of the utmost admiration of civilised peoples."—M. Auguste Chevalier, Doctor in Natural Science, specially attached to the Staff of the French Government in West Africa. The first sod of the Acera-Akwapim Railway, in the Gold Coast, was cut by the Governor, Sir Johu Rodger, on January *7. It is being built "to develop the agricultural wealth of the colony, especially the cocoa industry. We have heard something about "Slave grown cocoa" recently, we shall hear a good deal more wnen Mr William Cadbury and Mr Joseph Bu'rtt return from their mission of investigation in Angola and San Thome. lint how many Englishmen are acquainted with the romance of "Free grown cocoa " in one of their own West African dependencies? Yet the story is one which should be known, just now especiallv.

In- 1879 Tettey Quassie, a. FantL of Accra, on the Gold Coast, hired himself out as. a labourer with others of his countrymen for a term of service on the Spanish island of Fernando Po. There he worked on a cocoa plantation. When his term exxpired Tettey Quassie returned to ' " We-country," as his cousin the Kroo-hoy puts it, but he did not return empty handed. He brought with him a few plants and pods of cocoa, a-nd he put them in the ground at a village called Mampoug. Four vears later the plants began- to hear fruits, which Tettey Quassie sokl to neighbouring- villages at .01. a pod. Seeing, that there was money to be made -the natives' eagerly bought the pods at this price, and Tettey Quassie, full of his Fernanda Po experiences, gave his countrymen some rudimentary tips in the art of fermenting and drying the cocoa. In 1885 the first consignment of native-grown cocoa was exported from the Gold Coast to Europe. It weighed 1211b., and was valued at -f'6 Is REAL NATIVE ENTERPRISE. I do not know what became of Tettev Quassie after that; probably _ he died, and with hi* death Jiis acmiired knowledge. In 1890 the Basel Mission imported some coc.oa pods from the West Indies and sold them to. natives at 2s a-piece, and some years later a botanical station was Ol p ou l c " Aburi. Bv 1894, 20,3121b. w er ? exported by native growers, valued at £ °Since then the industrv has advanced literallv, by leaps and bounds. \\, ith no expenditure of European capital, with only some technical he p Government and very little tl at until comparatively recently—but \mn £ ,Ud-will end '" agement; the native of the G< O W Coast laudW, farmer and vendor. This man. P - TT "cov^rS 8 flourishing which f he has covme nothinp betand a native-made hoe, he tropical the forest giant. , ocl . With undergrowth, kept itcg"re^ no means of alll ' j R conveyed Son, te 20'3121b., ■ valued t0 90 QSfi 4001b. valued at THE NEGRO RACE. Here is a result to make some o us pamSin our estimate of the negro race rro fe that can do this, under these willnot be a neglig.bte factor in the economic development the world, when science and the white man's arte and crafta have g.veu them the technical knowledge which they still lack, together with adequat means of transport. ■ _ The cocoa plantations now extend to the western, side , of the Aburi w .. through Akim and Kwahu until the> thev reach and eV-en cross the borders of Aslianti; while in Aslianti P ro P { jrthe 5 . Aslianti himself, is industry with such zest that lew are now the natives who cannot boast ot at least one cocoa farm, while many ot them own three, four and even more plantations. Neither in the colony proper nor in Aslianti has the cultivation attained to anything like its full development, !*nd in many parts ot .Southern ■ Nigeria climatic conditions are

equally favourable to the . growth,of theo broma, "the food of the gods/' as old Linnaeus used to call.it. In recent years -the Gold Coast Government has to its credit realised all tlio potentialities of this native enterprise. European and native instructors have been appointed; technical classes are regularly given—for the native producer has yet much to learn in the scientific treatment of the bean after picking, fermenting, etc.,' and his product often fetches much lower prices than it would, under a more artful system of production. The Government has even gone the length of printing and distributing in large quantities pamphlets on the cultivation and preparation of cocoa in the Fanti and Ashnnti languages, one of which bears the euphonious title of " Kokq adowne ne lisiesiei (yebea)) ho nsem tia bi." And, last hut not least,, the much; demanded' railway from Accra to Mangoase, in the heart of the Gold Coast cocoa fields, has at length been started. In the matter of. a railway the Ashanti is better off, for lie has a line from Kumasi to the Coast. Now if the uprising of this purely native industry is an object lesson as regards the character and the future of the negro when left undisturbed in the possession of his soil ;-r,d • encouraged by an honest Government to make the most of it for his ovn benefit as well as for the benefit of the enter world, it is also a magnificent opportunity for really constructive work on the part of the powerful and honourable men who control the cocoa manufacturing industry in Great Britain. FREEMAN .v. .SLAVE

On the one. hand, in Portuguese San Thome, we have an industry, marvellously equipped mechanically, wonderfully organised, in itself a model of up-to-date scientific methods, and in which very large sums of money have been sunk; but run by slave labour. The African's connection with it is a shameful and a degrading connection. The undertaking flourishes, out the African dies; the European alone profits. On the other hand, in the Gold Coast, we see the African himself building up an industry of his own; a free man, enjoying the fruits of his land and the reward of his own labour; producing. a class /of cocoa very similar to tlie San Thome article, and which only requires a little more experience and instruction on the part of the native planter to be equally excellent in quality. In the one case, an industry carrying within it the seeds of death and human misery; in the other, an industry carrying within it the seeds of life and human progress. There is good reason, happily, to believe that the British manufacturing firms are not indifferent to all the lessons, moral and material, which may be drawn from West African native cocoa production. Messrs Cadbary have alreadv sent a buyer to the Gold Coast, and "it is in their power and in the power of their colleagues to . g.ve an immense impetus to- what-is assuredly one of the most interesting and promising features of modern economic development in the African tropics, one which blows the "arrested development" theorv to smithereens. 'I hey will not, I feel assured, fail to rise to the opportunity, and it is encouraging to know that Mr William Cadburv is now 'paving a visit to the - Gold Coast cocoa fields on his way home.