POSTSCRIPT IN MONROVIA 289

the lorry and the crew were still camping there wait-
ing for something to happen.

Nor can you wonder at their hatred and suspicion
of the white man. The last loan and the last con-
cession to the Firestone Company of Ohio all but
surrendered their sovereignty to a commercial com-
pany with no interests in Liberia but rubber and
dividends. The Liberian has quite rightly been con-
demned for his abuse of power in the interior, but
the native can hardly expect a much higher standard
of treatment from a commercial company without
any responsibility to world opinion. It was a quite
unconstitutional concession, in return for a loan, of
1,000,000 acres of Liberian territory on a lease of
ninety-nine years. In 1935 only 60,000 acres were
under cultivation: 45,000 acres outside Monrovia and
15,000 at Cape Palmas, but the concession remains
an impediment to any form of development

It was imagined, one may charitably suppose, that
Firestone's would bring more than money into the
country, that they would provide employment and
stimulate trade. The year of my visit they were
employing 6,000 natives supplied by the chiefs; no
one could really tell whether that labour was
voluntary or forced, but if the million acres should
ever be cultivated and the employment figures rise
in proportion, voluntary labour will certainly not
supply the demand, and there is a great moral distinc-
tion between the usual form of forced labour in
Africa, which at least pretends to be for the good of
the community, and forced labour for the good of
shareholders. ,

The wages paid, though it must be admitted tljat

K