Rubber

Between Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast, there stretches 350 miles of junglous coastline. Back of it, for some 200 miles into the interior of Africa, there are great jungles, and 2,000,000 Negroes and 120 white men. About 50,000 of the Negroes are civilized and run an independent sovereign republic and have done so for 78 years. They speak English. They elect a President, a Senate and a House of Representatives They have a Cabinet consisting of a Secretary of State, a Secretary of the Treasury, a Secretary of the Interior, an Attorney General, a Postmaster General, a Secretary of War and Navy and a Secretary of Education.

The revenues (mostly customs duties) and expenditures of the country are less than half a million dollars a year, and foreign commerce is about three times as much. There are no railroads; there are about 55 miles of roads suitable for automobiles. Cotton goods, gin and tobacco are leading imports; rubber, palm oil, coffee, ivory, etc. are the chief exports. Rubber gets into the category of a chief product, not because there are 22 varieties of rubber trees and plants growing in the jungle, but because there is one rubber plantation recently established, which brought 1,200 acres of rubber plantation into production last year. Over it all rules His Excellency Charles D. B. King, President of Liberia.

An American looked upon this country and said: "It is ideal." He was Harvey S. Firestone, President of the Firestone Tire and Rubber Co. He had Edwin Barclay, Secretary of State of Liberia, go to the U. S. and together they drew up a pact which was satisfactory to the U. S. Department of State.

Under its terms Mr. Firestone's engineers will explore Liberia, choose 1,000,000 acres of land best suited to his purposes. The land will be cleared and rubber trees will be planted. Meanwhile a U. S. firm has been engaged to build a breakwater at Monrovia, and give Liberia its first harbor. The Firestone Plantations Co. will build roads, houses and improve sanitary conditions. Some 300,000 natives who never before had any employment, except carrying great baskets on their heads, will be hired. A force of Americans will be sent over to superintend the job; food, household furniture and everything else will be sent after them. And in five or six years raw rubber will begin to pour out of where the jungle was--because $100,000,000 will have been sunk in making Liberia useful.

Such at least was the announcement that Mr. Firestone made last week. The background for this story is that the British and Dutch control 97% of the world's rubber production. Britain has placed legal restrictions on rubber production which has boosted the price in a few months from about 25-c- or 30-c- a pound to more than $1.

Three years ago Mr. Firestone began to plan for getting a U. S. rubber supply. He sent investigators to the Philippines, but they reported adverse and unsettled political conditions. He sent them to Mexico and Central America and they reported the same. (He is nevertheless experimenting in Mexico.) He sent one to Liberia and he reported that he had never seen so perfect a place for rubber growing--good soil, good climate, comparative freedom from disease, undeveloped country, cheap land, abundant labor at rates even cheaper than in the Malay Peninsula. That is how the plan originated.

The expert, M. A. Cheeke, who surveyed Liberia for Mr. Firestone, said last week: "It is very much like Florida, with better fishing. There is practically no hunting, however, the dense population having killed out most animal life. This is one reason for its healthiness, as there are few mammals to carry disease parasites. There is some malaria, but it will be stamped out entirely. The average native is a man of powerful build and a fine worker. This abundant labor supply is one of the chief advantages of the place."