I Hold A
Brief For No Party, And I Beg The More Experienced Old Coaster To
Remember That "A Looker On Sees The Most Of The Game."
First of all it should be remembered that Africa does not possess
ready-made riches to the extent it is in many quarters regarded as
possessing.
It is not an India filled with the accumulated riches
of ages, waiting for the adventurer to enter and shake the pagoda
tree. The pagoda tree in Africa only grows over stores of buried
ivory, and even then it is a stunted specimen to that which grew
over the treasure-houses of Delhi, Seringapatam, and hundreds of
others as rich as they in gems and gold. Africa has lots of stuff
in it; structurally more than any other continent in the world, but
it is very much in the structure, and it requires hard work to get
it out, particularly out of one of its richest regions, the West
Coast, where the gold, silver, copper, lead, and petroleum lie
protected against the miner by African fever in its deadliest form,
and the produce prepared by the natives for the trader is equally
fever-guarded, and requires white men of a particular type to work
and export it successfully - men endowed with great luck, pluck,
patience, and tact.
The first things to be considered are the natural resources of the
country. This subject may be divided into two sub-sections - (1) The
means of working these resources as they at present stand; (2) The
question of the possibility of increasing them by introducing new
materials of trade-value in the shape of tea, coffee, cocoa, etc.
With regard to the first sub-division the most cheerful things that
there are to say on the West Coast trade can be said; the means of
transport being ahead of the trade in all districts save the Gold
Coast. I know this is heresy, so I will attempt to explain the
matter. First, as regards communication to Europe by sea, the West
Coast is extremely well off, the two English lines of steamers
managed by Messrs. Elder Dempster, the British African, and the
Royal African, are most enterprisingly conducted, and their devotion
to trade is absolutely pathetic. Let there be but the least vague
rumour (sometimes I have thought they have not waited for the
rumour, but "gone in" as an experiment) of a puncheon of oil, or a
log of timber waiting for shipment at an out-of-the-world, one house
port, one of these vessels will bear down on that port, and have
that cargo. In addition to the English lines there is the Woermann
line, equally devoted to cargo, I may almost say even more so, for
it is currently reported that Woermann liners will lie off and wait
for the stuff to grow. This I will not vouch for, but I know the
time allowed to a Woermann captain by his owners between Cameroons
and Big Batanga just round the corner is eight days.
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