Liberia ^•- 



Americo-Liberian Government on the coast is that it has no 

 sure means of maintaining law and order between tribe and 

 tribe, and between all these tribes in the hinterland in regard 

 to their relations with the French and English possessions across 

 the frontiers. The British have borne with patience the 

 occasional lawlessness of Kisi, Kondo, and other tribes on the 

 Sierra Leone boundary, together with the gun-running — namely, 

 the passing of guns and ammunition in defiance of Customs 

 regulations from Liberia into the recently agitated hinterland 

 of Sierra Leone. 



France complains of similar lawlessness on the north-east 

 and north-west frontiers of Lberia. On the other hand, the 

 Liberian Government retorts that the Muham.madan Negroes 

 who are now French subjects are eating steadily into the Liberian 

 hinterland. They are penetrating the north-east parts of Liberia, 

 firstly as peaceful traders, and secondly as somewhat exclusive 

 colonists. They cut down the forest and take possession of 

 the country little by little, driving back the forest-dwelling tribes 

 towards the heart of Liberia. 



Time and patience are required to settle these problems, 

 and to settle them more satisfactorily by peaceful negotiation 

 than by armed expeditions. It is surely not too much to ask 

 from the kindliness and civilisation of Europe that the poor 

 little Americo-Liberian Republic shall have grace accorded to 

 it — say another fifty years — within which to show how it can 

 bring into an orderly condition the not very large territory 

 entrusted to its charge. It has made considerable progress in 

 that direction in the coast regions, where it is scarcely ex- 

 aggeration to say that the life of a white man is absolutely safe, 

 even though the same assurance cannot be given about his 

 property in every hole and corner, just as there are parts of 

 London and Paris at the present moment in which it would 



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