LIBERIA 1 103 



A diamond was also obtained from the vicinity of the Finley Mountains in 1912. There 

 has been a slight increase in the output of gold, but nothing at present to indicate that any 

 one part of Liberia is highly auriferous. 



The journeys of Captain Braithwaite Wallis, formerly British Consul- General 

 in Liberia (since transferred to French West Africa), an account of which was published 

 in 1910, threw some light on the cause of the grievous troubles which have recently 

 convulsed the hinterland of Liberia and hindered access to the trading centres. After 

 the successful campaigns (1890-1898) of the French against the Mandingo Mahdi, 

 Samori, and his Sofa following, 1 it is evident that remnants of Samoa's army found 

 refuge in the dense forests of Liberia, where they joined with quasi-Mahommedan 

 tribes partly of Mandingo stock in a common hatred of the white man's encroachments. 

 The settlement of these Sofas amongst the Buzi, Toma, and Gbalin tribes provoked 

 further trouble with the French in the form of border raids, and it has become more 

 than ever incumbent on the Liberian Government at Monrovia that the Republic 

 should possess an efficient police force capable of maintaining order in the interior 

 and firmly opposing itself to acts of brigandage and intertribal war. 



On January i, 1912 Mr. Arthur Barclay was succeeded in the Presidency of the 

 Republic by the Hon. Daniel Howard. Important concessions have been made to 

 the German South American Telegraph Company giving them the right to establish 

 and operate a system of wireless telegraph communication to and within the territory 

 and Republic of Liberia. The concession originally made to a British company in 1890 

 for the working of the Liberian rubber forests, the planting of rubber trees, etc., has 

 been revised and amended, bringing it more into line with the interests of other foreign 

 traders, and at the same time compensating the company for the past investments 

 and sacrifices which it has made by defining closely the area of its forest preservation 

 and allotting to it at a low rental for a long period areas of unoccupied land for experi- 

 mental planting purposes. In return this company, which has already achieved 

 considerable success in its introduction of the Hevea or Para rubber, has agreed to 

 distribute widely amongst the indigenous people of Liberia the seeds and stumps of 

 the Para tree, which is likely to become much cultivated in the territories of the Repub- 

 lic, so similar in their soil and climate to the regions of Brazil from which the Hevea 

 has been derived. But the most important Act of the Legislature in 1911 was the 

 Loan Act for the negotiation of a loan through the good offices of the United States 

 Government for the refunding and extinguishing of all debts and pecuniary obligations 

 of the Republic, whether foreign or : domestic. 



This loan, it was arranged, was to be issued in the form of bonds payable in New York 

 both as to principal and interest in gold coin of the United States, the bonds to be issued in 

 such form as might be necessary to secure their admission to the stock exchanges of New 

 York, London, Paris and Germany, the annual interest on the bonds not to exceed five per 

 cent, the bonds to be issued for a period of not less than forty years and to be redeemable 

 under the provisions of the sinking fund at a premium of not more than two and a half per 

 cent of their face value during the first ten years from the issue of the loan and afterwards 

 at par. For the service of this loan there was to be set aside monthly from the revenues 

 assigned to that service a sum not exceeding twenty per cent of the gross receipts during 

 the preceding month, which amount should not be less than 7,600 dollars in United States 

 gold. After the payment of the interest and necessary expenses the residue was to be set 

 aside as a sinking fund and this sinking fund was in no case to be less than 12,500 dollars per 

 annum. The security for this payment of interest and principal and of all charges on the 

 loan was to be the revenues from the customs duties and the rubber tax, also, if need be, the 

 shipping tax on native labourers going abroad for service. The collection and administration 

 of this revenue during the life of the loan were invested in a customs receivership to be 

 administered by a general receiver of customs, who should be from time to time designated 

 by the President of the United States of America, and thereupon commissioned by the 

 President of Liberia and associated with three assistant receivers, to be designated respec- 

 tively by the governments of the Republic of France, the German Empire, and the United 

 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The accounts of the general receiver should be 

 rendered monthly to the secretary of the Treasury, whose emoluments and those of his 

 assistant receivers were to be fixed at such amounts as the President of the United States 

 might approve. During the existence of this receivership the general receiver would have 



1 See E. B. xxiv, 642d, 643a; xxv, 5&d. Samori died in 1900. 



