INHABITANTS AND CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH THEY LIVE 37 
court and judge as well as a justice of the peace. There is also an Attorney- 
General and a Solicitor-General. The Liberian judicial system has been sub- 
ject to most serious criticism, and a number of complaints have been made 
by foreign nations.'! It is impossible to tell from the Liberian estimates what 
disposition is made of judicial fines and fees, and the judiciary system has cost 
at least in some years, nine per cent of the total revenues of the country. No 
lawyer in Monrovia would dare to apply for an injunction against a prominent 
government official. Despite the absence of a law school, there are more than 
one hundred negro attorneys in Monrovia alone. 
It has been estimated that up to the time of the Civil War, 18,858 negroes 
had emigrated from the United States to Liberia, through the efforts of the 
American Colonization Society. In 1865 as a result of the war, negro emigration 
from America to Liberia almost entirely ceased. In the same year, however, 
346 emigrants were brought to Liberia from the British West Indies and in the 
succeeding years, several thousand more from the United States arrived. It is 
the descendants of all these people that constitute the ‘‘ Americo-Liberians”’ of 
today, who are usually estimated now to number between ten to twelve thousand. 
However, the Americo-Liberians have for many years intermarried freely with 
members of the indigenous African tribes coming from the interior and living 
in the vicinity of the coast, and the usual estimate is that there are in the neigh- 
borhood of fifty thousand people residing on and near the coast who have some 
knowledge of the English language and who, in the language of the country, are 
regarded as “civilized.” 
Attention has been called to the fact that, in recent years, emigration from 
the United States to Liberia has been exceedingly small. The opportunities for 
negroes in the United States have been so numerous and so superior to those in 
Liberia as to amply account for the fact. Indeed, a large number of the more 
influential Americo-Liberians do not wish for the immigration into their country 
even of intelligent and educated negroes from the United States. The reason 
for this feeling may be partly seen in the fact that the total revenue is so low 
and the number of office seekers so large, that a very high percentage of the 
government receipts are consumed in the payment of salaries to administrative 
officials and employees who, of course, are all negroes.2, The Americo-Liberian 
realizes that any intelligent newcomers from America would have to be cared 
for with government salaries and sometimes assumes that such newcomers 
might regard themselves as more intelligent and capable than the natives and 
insist on taking over government positions or on taking advantage of other 
financial opportunities. 
It has been estimated that in addition to the Americo-Liberians, there are 
between one and a half and two million indigenous Africans in the country.’ 
1 Messages of the President of Liberia (1904), p. 9: (1908), p. 16: (1922), p. 13. 
2 Buell states (‘‘Native Problem in Africa’’ (1928), vol. II, p. 729) that about 90 per cent of the 
Government receipts are consumed in the payment of salaries of Government employees. However, 
according to the Liberian Government budget in 1929, the amount expended for salaries was $621,000.00, 
and the total budget $1,264,000.00. 
’ Johnston: Loc. cit., Vol. Il, p. 886, gives the indigenous population as 2,000,000. 
