XV 
SOME PROBLEMS CONCERNING THE WELFARE 
OF THE PEOPLE 
From this summary of the social, biological, and medical conditions which exist 
in Liberia, it will be seen that certain problems stand out in respect to the wel- 
fare of the people and the further development of the country. Progress in 
Liberia, since 1847, when the country became independent, has obviously not 
been great. The conditions under which the great majority of the people live 
probably do not exist elsewhere, — certainly not elsewhere in the civilized world. 
The political situation is plainly most unfortunate. Although Liberia is an in- 
dependent republic, it is evident from the conditions described in this Report 
that there is little freedom for the great majority of the people who reside in the 
interior. Although for the most part they are very backward and unenlightened, 
and are subjected to various forms of oppression and exploitation, some of them 
are nevertheless among the most superior people in Africa, and evidently capable 
of considerable advancement. 
There is no known country of the size of Liberia where there is no proper 
government hospital and where there are no properly qualified government 
physicians, and where sanitary and medical conditions have been almost entirely 
neglected; and where, moreover, there is no laboratory in which the diagnosis 
of infectious disease can be made, and in which, for example, a case of yellow 
fever may be differentiated from a case of severe malaria. Without the assist- 
ance furnished from time to time by the physicians of the Firestone Plantations 
Company in Liberia, or by Dr. Fuszek, a Hungarian physician in private prac- 
tice in Monrovia, even the foreign residents of the capital would be without 
medical assistance of any nature.1 
One cannot refrain from comparing certain conditions which exist in Liberia 
with, some of those which exist in the neighboring British Colony of Sierra 
Leone. The comparison is of some interest, because Sierra Leone like Liberia 
was settléd with the idea of founding a home for freed slaves and their de- 
scendants. Sierra Leone, with about the same population as Liberia, has more 
than four times the amount of trade and revenue. The per capita expenditure, 
revenue, and trade in Liberia are much the lowest in Africa. Liberia also has 
six times the public debt of Sierra Leone. The latter country expends more 
than twenty times the amount expended by Liberia on education, and on medi- 
cal and agricultural work. The Sierra Leone Government maintains a medical 
staff of twenty-two officers, whereas the Liberian Government maintains but 
1 See footnote, page 200, regarding Dr. Wehrle. 
204 
