Evening star., 1927-04-18
GOLD COAST GETS
FIRST GOOD PORT
English Engineers Building
Harbor for Shipment of
New Product.

Engineers are giving England's
Gold Coast Colony it's first good har-
Dor. Two cement-capped breakwaters
are under construction at Takoradi,
each of which is more than two miles
long. SWarming in the stone quarries
and along on the walls of stone jut-
ting boldly into the Atlantic Ocean
are 5000 native workers, supervised
by hundred Englishmen.
AT Takoradi England has staked
its pounds, in part at least" says a
bulletin from the headquarters of the
National Geographic Society, "on the
American glass of chocolate, matted
milk and the English cup of cocoa.
''The Gold Coast Colony is the
worlds largest producer of cacao,
which is manufactured into cocoa and
chocolate. In one recent year the
colony shipped $4,000 tons of cacao,
valued at $10,000,000, to the United
States.
while the Gold Coast no longer
puts it's trust in gold cacao has dis
placed the metal only within the last
few years. For 400 years gold was
the hope that glittered for white men
on the Gold Coast.
Gold mines built the railroad to
Seccondee, for which Takoradi is the
port. In 1924 gold shipments reached
more than $4,000, 900, but the mines
seem to be nearing exhaustion. A geo.
logical survey Of the Gold Coast Col
onr in 1915 revealed other minerals
which may themselves relegate gold
to the background. Manganese and
bauXite are important exports. The
first is used in steel making and the
second for aluminium.
''Of all the coasts on the Gulf of
min hn ta hpnfl n Cf
to give up its legacy. There were
four-'The Grain Coast where Liberia
is today: The Ivory Coast which has
given it's name to Frances Ivory
Coast Colony: then the Gold Coast,
which has become the 'cacao coast,
and finally The Slave Coast the lit
toral of present Dahomey and Nigeria.
The elephants that supplied the Ivory
Coast with ivory have disappeared.
slavery has been suppressed in Nj
geria since early in the nineteenth
century, and it has been decades since
Liberia sold grain in quantities.
Bound up in these names are much
history and geography. Why should
they be coasts? Why not real names
for the mainland, like Virginia, Maine
or British Guiana? The answer is
that for nearly 400 years coasts were
all that Europeans knew of this part
of Africa. The Portuguese came and
built trading forts. The Dutch, the
French and the English followed.
Sometimes rival trading stations were
as close as eight miles to each other,
as in the case of Dutch Elmina and
English Castle Rock. Safe in their
forts, traders lived and waited for the
tribesmen TO bring gold, slaves and
ivory. They did not dare penetrate
hn f.Ysia n trnnipQ1
forest that stretches from the Gulf of
Guinea shore to the edge of the Sa-
hara Desert.
FINALLY in the nineteenth century
the European nations began to con-
solidate their holdings in Africa.
England took claim to $50 miles of
the Gold Coast and ran the border
lines Including territories) back 400
miles. Three districts compose the
holding--first, the Gold Coast Colony
itself; second, Ashanti territory, and,
deepest inland, the northern terrific
ries bordering the desert.
'"rhe tropical forest has lost, its
terrors for Europeans. Two main
railroad lines from two coast cities,
Seccondee and Accra, the capital, join
at Kumasi. the old inland capital of
the Ashanti tribes, where human sac
rifices were offered up less than 100
years ago. Altogether there are 400
miles of railroad in the colony and
1000 miles of motor roads.
Not only has the European lost his
fear of the tropical forest but slowly
he is putting it to work. Tropical
forests will keep the new port busy,
not gold. Now that the natives have
discovered steady profits in cacao, it
is difficult to turn their attention to
other agricultural opportunities. Yet
the production of palm nuts for palm
oil is increasing, kola nuts are impor-
tant, and African mahogany boosts
the export figures by f250,000. With
better transportation and port facili-
ties at Takoradi, more timber will get
to market. Big logs had a vicious
tendency to break away in the chronic
bad seas, so the Gold Coast shore is
Uttered with battered derelict hulks
Of tinlbers that were intended for
Europe