Evening star., 1938-03-18
GOLD COAST BURNS
COCOA |NPROTEST
Farmers Demand a Higher
Price for Crop That
Leads in Value.

SoCUh 10 UCLlS Jul lieu ny JoIl
as farmers on the Gold Coast of Africa
protest against the low prices they
are offered for their chocolate crops
Cocoa until recently has been the
gold Of the Gold Coast" says Ma
tional Geographic Society bulletin.
Portuguese discoverers in the 14th
century and even British governors
at the opening of the goth century
expected that the country would live
up to its name in exports of gold
dust But after the Portuguese
brought over the cacao tree from
the Americas, the green cacao pod
was so we'll mined for its golden
beans that cacao exports became twice
a. valuable as the gold.
. Men Are Transports.
Probably the richest area known
In proportion to size was hopeful
British estimate of the Gold Coast
Colony three decades ago In addi-
ton to gold and chocolate, the COL
ony has exported over a million carats
OF diamonds in year. Manganese
ore and bauXite, more important to
gold or diamonds could be, have made
the Gold Coast more golden than ever
with the progress of the machine age.
Rubber is slowly following the ex-
ample OF the f1ourishing cacao tree
and adapting itself to the colony's
climate. Copra and palm oil from
palm trees, African mahogany and
teak and ebony come from the dense
forests which early exploiters reviled
as useless nuisances
Two drawbacks keep the colony
from being as gold-plated as SURVEYORS
had hoped The tropical heat and
rains stimulate growth but not work.
transportation is the greatest diff
Guilty. The tSetse fly killed off horses
20 metnodlcally that for years the
Gold Coasts trade depended on
single track through the jungle along
which natives carried all burdens on
thelr heads. Rapids barred the rivers
to ships above canoe size. and no
port could harbor vessels of any size
until the construction of breakwaters
At Takoradi within the present decade.
a narrow-gauge railway makes an in
land loop from the largest town. Accra
on the coast to the only interior town
OF any size-Kumasi, with 10000 in
habitants.
The Gold Coast Colony has rela-
uVely little coast. only $50 miles. in
comparison with the deep inland ex-
panse of its rectangle of territory Its
area is larger than that OF England
and Scotland combined. Yet it has
only one-third as many inhabitants as
i've IN metropolitan London. Natives
outnumber the African inhabi-
tants 1000 to /. Part of it is known
oy no specific name. but is called
simply the Northern Territories.
Penetration Is Difficult,
This deep slice of Africa is known
by its coastal name still because it has
oeen olmcult to penetrate. The title
survives from the days when coastal
1orts for trade were the only European
contacts with the Ivory Coast, Grain
Coast, Slave Coast and Gold Coast.
Inc last has been the only one to
endure the trade changes of the goth
century
"'Voltaria' has been suggested as a
more appropriate name for the COLONY
The 900-mile Volta River system domi-
nates the country as the Mississippi
dominates the east-central United
States. Black Volta, White Volta and
Red Volta are tributaries of the main
river, which the Portuguese named
because OF its winding course. Though
impossible to steamers, the rivers
carry coastWards huge RATS of ma
hogany logs or casks of palm-oil being
towed by canoes.
Rivers and their feeding streams
gave the Gold Coast its gold originally,
Natives washed the yellow grains
from stream beds, and every village
mad its goldsmith. Now gold bearing
rocks are dynamited from the depths
OF mines, and the gold is set free by
impersonal machinery and chemicals
Many Diamonds Found.
Diamonds are the rivers latest Gift
TO Gold Coast wealth. Gold-seekers
IN 1919 found the first of the colony's
sparklers while washing for. gold.
1ruckloadS of river gravel are now
chufneo about on a large scale to
extract small diamonds, usually too
tiny for f1ashy ornaments, but price
less as parts for cutting and grinding
equipment.
Forests blanket three-fourths of the
Gold Coast, and orchid -festooned
Jungles are thick enough to shut out
the sky. Clearings, however allow
plantations of the oil palm, and
enough cacao trees to make the Gold
Coast the worlds outstanding pro-
ducer of the cacao bean. In fact.
almost 40 per cent of the worlds
chocolate comes from Gold Coast
beans"