Part 9 (1/2)
Dotted over the islands, here nestling on a mountain side, there overlooking some blue inlet of the sea, are more than two hundred plantations, or _rocas_, whose buildings look like islands in a green sea of cacao shrubs, above which rise the grey stems of such forest trees as have been left to afford shade.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CARRYING CACAO TO THE RAILWAY STATION, NSAWAM, GOLD COAST.]
Here, not only have the cultivation, fermentation and drying of cacao been brought to the highest state of perfection, but the details of organisation--planters' homes, hospitals, cottages, drying sheds and the Decauville railways--are often models of their kind.
Intelligent and courteous, the planters make delightful hosts. At their homes, five thousand miles away from Europe, the visitor, who knows what it means to struggle with steaming, virgin forests, rank encroaching vegetation, deadly fevers, and the physical and mental inertia engendered by the tropics, will marvel at the courage and energy that have triumphed over such obstacles. Calculating from various estimates, each labourer in the islands appears to produce about 1,640 pounds of cacao yearly, and the average yield per cultivated acre is 480 pounds, or about 30 pounds more than that of Trinidad in 1898.
[Ill.u.s.tration: WAGON LOADS OF CACAO BEING TAKEN FROM MESSRS. CADBURY'S DEPOT TO THE BEACH, ACCRA.]
As there is no available labour in San Thome, the planters get their workers from the mainland of Africa. Prior to the year 1908, the labour system of the islands was responsible for grave abuses. This has now been changed. Natives from the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique now enter freely into contracts ranging from one to five years, two years being the time generally chosen. At the end of their term of work they either re-contract or return to their native land with their savings, with which they generally buy a wife. The readiness with which the natives volunteer for the work on the islands is proof both of the soundness of the system of contract and of the good treatment they receive at the hands of the planters.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE BUILDINGS OF THE BOA ENTRADA CACAO ESTATE, SAN THOMe.]
Unfortunately, the mortality of the plantation labourers has generally been very heavy, one large and well-managed estate recording on an average of seven years an annual death rate of 148 per thousand, and many _rocas_ have still more appalling records. Against this, other plantations only a few miles away may show a mortality approximating to that of an average European city. In February, 1918, the workers in San Thome numbered 39,605, and the deaths during the previous year, 1917, were 1,808, thus showing on official figures an annual mortality of 45 per thousand. Comparing this with the 26 per thousand of Trinidad, and remembering that most of the San Thome labourers are in the prime of life, it will be seen that this death rate represents a heavy loss of life and justifies the continued demand from the British cocoa manufacturers for the appointment and report of a special medical commission.
The Portuguese Government is prepared to meet this demand, for it has recently sent a Commissioner, Dr. Joaquim Gouveia, to San Thome to make a thorough examination of labour conditions, including work, food, housing, hospitals and medical attendance, and to report fully and confidentially to the Portuguese Colonial Secretary.
[Ill.u.s.tration: DRYING CACAO AT AGUA IZE, SAN THOMe.
The trays are on wheels, which run on rails.]
If this important step is followed by adequate measures of reform there is every reason to hope that the result will be a material reduction in the death rate, as the good health enjoyed on some of the _rocas_ shows San Thome to be not more unhealthy than other tropical islands.
CAMEROONS.
The Cameroons, which we took from the Germans in 1916, is also on the West Coast of Africa. It lags far behind the Gold Coast in output, although both commenced to grow cacao about the same time. The Germans spent great sums in the Cameroons in giving the industry a scientific basis, they adopted the ”estate plan,” and possibly the fact that they employ contract labour explains why they have not had the same phenomenal success that the natives working for themselves have achieved on the Gold Coast.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BARREL ROLLING, GOLD COAST.]
Various countries and districts which are responsible for about 97 per cent. of the world's cacao crop have now been named and briefly commented upon. Of other producing areas, the islands, Ceylon and Java, are worthy of mention. In both of these (as also in Venezuela, Samoa[7]
and Madagascar) is grown the criollo cacao, which produces the plump, sweet beans with the cinnamon ”break.” Cacao beans from Ceylon or Java are easily recognised by their appearance, because, being washed, they have beautiful clean sh.e.l.ls, but there is a serious objection to washed sh.e.l.ls, namely, that they are brittle and as thin as paper, so that many are broken before they reach the manufacturer. Ceylon is justly famous for its fine ”old red”; along with this a fair quant.i.ty of inferior cacao is produced, which by being called Ceylon (such is the power of a good name), tends to claim a higher price than its quality warrants.
[7] Robert Louis Stevenson was one of the pioneers in cacao planting in Samoa, as readers of his _Vailima Letters_ will remember.
[Ill.u.s.tration: BAGGING CACAO, GOLD COAST.
Reproduced by permission of the Editor of ”West Africa.”]
CACAO MARKETS.
_From the Plantation to the European Market._
It is mentioned above that on the Gold Coast cacao is brought down to Accra as head-loads, or in barrels, or in motor-lorries. These methods are exceptional; in other countries it is usually put in sacks at the estate. Every estate has its own characteristic mark, which is stamped on the bags, and this is recognised by the buyers in Europe, and gives a clue to the quality of the contents. There is not as yet a uniform weight for a bag of cacao, although they all vary between one and two cwt., thus the bags from Africa contain 1-1/4 cwts., whilst those from Guayaquil contain 1-3/4 cwts. In these bags the cacao is taken to the port on the backs of mules, in horse or ox carts, in canoes down a stream, or more rarely, by rail. It is then conveyed by lighters or surf boats to the great ocean liners which lie anch.o.r.ed off the sh.o.r.e. In the hold of the liner it is rocked thousands of miles over the azure seas of the tropics to the grey-green seas of the temperate zone. In pre-war days a million bags used to go to Hamburg, three-quarters of a million to New York, half a million to Havre, and only a trifling quarter of a million to London. Now London is the leading cacao market of the world.
During the war the supplies were cut off from Hamburg, whilst Liverpool, becoming a chief port for African cacao, in 1916 imported a million bags. Then New York began to gorge cacao, and in 1917 created a record, importing some two and a half million bags, or about 150,000 tons.
Whilst everything is in so fluid a condition it is unwise to prophesy; it may, however, be said that there are many who think, now that the consumption of cocoa and chocolate in America has reached such a prodigious figure, that New York may yet oust London and become the central dominating market of the world.