Нигерия: народы и проблемы - страница 22

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CHAPTER III

THE FOREST BELT

Beyond the deltaic region proper lies the vast belt of primeval and secondary forest of luxurious growth, giant trees, tangled vines and creepers, glorious flowering bushes, gaudy butterflies, moist atmosphere, and suffocating heat. Beyond the forest belt again lies, with recurrent stretches of forest, the more open hilly country, the beginning of the uplands of the North. When an authority on forestry recently wrote that “British Columbia is the last great forest reserve left,” he forgot West Africa. That is what West Africa has continually suffered from—forgetfulness. The resources of the Nigerian forest belt are as yet far from being fully determined, but sufficient is now known of them to show that they are enormously rich. Besides the oil palm and the wine palm (which produces the piassava of commerce) the forest belt contains large quantities of valuable mahoganies, together with ebony, walnut, satin, rose, and pear woods, barwood, and other dye-woods, several species of rubber, African oak, gums (copal), kola, and numerous trees suitable to the manufacture of wood-pulp. Oil-bearing plants abound in great quantities, as do also fibres, several of which have been favourably reported upon by the Imperial Institute. The shea-butter tree, to which I shall have occasion again to refer, is an inhabitant of the dry zone.

The soil of this forest region is wonderfully fertile, and forest products apart, the possibilities of agricultural development are considerable. The three articles under cultivation by the natives the Administration has of late years done its best to popularize have been cotton, cocoa, and maize. For several reasons maize is an uncertain quantity. The land bears two crops a year, the larger crops ripening in July, but a wet August will play havoc with harvesting and storing arrangements, while the amount available for export must always depend upon local food requirements and available labour. The cultivation of cocoa, for which the humid atmosphere, rich alluvial soil, and abundant shade of the forest region seem peculiarly suitable, has, on the other hand, steadily, if slowly, increased since it was started fifteen years ago. In 1900 the quantity of cocoa exported was valued at £8,622. It had risen in 1910 to £101,151. The efforts made within the last few years by the British Cotton Growing Association, supplemented by those of the Administration, to revive on a large scale the export trade in raw cotton started by the Manchester manufacturer, Mr. Clegg, at the time of the American Civil War, has so far been partially, but only partially, successful. The industry has progressed, but far less rapidly than its promoters hoped. Things do not move quickly in West Africa. In all these questions several factors have to be taken into account, for which sufficient allowance is not made in Europe. For one thing, the really immense amount of labour which the Nigerian population is already required to put forth in order to feed itself and to sustain the existing export trade is not appreciated.

The idea that the native has merely to scratch the earth or watch the fruit ripening on the trees in order to sustain himself and his family is, speaking generally, as grotesque an illusion as that he is a helpless, plastic creature with no will of his own. The native is on the whole an active, hard-working individual, the ramifications of whose domestic and social needs involve him in constant journeyings which absorb much time, and if his soil is prolific in the bearing of crops, it is equally so in invading vegetation, which has constantly to be checked. He is also a keen business man and a born trader, as any European merchant who has dealings with him will bear witness, and he will turn his attention to producing what pays him best. In that respect he differs not at all from other sections of the human race amongst whom the economic sense has been developed, and he cannot be fairly expected to devote his attention to raising one particular raw material which a certain home industry may desire, if he can make larger profits in another direction. The opening up of the country, the increasing dearness of food supplies in the neighbourhood of all the great centres, the intensifying commercial activity and economic pressure so visible on every side, the growth of population, and the enlargement of the horizon of ideas must necessarily lead to a steady development in all branches of production. But the native must be given time, and the country is one which cannot be rushed either economically or politically.