Annual report on the Gold Coast / Colonial Office.

  • Great Britain. Colonial Office.
Date:
[1951]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on the Gold Coast / Colonial Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    90/130 (page 84)
    century has been affected in particular by the spread of education and the development of the cocoa industry. The prosperity of the various African companies for nearly four centuries depended in a large measure on the slave trade. Its sup¬ pression in the nineteenth century, coinciding with the Ashanti wars, reduced commerce on the coast to straits from which it revived only temporarily when the security of Captain Maclean’s administration fostered the development of the palm oil trade. Vegetable oils remained for several decades one of the principal objects of commerce on the coast. This and other trades were, however, displaced in importance by the cocoa industry which from small beginnings rapidly expanded in the twentieth century until the Gold Coast became the world’s largest producer, and cocoa the key to the country’s prosperity. This prosperity is being threatened by swollen shoot, a serious and contagious virus disease of cocoa whose depredations constitute a grave menace to the economy of the country. A strenuous campaign based on the best scientific advice and research is being waged by Government, and slow but steady progress is being made in the eradi¬ cation of the diseased trees and the rehabilitation of the devasted areas. From the days of the Portuguese, gold attracted to the coast adventurers of many nations. Towards the end of the nineteenth century deep mining for gold was introduced by European companies and, in spite of some failures, production steadily rose from 7,237 fine oz. valued at £32,866 in 1880 until 1939 when the value of gold ex¬ ported amounted to £3,910,757 or 26 per cent of total Gold Coast exports. In recent times the prosperity of the Gold Coast has been increased by the discovery and working of diamonds, manganese and bauxite, and by the rapid expansion of the timber industry. Takoradi Harbour, built during the Governorship of Sir Gordon Guggisberg and opened in 1928, has become the economic gateway of the country and contributes greatly to its prosperity and development. The pioneers of education in the Gold Coast were the Wesleyan and Basel (Presbyterian) Missions of the early nineteenth century. They were followed by many others, the Anglican and Roman Catholic Churches being prominent among them. Education was for many years left entirely to the missions, assisted in the latter part of the century by increasing subventions from the Government. Throughout the present century the Government, while continuing its aid to the missions, has also built many schools of its own, and Native Author¬ ities have taken an increasingly prominent part in the extension of schooling facilities. The Government has in these and other ways pursued a policy of wide educational expansion of which the opening of Achimota College in 1924 afforded remarkable evidence, and the establishment of the University College in 1948 a proof of continued progress.