No significant events disturbed the even tenor of life in isolated Liberia during the year 1940. American attention was focused on the country only when a visiting official of the Bank of Monrovia claimed for his nation a place beside Finland on the roll of honor of those countries which pay their debts to the United States. During the year Western civilization continued to penetrate slowly into the backward areas of the country. Final budget results for 1939 show that financial stability has been maintained, with total revenues at $826,700. Liberian rubber imported into the United States totaled 6,346 long tons in the first eleven months of 1940, of which 55 per cent was latex. Over 30 per cent of the imports arrived in October and November, indicating that the production rate has recently been increased.
1939: Liberia
In 1939, as in earlier years, Liberia continued to progress slowly and without extraordinary incident, while remaining aloof from the current of world events. The country ended the year 1938 with a budget surplus, paid all obligations on its funded debt and made substantial payments on its internal indebtedness. Work on the great Firestone rubber plantation went forward. The Government is steadily building more roads — although there are only about 50 automobiles in Monrovia, the capital — and encourages the construction of new houses and sanitary facilities. The sympathetic interest of the United States in the country's welfare did not abate during the year. The closeness of the diplomatic ties between the two nations was signalized by the conclusion, on June 17, of an agreement giving American airplanes the right to land in Liberia. While establishment of an air service across the South Atlantic was not planned for the immediate future, the agreement does give the United States a strategic position along the Europe-Africa-South American route which may some day prove important. Much less significant was the proposal made by Senator Bilbo of Mississippi, in April, to colonize large numbers of American Negroes in Liberia. The country was originally founded by the United States as a homeland for Negroes, but the idea of re-settling American Negroes in Africa has met with virtually no response in recent years.
1938: Liberia
With a balanced budget despite greatly increased social expenditures, Liberia in 1938 presented a picture of a nation in rapid progress toward more civilized living conditions. With forced native labor wiped out, the Government has now appropriated funds for beginning an ambitious road-building program to open up large areas in the interior which have hitherto been inaccessible. American influence, always predominant in the republic, was maintained by signature of a new treaty of friendship, commerce and navigation at Monrovia on August 9, and by the visit of an American 10,000-ton cruiser from October 29 to November 3, when the site for a new United States legation was dedicated. At this ceremony Henry S. Villard, United States foreign service officer, served as the State Department's special representative. This extraordinary display of cordiality was due not so much to the celebration of the seventy-fifth anniversary of treaty relations between the United States and Liberia as to the Department of State's concern lest Liberia be occupied by Germany as part of a new African colonial settlement. The Negro republic is an unofficial American protectorate; the American Negro press closely follows its progress; and the 1,000,000-acre Firestone Rubber Plantation, the only source of rubber controlled by Americans, is just coming into production. The United States would therefore be opposed to any European designs on the country.