The conditions of production in the Gold Coast present a number of features entirely novel. We hear from time to time of concessions being granted in tropical regions to this or that company of enterprising European capitalists, who employ a few Europeans and send them to the area to manage the industry. The inhabitants of the area become the manual wage earners of the company, and too often in the lust for profits, or as an offering to the god of commercial efficiency, the once easy and free life of the native is lost for ever and a form of wage-slavery takes its place with doubtful effects on the life and health of the workers. In defence it is pointed out that yet another portion of the earth has been made productive, which, without the initiative of the European capitalist, must have lain fallow. But in the Gold Coast the "indolent" native has created a new industry entirely native owned, and in thirty years the Gold Coast has outstripped all the areas of the world in quantity of produce. Forty years ago the natives had never seen a cacao tree, now at least fifty million trees flourish in the colony. This could not have happened without the strenuous efforts of the Department of Agriculture. The Gold Coast now stands head and shoulders above any other producing area for quantity. The problem of the future lies in the improvement of quality, and difficult though this problem be, we cannot doubt, given a fair chance, that the far-sighted and energetic Agricultural Department will solve it. Indeed, it must in justice be pointed out that already a very marked improvement has been made, and now fifty to one hundred times as much good fermented cacao is produced as there was ten years ago.[5] However, if a high standard is to be maintained, the work of the Department of Agriculture must be supplemented by the willingness of the cacao buyers to pay a higher price for the better qualities. [5] "Towards this latter result Messrs. Cadbury Bros., Ltd., rendered great assistance. This firm sent representatives into the country, who proved to the natives that they were willing to pay an enhanced price for cocoa prepared in a manner suitable for their requirements. A fair amount of cocoa was purchased by them, and demonstrations were made in some places with regard to the proper mode of fermentation." (The Agricultural and Forest Products of British West Africa. _Imperial Institute Handbook_, by G.C. Dudgeon). [Illustration: CARRIERS CONVEYING BAGS OF CACAO TO SURF BOATS, ACCRA. Reproduced by permission of the Editor of "West Africa."]