“What is required in the Cameroons is a more liberal policy on the part of the German Government towards the plantations, both as regards the terms for acquiring land, and on the part of the district officials to obtain better facilities for getting labour, in order to warrant and make possible a large and profitable extension of the cocoa-planting area. This will mean a material improvement in the prosperity of the colony, for it is evident that what the Gold Coast has achieved by means of an intelligent population, and under suitable climatic conditions, can and will never be done in Cameroons with such material as the Bakwiris, Dualas, etc.” Whilst colonial Germans take this view, the native certainly will never emulate the Gold Coast tribes, for the African has a habit of acting up, or down, to European expectations. The Editor of _Tropical Life_ truly remarked that whilst these views are held in Berlin, “Germany would never do any good with the Bakwiris and Dualas; neither did she with the Herreros, and so ‘punished’ them because they, poor wretches, could not understand the German method of ruling Africa as do the German Michels at home.” There is some reason to believe that the cultivation of the cocoa bean began in Cameroons and Victoria some years earlier than that on the Gold Coast, and it is even claimed by some that the phenomenally successful industry of the British colony was commenced with a seed pod obtained from Ambas Bay. [Sidenote: A ROMANCE IN COCOA] There is probably no single feature in colonial enterprise which can compare with the cocoa romance of the British colony of the Gold Coast. The honour of having introduced the industry into that colony is eagerly debated. Everyone agrees that it belongs to either the Basel Mission through their introduction of West Indian Christians, or to a certain native carpenter returning from Ambas Bay, or Victoria. Mr. Tudhope, the Director of Agriculture, is inclined to give credit to the native, but it must be admitted that the Basel Mission authorities possess the most circumstantial evidence in support of their claim. One of their oldest missionaries at Christiansborg states that about the year 1885 he saw the original cocoa tree at Odumase; another, that he saw this tree in full bearing in 1895. It is instructive to recall that the first export, amounting to 80 lbs. weight, was in the year 1891—that is six years after the original tree was seen at Odumase. The missionaries, however, readily admit that soon after their agents introduced cocoa at Odumase, a native arrived from, the Cameroon colony and planted beans at Mampong. From these two centres, fifteen miles apart, the industry has established itself in every district of the colony and penetrated ten days’ march beyond Kumasi.