We did well to come to the financial relief of Liberia, but we did badly in the details of our method. The total debts were about $1,300,000: we arranged for a loan to her of $1,700,000; this would enable her to pay off all obligations, to have some ready funds left over, and to have a single, friendly creditor. Before securing this loan we insisted upon a receivership. It would have been a simple matter for us to have simply appointed a receiver of customs and leave the administration of affairs in his hands, as we did in Santo Domingo. Had we done so, it is unlikely that any other nation would have found fault; if any nation should have criticised the action, we could with consistency insist that we stand in a peculiar relation to Liberia and that the loan is too small to warrant great expense in the handling of the business connected with it. What we really did was to recognize fictitious interests of other nations in the matter; we arranged for an international receivership; instead of one American receiver we proposed four receivers--American, French, English, German. Inasmuch as the impoverished Government has to pay handsome salaries to all four, the plan was anything but economical; the dangers of difficulty and disagreement between the members of this international receivership are considerable. Surely instead of inflicting an expensive and complicated international receivership upon the country, we should have arranged for an economical, simple national receiver. There is no question that Liberia has great natural wealth; her resources are yet almost untouched; she is the only part of the whole West Coast where large returns are certain for small investment. In order to secure her wealth of products, it is absolutely necessary that trails be opened up through the interior. Trails, of course, already exist, but under present conditions they are frequently intentionally neglected; little chiefs do not want too easy contact with the outside world. It is absolutely necessary, if Liberia is to advance, that the good will of the chiefs shall be secured and that all trails shall be kept open. In no other way can the produce of the forests find its way down to the coast. Foot trails, of course, are of limited utility, and as rapidly as they are improved they should become actual roads, presumably to be themselves developed in time into roadbeds for light railroads. It is only by the improvement of means of transportation that the Liberian Government can hope to increase its income, which comes almost entirely from trade.