Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:42:02.524Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Monopolists and Speculators: British Investment in West African Rubber, 1905–1914

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

J. Forbes Munro
J. Forbes Munro
Affiliation:
University of Glasgow
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

During the classical period of colonialism, from the 1890s to the 1940s, much private Western investment in Africa was conducted through investment waves – short-lived booms related to demands for, and prices of, particular raw materials. One such burst of foreign financial interest occurred between 1905 and 1914 when, against the background of a climacteric in tropical rubber, 55 companies with a total nominal capital of £5 9 million were floated in Britain to undertake rubber production in Africa. The article, seeking to understand why British capital, largely responsible for the dramatic growth of rubber planting in Asia, made such little lasting impact in Africa, focuses upon the 26 companies set up for West African operations. It notes their high failure rate, which was related to the predominance of interest in wild rather than planted rubber.

Two principal reasons are adduced for the lack of commercial success of the 18 companies exploiting wild rubber concessions. The first, political and commercial opposition aroused by the exercise of monopoly rights over a natural forest product, is illustrated by the experience of three relatively large concerns in Liberia and the Ivory Coast. The second, an inadequate financial and managerial structure, is most obvious among companies with assets in the Gold Coast and Southern Nigeria, mainly fraudulent or near-fraudulent concerns floated to feed speculation in rubber shares during 1909–10. Their promotion involved the shadier fringes of the Edwardian capital market and was connected to the Gold Coast mining shares boom of 1900–1. These businesses made almost no contribution to the West African rubber trade.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 1981 , pp. 263 - 278
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See McHale, T. R., ‘Changing technology and shifts in the supply and demand for rubber: an analytic history’, Malayan Economic Review, ix (1964), 24–8.Google Scholar A contemporary discussion is Wright, H., ‘Rubber cultivation (with special reference to parts of the British Empire)’, J. Soc. Arts lv (1906–1907), 614–43.Google Scholar

2 Drabble, J. H., Rubber in Malaya, 1876–1922: The Genesis of the Industry (Kuala Lumpur, 1973), 109.Google Scholar

3 General studies include Christy, C., The African Rubber Industry and Funtumia Elastica (London, 1911)Google Scholar, and Whitford, H.N. and Anthony, A., Rubber Production in Africa (Washington, 1926).Google Scholar

4 Whitford, and Anthony, , Rubber Production, 8Google Scholar, and Drabble, , Rubber in Malaya, 220.Google Scholar

5 Arhin, K., ‘The Ashanti rubber trade with the Gold Coast in the Eighteen Nineties’, Africa, xlii (1972)Google Scholar; Dumett, R., ‘The rubber trade of the Gold Coast and Asante in the nineteenth century‘, J. Afr. Hist. xii (1971)Google Scholar; Cocquery-Vidrovitch, C., he Congo au Temps des Grandes Compagnies Concessionaires, 1898–1930 (Paris, 1972)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harms, R., ‘The end of red rubber: an assessment’, J. Afr. Hist, xvi (1973).Google Scholar

6 Caldwell, J. A. M., ‘Indonesian expo.-t and production from the decline of the culture system to 3the First World War’, in Cowan, C. D. (ed.), The Economic Development of South-East Asia (1964), 88Google Scholar; Stillson, R. T., ‘The financing of Malayan rubber, 1905–1923’, Econ. Hist. Rev. xxiv (1971), 594.Google Scholar

7 Paish, G., ‘The export of capital’, The Statist, 14 02 1914.Google Scholar

8 autobiography, Johnston's, The Story of My Life (Indianapolis, 1923)Google Scholar, touches upon his initial involvement with Powney and Liberia between 1904 and 1906 (pp. 371–5) but is silent about the later embarrassing failure of Powney's projects, while Oliver's, RolandSir Harry Johnston and the Scramble for Africa (London, 1952), 342–5Google Scholar, carries the story only a little further forward. Oliver attributes the Rubber Corporation's difficulties solely to the competition from Malayan plantation rubber.

9 Johnston, Sir Harry, Liberia, vol. i (London, 1906), 416–25.Google Scholar

10 Public Record Office, London: Wallis to Grey, 6 May 1907, F.O. 367/65/1716, and Wallis to Grey, 7 February 1908, F.O. 367/113/7297.

11 PRO: Memorandum by Sir Harry Johnston on the affairs of Liberia, 25 July 1909, F.O. 367/163/28727.

12 PRO: Wallis to Grey, 12 March 1907, F.O. 367/65/10216.

13 PRO: Lt-Cmdr MacLean to Governor Probyn, 14 November 1907, enclosure in Colonial Office to Foreign Office, 12 December 1907, F.O. 367/160/3874.

14 The India-Rubber Journal, xxxvi (1908), 369.Google Scholar

15 PRO: Wallis to Grey, 13 February 1908, F.O. 367/113/7301.

16 The Times, 8 September 1910.

17 PRO: Braham, Manager of Liberian Rubber Corporation, to Secretary of State, Foreign Office, 23 April 1911, F.O. 367/233/13560.

18 PRO: Minute of September 1911, on F.O. 367/226/36909.

19 ‘Le Mythe Parisien de la Mise en Valeur des Colonies Africaines à l'Aube du XXe Siècle: la Commission des Concessions Coloniales, 1898–1912’, J. Afr. Hist, xx (1979).Google Scholar

20 PRO: Head and Hill, solicitors, to Foreign Office, 29 May 1912, F.O. 367/273/2368.

21 PRO: Board of Trade, Dissolved Companies File, B.T. 31/195696/111059.

22 Vine and General controlled the Madagascar Rubber Company, the Amatonga Rubber Corporation (Natal) and Pongola Rubber Estates (Natal), and appears to have had a substantial stake in the Nyassa Rubber Company (Mozambique).

23 ‘Imperial Business in Africa. Part II: Interpretations’, J. Afr. Hist, xvii (1976), 264–90.Google Scholar

24 The India-Rubber Journal, xxxiv (1907), 815Google Scholar; see also The Times Trade Supplement: Rubber Section, December 1916, p. 19.

25 The Economist, 9 April 1910, p. 771.

26 Belfield, H. C., ‘ Report on the Legislation Governing the Alienation of Native Lands in Gold Coast Colony and Ashante’, Cmd 6278 (1912)Google Scholar; PRO, Memorandum on conditions on which grants of land bearing rubber, and other tropical produce, are made in various colonies, CO. 533/82/39363.

27 Ashmead, E., ‘Twenty-five years of mining’, The Mining Journal, lxxxiv (1908), 484.Google Scholar

28 Ilegbune, C. V., ‘Concessions Scramble and Land Alienation in British Southern Ghana, 1885–1916’, Afr. Stud. Rev. xxix (1976)Google Scholar; Omosini, O., ‘The Gold Coast Land Question, 1894–1900’, Int. J. Afr. Hist. Stud, v (1972)Google Scholar; Howard, R., Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Ghana (1978)Google Scholar, ch. 2.

29 PRO: Boyle to Harcourt, 28 June 1910, CO. 520/104/2330, and Boyle to Secretary of State, 13 June 1911, CO. 520/104/19532.

30 Issues, xxxix (1910), 356–7.Google Scholar

31 PRO: B.T. 31/17788/89165; B.T. 31/19089/111089; B.T. 31/19411/109019; B.T. 31/19647/111704. Particularly revealing of the complicated affairs of this group are the report on the meeting of creditors of Avreboo Rubber Estates (The India-Rubber Journal, xlvi (1913), 91)Google Scholar, the public enquiry into the bankruptcy of the Gold Coast Rubber & Mahogany Estates (The India-Rubber Journal, xlviii (1914), 235)Google Scholar, the meeting of creditors of the Ankobra Rubber Estates (The Times, 12 January 1912), and the public enquiry into Ankobra Rubber Estates (The India-Rubber Journal, xlvi (1913), 1078).Google Scholar

32 Report of public enquiry into Essequibo Rubber and Tobacco Estates (The India-Rubber Journal, xlv (1913), 486)Google Scholar, and Official Receiver's summary of accounts and observations for Axim and Tarkwa Goldfields Ltd (The India-Rubber Journal, xlv (1913), 1111).Google Scholar

33 PRO: Report by C.I.D., New Scotland Yard, 8 March 1911, CO. 96/513/4947.

34 Ashmead, , ‘Twenty-five years of mining’, The Mining Journal, lxxxv (1909), 647.Google Scholar

35 Hewett versus Peach, High Court of Justice (Chancery Division), The Times, 16 July 1913.

36 PRO: Minute by Gray on Bryant to Crew, 3 November 1910, CO. 96/500/36038.

37 PRO: W. A. Boyd to Colonial Secretary, Accra, enclosure in Bryant to Harcourt, 8 August 1912, CO. 96/520/26908, relates the tribulations of the ‘reform party' within the Boinsu Rubber Company. For the shareholders’ revolt in the Keraia Rubber Estates see The Economist, i July 1911, p. 31, and The Times, 14 November 1911; for the Aguna Company's unsuccessful attempt to raise working capital, see Issues, xlv (1913), 229.Google Scholar

38 For the use of the rubber companies in the campaign see The Times, 26 June 1910 p. 6, 5 July 1910 p. 6, 23 July 1910 p. 5, 30 March 1911 p. 13, 31 May 1911 p. 21, and 20 July 1912; also Gold Coast correspondence (PRO: CO. 96) 449/32507, 498/28754, 500/33682, 500/26038, 500/37262, 502/17491, and 502/14278.

39 Statutory meeting of Christineville Rubber Estates, 9 May 1910, The India-Rubber Journal, xxxix (1910), 664Google Scholar; Estates, Hewett versus Christineville Rubber, The India-Rubber Journal, xli (1911), 323Google Scholar; Estates, Blair versus Christineville Rubber, The Times, 3 11 1911, p. 3.Google Scholar

40 The India-Rubber Journal, XXXIV (1907), 525.Google Scholar

41 Tigwell, R., ‘James Deemin and the Organization of West African Trade, 1880–1915’ (unpublished MPhil. thesis, University of Liverpool, 1978), 254–5.Google Scholar

42 Pedler, F., The Lion and the Unicorn in Africa (1974), 245–6Google Scholar; Udo, R. K., ‘Sixty years of plantation agriculture in Southern Nigeria, 1902–1962’, Economic Geography, xli (1965), 356–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 The India-Rubber Journal, xli (1912), 1261Google Scholar; xlvi (1913), 91; xlii (1911), 1012; and xlvi (1913), 780.

44 Hopkins, , ‘Imperial Business: Part II’, 277.Google Scholar

45 For example, Holt to Deemin, 17 December 1908, quoted in Tigwell, , ‘James Deemin’, 254.Google Scholar