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the possibilities offered by the concession area in the Eastern
Province/Nimba and Grand Gedeh Counties. That this was caused by
the fact that this sparsely populated area was, and still is, one
of the most inaccessible parts of the country, and one of the
remotest places in which to produce cannot be stated with
absolute certainty owing to lack of records. However, all
production, would have been export-oriented and the nearest port
at that time, the Free Port of Monrovia, was 250 miles away over
a laterite road which was dusty, but still passable during the
dry season. However, it became muddy during the greater part of
the rainy season - thus rendering the production area isolated.
This concession area may have been selected originally by LAC in
anticipation of the construction of roads in this part of the
country (by the Viannini Construction Company), but the
Government decided to postpone these projects during the
financial crisis of the early 1960's. The roads connecting Tchien
with Harper and with Greenville were not completed until the late
1960's (20), but at that time LAC had already been sold to
UNIROYAL, a U.S. rubber company.
The completion of a railway between Yekepa and Buchanan and the
construction of a port at Buchanan in 1963 by LAMCO provided LAC
with an easy outlet to the coast. However, two years later, in
1965, the Italian holders of the concession sold their interest.
At that time about 18,000 acres had been planted with rubber
(since 1960, and therefore still immature; and a start had been
made, in 1964, on the growing of tobacco (21).
The reasons for this sale of a plantation which seemingly had
such a bright future have neither been recorded nor revealedj
but labour problems may have played a role in the final decision.
In 1962 the Liberian Government had abolished the then used
methods of recruiting labour for work on the plantations. This
occurred after Portugal had filed a complaint with the
International Labour Organization concerning the observance by
the Government of Liberia of the Forced Labour Convention of
1930. LAC, which had originally planned to plant each year during
the 1965 - 1975 period 7,000 acres with rubber, would thus have
needed tens of thousands labourers (tappers) in the 197O's.
In the very early 1960's, because of the shortage of labour,
management had already resorted to mechanical planting methods
in the planting of rubber trees instead of the traditional labour
intensive methods. Though this may explain why the rubber
plantation never reached the size originally conceived it fails
to provide a complete and satisfactory answer as to why LAC was
sold (22), In addition to rubber and tobacco the company had
started some hog raising, cattle ranching, and the growing of
rice, corn, and vegetables (one of Liberia's most successful
rice-varieties, LAC-23, finds its origin here). The new owners,
the U.S. rubber company UNIROYAL, made it known in 1968 that
tobacco had ceased to be a viable project, and one year later
food crop operations were curtailed to research level (23).