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1962. In the 1950's the tribal chiefs received- commissions varying
from 10 cents a month during the rainy season, to 15 cents
a month during the dry season, for each man sent to the Firestone
plantations. To provide additional incentives, the Firestone
management then gave these chiefs a bonus each month of two cartons
of cigarettes and two bottles of whiskey (56). In 1956, the
number of workers recruited through this system amounted to
15,100 whereas Firestone's total labour force was more than
20*000 workers and employees. In 1961, more than 16,000 tappers
were reported to have been thus forcibly recruited. They represented
more than 50 percent of the total number of rubber tappers
(57). Firestone Plantations Company was not the only company that
resorted to these dubious recruiting methods. Other foreign Owned
rubber plantations, e.g. B.F. Goodrich, as well as Liberian rubber
growers, resorted to the same practices. Apparently, nobody
seemed to realise that when intermediaries are paid for the recruitment
of forced labour, there is only a thin line separating
this practice from slave trading (58).
In August 1961 the Government of Portugal filed a complaint with
the International Labour Organisation (I.L.0.) concerning the
observance by the Liberian Government of the Forced Labour Convention
of 1950. Before the commission.which had been appointed
by the I.L.0. to investigate this complaint published its findings
in 1963, the Liberian Legislature hastily enacted a law
regulating the recruitment of labour in Liberia (I962) thereby
outlawing the recruiting system described above.
The Interests of the Liberian Rubber Producers
Firestone's employment policy cannot be explained without any
reference to a group of independent Liberian rubber farmers who
used the same recruitment system to secure workers to tap their
rubber trees. This group mainly involved and still involves the
so-called "absentee farmers". These are Liberians, usually of
Americo-Liberian origin, whose main occupation was in Monrovia
or in one of the other coastal settler cities. They would pay
their workers even less, generally, than Firestone and sometimes
would not even pay them regularly.
The start of commercial rubber growing by Liberian farmers dates
back to the early 193O's when several Americo-Liberians followed
the.example set by Firestone. As early as 1928 the latter had
started to distribute more than 30,000 rubber tree stumps and
100,000 rubber seeds free of charge to Liberian farmers (59). In
this period the first Liberians thus started to develop rubber
plantations. Leading personalities of the Americo-Liberian community
included among these pioneers were former Presidents
Charles King and Edwin Barclay, former Secretary of the Treasury,
James F. Cooper, former Vice-President (1944 - 1951), Clarence L.
Simpson, former Secretary of the Treasury (194-0's), William E.
Dennis, and Richard S.S. Bright. Also included was Mrs. Maude A.
Morris, the mother of Harry L. Morris, one of Liberia's largest
plantation owners in the 196O's and 1970's. In 1946 there were