The Progress of the Protectorate
In the first twenty-eight years of their occupation the Germans had established courts of justice at Buea, Duala, Kribi, and Lomie, custom houses at Duala and Buea, thirty-eight post offices throughout the territory, and had maintained order among the natives by means of twelve companies of Imperial troops. They had constructed and opened 108 kilometres of the 1-m. gauge line of 160 kilometres from Duala to the Manenguæ Mountains, and had opened the central line from Duala to Widimange, on the Nyong River—a distance of 293 kilometres of 1-m. gauge line—as far as Edea, ninety kilometres from Duala. The imports had increased from 9,296,796 marks in 1898 to 29,317,514 marks in 1911, and their exports in the same period had risen from 4,601,620 to 21,250,883 marks, a total increase in the trade of the colony of nearly thirty-seven million marks. The want of means of communication was found a hindrance in the economic development of the territory, which was admittedly possessed of “unlimited liabilities.” Vast tracts in the interior were proved to be suited for cotton cultivation; oil palms, cocoa, and rubber were ascertained to be of “incalculable wealth,” and the Cameroons were described by Dr. Grotewold as among the most productive countries in the world.
But the administration, or the critics of the administration of the Protectorate, had discovered that the lack of proper means of communication was not the only factor that retarded the progress of this richly endowed country. The unrest amongst the natives had revealed on the part of the authorities the lack of that sympathetic understanding of their native subjects which makes for successful colonisation. Their treatment of the natives was culpably injudicious, and their mistakes in dealing with them were so frequent and serious that the relations between the Government and the native population were constantly strained, and the services of the Imperial troops were in great demand.