882.01/12: Telegram
The Chargé in Liberia (Reber) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 15—8:10 a.m.]
175. A law has been approved by the Liberian Senate, and referred to the House, to authorize the President’s engagement of two Americans or Europeans of “certified experience in the administration of tropical territories” who shall serve as hinterland commissioners to supervise and to direct the hinterland administration. Authority is given the President to prescribe their jurisdictional limits. They are to submit within six months a report with recommendations for reorganization of the hinterland administration.
The President is understood to propose dividing the interior into two districts, retaining for the coast the present system of county superintendents.
This law apparently does not satisfactorily carry out the International Commission’s recommendations or provide an adequate system of administration for the hinterland. Merely the extent of the area to be governed will make it impossible for two men to supervise its control effectively; they will be obliged to rely upon Liberian subordinates of character similar to the former district commissioners and they will be held responsible for their subordinates’ maladministration.
This act, it would seem and some Liberian officials so admit it, is only a subterfuge on the Government’s part to enable it to point to the progress made, and this would indicate its desire to effect merely partial and unsatisfactory reforms. Already I have intimated that measures such as this can be regarded abroad only most unfavorably.
According to reliable information, the present Liberian administration wishes to produce other measures of this type before its program is submitted to the United States Government early next week, and a law has also been passed by the Senate to open up certain interior regions to trade.