The_Open_Door_deel1

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He lost the elections during which Johnson was re-elected
President of Liberia (82). In 1883 Johnson had been nominated
Presidential candidate by both the Republican Party and the True
Whig Party. After his election he declared himself a supporter
of the True Whig Party. His re-election in 1885 shows that the
latter party represented a majority, although opposing views
existed within this party.
In 1885 President Johnson, allowed by the Liberian Legislature to
seek a foreign loan, but afraid of the threat which such a
foreign loan might become to the Republic's independence,
declared himself against such a loan (83).
Gradually, however, the balance of opinion shifted to the opening
up of the country with foreign participation. This explains why
the late 1880's saw the granting of some concessions to
foreigners. In 1887 an Englishman was granted a concession to
collect and prepare caoutchouc. In 1889 three other Englishmen
were also granted concessions to collect and prepare wild rubber.
In 1894, during the Administration of President Cheeseman (1892 -
1896), another Englishman was given exclusive rights by the
Liberian Government with respect to the entire rubber sector of
the country (84).
All these concessions were characterized by the fact that they
were trading activities limited to the collection of wild rubber
in coastal areas. Only in the late 1890's foreign traders
expanded their activities into the interior of the country. In
1898 the Liberian Rubber Syndicate, an English company which had
bought the 1894 concession, started the collecting of rubber in
the area around what is nowadays Kakata. In 1904 the Monrovian
Rubber Company - which had succeeded the Liberian Rubber
Syndicate - started the building of a series of permanent buying
stations, the first rubber buying station being located on the
St. Paul River near Boporo. Subsequently built stations in the
interior were at Mount Barclay, Kakatown, Sikombe, Putu, and
Woffeke (Maryland County) (85).
The Liberian Rubber Corporation, an English company which
finally held the concession after it had changed hands several
times, controlled and managed Liberia's rubber sector in the
first decade of the twentieth century. Political power had passed
into the hands of Arthur Barclay, a colonist from the West
Indies. (He was born in Barbados and had come to Liberia in 1865,
The authorization- of the Liberian Rubber Corporation was now
needed for any private person or company to trade in rubber in
Liberia. The Liberian Government had accepted this situation as
half of the company's royalties (eightpence per pound of rubber
traded) went to the Liberian Treasury and were used to pay
Liberia's public debt, the other half going to the English
owners of the company (86).
The changing structure of the political power in Liberia led to
more concessions being granted to foreigners. In 1889 a
concession had also been granted to an American to construct a
railway system. Though the attempt failed and though the
Liberian Government made a second attempt in 1894, by