Trouble in the Gold Coast
No doubt any Communist sympathisers there are in the Gold Coast have exploited as far as they can the disturbances which have recently taken place in Accra and other large towns, but the roots of the trouble lie much deeper than mere " Communist agitation." West Africa's main trouble is inflation, and it was as a disciplined protest against the high cost of living that the recent disturbances started. Since the war ended wages in the Gold Coast have risen considerably, and there has been no comparable increase in the volume of goods available for purchase. Moreover, large numbers of men who served in the Army during the war came back to their country disinclined to settle down again to the hard life of remote peasantry from which the emergency had called them. They sought work in the towns, and the market for the semi-skilled labour, such as they had to offer, became rapidly overcrowded. All this shows that the Gold Coast's problems follow a familiar post-war pattern, and it is hardly to be wondered that its Government, though gene- rally admitted to be the best on the West African coast, has been no more successful than most others in finding means to overcome them. The particular danger of the past fortnight seems now to have subsided. Accra is quiet'; the troops standing by at Gibraltar have not been called upon ; the responlible heads of the African com- munity have used their influence to check further outbursts, and there is to be an official inquiry into the rioting. But we have had a reminder that West Africa is unsettled, and that its unsettlement is part of the still confused groping for something new which is to be found among colonial peoples everywhere.
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