The native population amounts to 3,500,000, and they are divided into numerous tribes, embracing many degrees of _kultur_ from raw cannibals to comparatively civilised states.
The administration is in the hands of an Imperial Governor, surrounded by a swarm of officials and a local council of unofficial members, who are, as a rule, the representatives of merchant houses.
Immediately on acquiring Togoland, the Germans commenced sending trading expeditions into the interior, and extending their "sphere of influence" inland. A central trading station (Bismarcksburg) was established, and a trade centre was created for each tribe. Two hundred and twenty miles of railway have been built in three lines, all starting from Lome--one 80 miles in length to Palime and another 120 miles to Atakpanie.
Lack of proper transport facilities has retarded the development of the Colony, as owing to the lack of transport animals nearly the whole of the carrying of produce is done by natives.
The prosperity of the Colony is entirely due to the exploitation of the natives; in fact the economic life of the country depends upon the natives' industry. Nearly the whole of the agriculture is in the hands of natives, some of whom have plantations of their own. Only 250,000 acres are in the hands of Europeans, and less than a quarter of these are cultivated.
The hardships inflicted on the native, however, are forgotten by the German trader in his excessive eagerness to get as much as he can out of him; and this has resulted in some rubber-collecting districts in depopulation and a consequent falling off in the production.
The principal exports of Togoland are india-rubber, palm-oil and kernels, cotton and cocoa. Tobacco is also being tried with favourable results.
Rubber forms nearly one-half of the total exports, and is nearly all wild rubber collected by natives from the forest vines--an expensive form of production, as the vines are destroyed in the process.
Palm-oil and palm kernels (largely used in the manufacture of nut butter or margarine) forms another important item. The nuts are collected mainly from the palms originally introduced by the Portuguese and now found in forests for many miles from the coast.