The Volta Scheme
By any standard the opportunity for the profitable large- scale production of aluminium in the Gold Coast is too good to be missed. When every allowance has been made for the errors committed and misfortunes suffered in major British investment projects in the recent past, in Tanganyika, Persia and else- where, there must surely be enough genuine enterprise left to prompt at the very least a full-scale investigation of the possi- bility of extracting aluminium from Gold Coast ores with the aid of Gold Coast hydro-electric power. The combination of these two eSsential elements with the enthusiasm of the Gold Coast Government for new industrial and public utility development, the willingness of the British Government to put capital into the power-producing side of the scheme at Ajena, the readiness of the British Aluminium Company and Alu- minium Limited of Canada to finance a smelter at Kpong, the practical certainty of a continued rising world demand for aluminium and the need to produce more of it within the sterling area—all these things would make undue hesitation look foolish from a purely commercial point of view. The recom- mendation in the White Paper published on Tuesday that a preparatory commission should be set up to examine in detail the problems which will be met on the spot thus makes good sense whichever way it is looked at. It is not unreasonable to expect that difficulties will be uncovered. Climate and living conditions on the Gold Coast are against massive industrial development, the confidence of the new Gold Coast Govern- ment that a suitable labour supply will be available needs to be investigated, and the British Government and the aluminium companies need to be assured that the fruits of their efforts will not be destroyed by a political upset or by blind nationalism of the kind that brought the Abadan oil refinery to a standstill. But the difficulties will have to be formidable indeed to offset the enormous technical advantages of the new scheme.
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