From
1945 to 1955, the S.L.S.T. struggled against mounting disorder. They
hired more guards, but the guards ran away and went digging. They
called on the government for more police, and the policemen, as soon as
they reached the fields, grabbed picks and shovels and went digging.
Now and then a malefactor was caught, in spite of all his advantages,
but the new government was reluctant to flout public opinion by being
harsh, and he usually got off with a light sentence. By the time the
company called a halt, it was estimated that at least two million
pounds' worth of diamonds were being smuggled out of Sierra Leone in
one year—more than the company was exporting on the legal market. Then,
too, the situation was growing acutely dangerous. The gangs had become
strong and self-confident, and resented being disturbed at their work.
Once or twice, when policemen or company personnel attacked them and
tried to drive them off the diggings, they simply showed fight and hit
back, using their knives. Now and then a shot was fired.
Finally,
in 1955, the directors of the S.L.S.T. held a meeting and talked things
over frankly. There was no doubt in the minds of most of them that the
battle was lost. "We had to give in. There was simply no other way to
cope," an official told me after the decision had been made. "And it
wasn't a matter of having handled it particularly badly, either. Other
colonies were up against the same thing—at any rate the Gold Coast was,
and still is. Those people don't want to pay for licenses, and
sometimes they go out digging without. Well, one day lately on the Gold
Coast a white policeman with two native assistants came upon a gang
digging illicitly on the banks of a river. He tried to arrest them and
they drove all three into the river. The white man swam across and
escaped, but the two
