Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.
To prepare the ground, most loyal PDG men turned to trade union work within the framework of the West African federation in the French Confédération Générale du Travail. The CGT link gave access to funds, travel, training, political experience and metropolitan allies against the local administration. In French law, also, trade unionists had special legal protection. The number of salaried workers in Guinea, though negligible in 1946, had increased rapidly by 1953 1.
By then Guinea surpassed Dahomey as the third richest French West African territory.
Exports which were 17,000 tons in 1944 were 155,000 tons in 1952 and 841,000 tons in 1953 2. Iron mines started producing. In 1952 construction of bauxite installations on the islands of Loos off the coast of Conakry was finished, and production of washed and dried bauxite rose from 325,000 to 500,000 between 1953 and 1955. In the same period crude iron exports from the peninsula of Kaloum off Conakry rose from 400,000 tons to 650,000 tons 3.
More rich iron deposits were soon discovered on the Liberian border. Advance surveys indicated mineral deposits and water power potential in all regions except the Fouta-Djallon.
Studies begun in 1947 of hydro-electric installations at Konkouré, by 1953 established that a 5 million kilowatt annual capacity would probably allow Guinea to produce aluminium more cheaply than the projected Volta River scheme in Ghana 4.
Between 1952 and 1954 officials authorized the installation of 17 secondary industries, as compared with 21 in Ivory Coast. 5 The diamond fever of neighbouring Sierra Leone spread to the forest region of Guinea. The official figures, showing a rise from 50,000 carats in 1948 to 300,000 carats in 1955, did not take into account extensive smuggling 6. The number of resident Europeans, sometimes a pointer to economic activity, rose from 4,035 in 1946, to 8,852 in 1955 7. The Korean War brought a general rise in world market prices. As Governor Parisot indicated in his address to the territorial assembly, 1953 was a turning point; agricultural production rose and the exploitation of minerals was under way 8.
Once Guinea's economic future was assured in minerals, the labour movement, though small, assumed new importance.
1. See Appendix X.
2. See Appendix XI.
3. Annuaire Statistique, 1956, op. cit., pp. 236-7.
4. Moussa, Pierre. Les Chances économiques de la communauté franco-africaine, Armand Colin Paris 1957, pp. 236-8.
5. Annuaire Statistique, 1956, op. cit., p. 230.
6. Ibid. pp. 236-7.
7. Annuaire Statistique, 1950, tome i, op. cit., p. 64 and ibid., 1956, tome i, p. 55.
8. Guinée Française. Assemblée Territoriale, session budgétaire 15 novembre au 14 décembre 1954. Conakry, 1955, p. 5.
