Page:EB1922 - Volume 31.djvu/798

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LEVY, A. M.—LIBERIA

Port Sunlight, became models of their kind. Schools, clubs, libraries, rest-rooms, a hospital and many other institutions for the benefit of the workpeople were included, and a system of co- partnership was inaugurated in 1909 with successful results. The brothers also established works at Mannheim in Germany, as well as businesses in France; Switzerland; Sydney, N.S.W.; Boston, Mass.; Toronto; Japan, and elsewhere. In the Belgian Congo they acquired vast forests for their supply of palm-oil, and in 1911 they established there the settlement of Leverville. In 1900 Mr. Lever unsuccessfully contested the Wirral division of Cheshire as a Liberal, and in 1906 was elected, retaining his seat till 1910. In 1911 he was made a baronet, and in 1917 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Leverhulme. In 1912 he bought Stafford House, the London home of the Dukes of Sutherland, and presented it to the nation as a home for the London museum, and in 1918 he bought the island of Lewis in the Hebrides, Scotland, as a centre for a reorganized fishing industry.

See Mrs. Stuart Menzies, Modern Men of Mark (1920) ; H. M. Macrosty, The Trust Movement in British Industry (1907).

LEVY, AUGUSTS MICHEL (1844-1911), French geologist (see 16.519), died Sept. 21 1911.

LEWIS, SIR GEORGE HENRY, 1ST BART. (1833-1911), English solicitor, was born at Ely Place, Holborn, April 21 1833. Educated at University College, London, he was articled in 1856, and became head of the firm of Lewis & Lewis. He was engaged in a very large number of notable public cases, including the Bravo poisoning case, the Hatton Garden diamond robbery, and the Overend-Gurney and other banking prosecutions. Later (1887) he was solicitor for Mr. Parnell and the Irish party in the Parnell Commission. Sir George Lewis, who was made a baronet in 1893, was for many years the most prominent man in his profession, and had a unique practice, especially in advising on difficult family affairs; he was the trusted con- fidential adviser of many important people. He died in London Dec. 7 1911, being succeeded in the baronetcy by his son.

LEWIS, ISAAC NEWTON (1858- ), American soldier and inventor, was born at New Salem, Pa., Oct. 12 1858. On graduating from the U.S. Military Academy in 1884 he was commissioned second lieutenant of artillery, and seven years later was made first lieutenant. From 1894 to 1898 he was a member of the board on the regulation of coast artillery fire in New York harbour. For the next four years he was recorder of the board of ordnance and fortification in Washington. He was promoted captain in 1900, and the same year made a study of ordnance in Europe. His report led to the rearmament of the U.S. field artillery. From 1904 to 1911 he was instructor and director of the coast artillery school at Fort Monroe, being promoted major in 1907 and lieutenant-colonel in 1911. In 1913 he was made colonel and retired from active service. The same year a machine-gun of his invention (the Lewis gun) was accepted by the British Government after it had been rejected in America. During the World War it was extensively used by the different Allied armies, by the American navy, and in American and Allied airplanes. Colonel Lewis refused to accept any of the royalties, amounting to about $1,000,000, on his guns made for the American Government after the United States entered the World War. His other numerous inventions included a time-interval clock-and-bell system of signals, a replotting and relocating system for coast batteries, an auto- matic sight, quick-reading mechanical verniers used in coast defences, and a speed indicator for locomotives.

LEWKOWITSCH, JULIUS (1857-1913), British chemist, was born at Ostrovo in Prussian Silesia in 1857. He graduated as doctor of philosophy at Breslau, afterwards working in the Berlin agricultural high school and at Heidelberg University. About 1888 he came to England and became a naturalized British subject. He devoted much time to stereo-chemistry and to developing the industrial technology of fats and oils, becoming the first living authority in that branch of chemistry. He died at Chamonix Sept. 18 1913.

LIBERIA (see 16.539). From 1912 this negro republic on the Guinea Coast of Africa was under the virtual protection of the United States, an American officer being receiver-general and financial adviser to the Government. Pop., 1920 estimates, 1,500,000 to 2,100,000. Of the inhabitants about 12,000 are American negroes or their descendants and some 50,000 negroes in the coast region are " assimilated," that is they have adopted the religion (Christianity), standards and language (English) of the American negroes, whose authority extends, at least nominally, over the whole country. Europeans number under 200. Monrovia, the capital and chief seaport, had (1920) about 6,000 inhabitants. It has two wireless stations and direct cable connexion with Europe and New York.

The inability of the Liberian Government to control the tribes in the interior led to many boundary disputes with France, whose Guinea and Ivory Coast colonies adjoin Liberia on the N. and E. By an agreement concluded in 1910 France obtained some 2,000 sq. m. which Liberia claimed but had not administered. This reduced the area of the republic to about 40,000 sq. miles. The new frontier was delimited by a commission on which Liberia was represented by two Dutch officers. By an Anglo-Liberian Convention dated Jan. 21 1911 an exchange of territory advantageous to both parties was effected with the British protectorate of Sierra Leone, which acquired the district of Kanre Lahun and ceded the Morro Forest district.

At that time 1910-12 the condition of Liberia was far from satisfactory. It was burdened with debt, it had granted concessions to various companies (British, German and others) without being able to control the regions in which the concessionaires were to work; after over 60 years' existence the authority of the Government rarely extended more than 20 m. from the coast. The remnants of Samory's army, and other malcontents with French rule, took refuge in the Liberian forests and raided across the frontier. This formed a constant source of exasperation to the French (and in minor degree to the British) and, not unnaturally, the French saw in the annexation of the hinterland the only method of securing peace in their own possessions. There were no railways and no roads in the country, whose great natural resources in coffee, oil palms, rubber, timber, etc., were almost totally neglected. Thus in 1911 the total value of all exports was but 230,000.

It appeared as if the experiment of " running " the country by American negroes on the lines of the Constitution of the United States would collapse, but the intervention of the American Government led to a reorganization which gave the Liberians a new start. In 1911 the Liberian Legislature passed an Act approving the raising of a loan through the good offices of the United States to refund or extinguish all debts of the republic, domestic and foreign. Before the loan was issued all out- standing claims against Liberia had to be fixed and some delay ensued owing to the discrepancy between the German claims and the views of the Liberian Government. The German claims were energetically pressed, and in 1911 the gunboat "Panther" was anchored for a month off Monrovia, with guns trained on the executive mansion. All difficulties were, however, overcome by June 191 2, when an international loan of $1,700,000 (340,000) was raised, the bonds being payable in New York, both as to principal and interest, in gold coin of the United States; the bonds to be issued for a period of not fewer than 40 years, and for this period the control of the finances of Liberia passed in effect into the hands of the United States. The customs duties, the rubber tax, etc., were pledged as security for the loan, which is administered by an American receiver-general assisted by a British, a French and (originally) a German receiver, the Amer- ican receiver-general acting as financial adviser to the Govern- ment. In accord with another provision for the security of the revenue a frontier police force was organized by officers of the U.S. army. This force enabled the Government to obtain con- trol of the Kru country in the south, and of N. Liberia. Under the new financial control expenditure was kept within the limits of the revenue, and internal peace was secured.

The new system had not had time to show any marked results when the World War began. Its effect was greatly to restrict trade which up to that time was chiefly with Germany, Great