First for Africa

Africa's primitive past and its hopeful future met this week on a rapids-swept island in the teeming jungles of the French Cameroons. There the continent's first aluminum smelting plant--a $46 million complex covering 32 acres--was officially inaugurated by the French. Built by Pechiney and Ugine, France's two aluminum producers, the new Alucam complex shares the island of Edea in the Sanaga River with a new hydroelectric plant that will supply power for its battery of 208 electrolytic vats. Alucam's yearly capacity, scheduled to reach a peak 50,000 tons by 1959, will be bigger than all but two European plants, eventually account for a quarter of France's aluminum production.

Alucam started operating with imported raw materials, but the low cost of power makes the plant a paying proposition already. Some of the materials needed, e.g., bauxite, have already been discovered in the Cameroons, will eventually be used to make the plant's operation even cheaper. The plant is a big boost to the Cameroons' sluggish economy, now based almost entirely on agriculture. A tax-paying industry that will pour money into the public treasury, Alucam will also give work to 500, increase rail and harbor traffic, further encourage the search for minerals.

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