Page 135 - Afrika Must Unite

120 AFRICA MUST UNITE
ization of our agriculture and the industrialization of our
country. We have to transfer to the hands of the people the major
means of production and distribution.
O ur rate of development will be governed by the surpluses that
will be made available out of heightened productivity, which
includes, besides the greater output from labour and increased
agricultural yields, the more efficient employment of investment
and the resulting increased productivity. Government inter­
ference in all matters affecting economic growth in less developed
countries is today a universally accepted principle, and interests,
domestic or foreign, enjoying the opportunities of profitable
gain, cannot object to some control of the reinvestment of part of
that gain in the national development of the country in which it
is reaped. Today, not even in the advanced countries dedicated
to private enterprise is the principle of laissez faire allowed
absolutely free play. Restrictions of all kinds interfere with the
uninhibited movement of capital. The government of Ghana,
while making investment in our development as attractive as
possible, cannot, however, place that development and our
ultimate economic independence in jeopardy by surrendering
their intrinsic prior requirements.
These requirements are at the central heart of our planning,
and in the context of our national independence and advance­
ment and the greater objective of Pan-African unity they must
govern our policies.
The road of reconstruction on which Ghana has embarked is a
new road, parts of whose topography are only hazily sensed,
other parts still unknown. A certain amount of trial and error in
following the road is inevitable. Mistakes we are bound to make,
and some undoubtedly we have already made. They are our own
and we learn from them. That is the value of being free and
independent, of acquiring our experience out of the consequence
of our own decisions, out of the achievements of our own efforts.
O ur planning will be geared to our policy of increasing
government participation in the nation’s economic activities,
and all enterprises are expected to accept this policy and to
operate within the framework of our national laws. O ur aim is
the building of a society in which the principles of social justice
will be param ount. But there are many roads to socialism, and in