96 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS (No. 98 vince the highest rate of wages reached during the year was 5 piastres per day, during the period August to October inclusive, and the lowest 3 piastres, during the period January to April . In the Maatuk district, which suffered greatly from the failure of the crops, labour could be obtained between April and August at 8 millièmes per day. In the Blue Nile province the price of labour dropped lower than it had ever done before, and in some parts actually fell to the abnormally low figure of 14 piastres per day. It is stated that in ordinary years during the rains the price of labour generally reaches 10 piastres per day, but in 1913, although the rains were goodand the demand for labour consequently great, the daily wage never exceeded 6 piastres. Reports in 1919 stated that labour in the Sudan was growing scarce , and that wages were correspondingly increasing. According to a report from the Blue Nile province,wages in many places reached as much as 45 piastres per day . In Rufaa the small merchants closed their shops and worked as manual labourers. One good result of the shortage of Sudanese labourers has been the employment of small Arab boys throughout the province in grain cultivation.

(2) AGRICULTURE (a) Products of Commercial Value In the northern provinces of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan onlythe country lying close to the Nileand its tributaries is as a rule cultivated ; in the rainfall zone, south of about 12° north latitude, especially in the tropical Upper Nile provinces, practically all the land could be made productive , but as yet little has been done to induce the natives to grow more than a suff ciency for their own requirements.

The principal vegetable products may be classified as follows: grain crops, oil and fodder crops, cotton and other fibres, gums, rubber, dates, medicinal plants and drugs, and other products .