82 [No. 96 ECONOMIC CONDITIONS old stores and to regulations now enforced for the pre servation of elephants; wild rubber is dwindling, and plantation rubber has a somewhat uncertain future. On the other hand , sisal and flax give promise of great expansion , and carbonate of soda is likely to take a leading place on the list . Cotton is the chief article of export from Uganda, and is followed in order of value by hides and skins, coffee,sesame, cotton -seeds, chillies, ivory, and rubber. Small consignments of cocoa are promising. Re-exports from the Sudan and Italian East Africa are negligible. The Congo Free State before the war used to send considerable quantities of ivory and small lots of other products; in 1916 it ex ported, besides ivory and rubber, consignments of gold valued at £395,723, a sum representing 35 per cent. of the valueof exports for the year. Theaverage annual contribution of German East Africa in recent years was about 30 per cent. of the total export trade of the East Africa Protectorate, and consisted mainly of hides and skins, and, in less degree, of ground-nuts , coffee, rubber, cotton, beeswax, ghee, andother commodities. Table IV shows the values during the last ten years of theexports passing through British East Africa from the six East African territories.

Of exports from East Africa rather more than half were consigned,even in pre -war days, to Great Britain and British possessions. Theproductswhich the United Kingdom purchased , and still purchases, to the extent of at least 80 per cent . , are cotton , coffee, wool, rubber, sisal, and other fibres. France still claims the greater part of the copra export. Grain and oil -seeds are widely distributed to Zanzibar, France, Italy and her East African possessions, India, Arabia, Egypt, and other countries . The place which the United States formerly held as chief customer of East African skins is now taken by the United Kingdom , which also buys about one-third of the hides ; most of the hides have gone to Italy since the first year of war. Germany used to take an interest in wattlebark and in cotton .

Table V shows how the exports, comprising produce