-2« — ill use pending a removal of disabilities on import exemplified by an 8 [wr cent..

customs duty.

In a neighbouring colony free grants of land, free carriage of settlers' goods, including implements, livestock and seed, and nominal rates for the transport of produce to port of shipment for a period of years, have been largely responsible for remarkable rural progress, and a rapid subsequent growth in railway traffic receipts. A would-be competitor in the Northern Sudan, working in a rainless country, has to face a water-bill which absorbs one-third of the proceeds of his crop, the actual costs of irrigation, a heavy fuel bill for his steam ploughs and other power-plant, the expenses of hand-feeding his working stock in the absence of grazing, and, in addition to these heavy natural disadvantages, customs impositions on his implements and machinery, excessive transport rates and export dues. It remains to examine the facilities offered for the profitable disposal of his produce.

The Commercial Aspect.

During the four months, August to November, 1914, the local price of our staple grain crop, dura, fell from £E 2.000 to 400 milliemes per ardeb, as the result of good rains throughout the area from which the local market draws its supplies. During the same period the gross tonnage of imports carried over the Sudan railways amounted to 23,000 tons, while exports were limited to 2,896 tons. In other words, empty trucks with a capacity of over 20,000 tons were hauled to the coast, and empty tonnage in similar amount left the port, while grain prices were mounting to war rates in Europe. That such an issue was due, not to any lack of encouragement on the part of the railway adminisstration, but to an undeveloped market, will appear from the context. A large proportion of our grain surplus was in the meantime converted into the intoxicant " merisa " in the absence of local demand, old grain was even given away ' in producing areas, a marked shortage in the labour supply and a universal disinclination to work or cultivate were experienced, together with inability to meet taxation and other liabilities. For in existing circumstances, though good rain crops throughout the country may relieve distress and prevent actual want, the resulting fall in the monetary value of produce spells financial disaster to the sakia community and heavy loss to the estate owner if involved to any extent in dura cultivation. The character of the rainfall can hardly be forecast in any way, and such a slump in prices as has been recently experienced reduces the value of the samad's grain and forage to a point considerably below the cost of production, and he has the alternative of selling at a loss, or, if he can stave off his official and private creditors, of holding his crop during a period of penury for a rise in price. That he should effect cash savings during years of good prices is a counsel of perfection and a practice entirely foreign to his nature. On the other hand, to eliminate all grain crops from irrigation farming