— 32 — The normal value of dura on the European markets maybe taken as approximately £E. 5.500 c.i.f., per 1,000 kilos, which closely approximates the figure obtained for Omdurman as the mean for the last nine years, and would apparently preclude any possibility of profitable export. During six of these years, however, dura was sold on the Wad Medaiii and El Dueim markets at an average price of £E.2.190 per ton, leaving a margin of £E.3.310 to cover freight and charges to the European markets. A special through railway rate of £E. 1.055 Wad Medani to Port Sudan has been offered for truck loads, while homeward freights from Port Sudan to London /Liverpool have been fixed at £E. 1.200 for this grain. With nett transport costs of £E. 2.255 and a margin of £E.3.310 between local and European prices, the growth of an export trade will depend, firstly, upon the maintenance or reduction of present values, and, secondly, upon market organisation and the limitation of costs and charges incidental to shipment.

A Limited Area of Supply.—It is to be noted that the area at present served by the railway, which furnishes supplies of grain to the principal centres of consumption, has been geographically classified as one of inadequate rainfall.

Pending completion of projected irrigation schemes for the Gezira plain, the grain market of the Sudan continues to rest upon the output of undeniably precarious rain-farming on the lower reaches of the White and Blue Niles, supplemented by limited supplies from the northern sakia and basin lands.

Steadier values and the growth of an export trade must necessarily await the free movement of grain from south-eastern and southern rain-lands, and the question resolves itself into one of improved and cheaper transport facilities, coupled with the organisation of commercial intelligence.

The removal by export of any proportion of the crop within the present railway area inevitably results in an immediate hardening of prices and a reduction to vanishing point of the very narrow margin of shipping profits. In other words, the railway is inadequately fed, and a progressive policy of liberal " through " rates will fail of its purpose until the gap still existing between rail-heads at Sennar and Kosti and the southern grain fields be bridged by cheap transport, and a vast extension of cultivation and supply thus ensured. For the purpose of this discussion, Kaka on the White Nile, with a mean annual precipitation of 650 mm., may be taken as representing the northern limit of reliable and adequate rainfall and as a market tapping an extensive but undeveloped grain country. The possibility of effecting profitable shipment from this centre may be taken as a gauge of the immediate prospects of an export trade.

Kaka is situated 412 miles by river from Khartoum, and grain is carried by the Sudan Government steamers, which enjoy a monopoly of river transport, at a flat rate of 3 milliemes per ton mile to rail-head at Kosti (708 mm.), with a special rate of 335 mm. Kosti to Khartoum, making a total charge of