— 41 — present operations, and a supply of prime meat and dairy produce at all seasons to the exclusion of imported supplies.

R6sum6.

It is submitted in view of the conditions obtaining in the Sudan that sustained development of an agricultural industry, as distinct from the exploitation of natural resources, can only be ensured by exhaustive and decentralised research, supplemented by a comprehensive system of agricultural education. Private enterprise has served to define numerous problems, the solution of which gtill awaits active intervention on the part of official agents.

An extraordinary range in conditions of climate and soil requires that local systems of agriculture be evolved in situ, with a clear recognition of the restricted application of field results ; while a diversity of native races exhibiting varying degrees of mental and social development demands localised instruction and much elasticity in educational methods. The field mission and the residential school should alike find a place in such a system.

The natural advantages attaching to rain-farming in the southern provinces, coupled with the exceptional costs of production in the arid north, emphasise a need for improved river transport and cheaper water carriage. The former area figures in the trade schedules only as a source of supply for such natural products as ivory, and a balanced development of the country as a whole depends upon a removal of prohibitive freights on southern produce. The available margin of reduction is derived from a comparison of railway and steamer rates.

Taxation of the instruments of production, including fuel, by means of customs dues, railway rates and royalties, has hitherto handicapped irrigation farming in an unsuccessful attempt to compete with areas enjoying relative natural and fiscal advantages. The removal of incidence to the final stages of production would not only effect an absolute saving of cumulative interest, but facilitate the substitution of modern pumping machinery and efficient field implements for the primitive native contrivances still in general use.

The burden of taxation on the development of agricultural holdings is enhanced by the absence of any adequate loan fund or the machinery for loan administration. Agricultural credit in the Sudan is very difficult to obtain for the small farmer, except at an excessive rate of interest. An extension of irrigation farming to areas beyond the range of the primitive native water-lifts, but within the radius of modern pumping machinery, will be determined by the possibility of exploiting freehold title as security for loan capital.

The absence of organised markets in the Sudan and the lack of an adequate system of distribution constitute serious obstacles to rural development. These drawbacks can only be removed by official intervention pending the establish-