ECONOMIC RESOURCES 489 it is reported that ** the capabilities of the country for the production of cotton are enormous." The opinion of a cotton expert, who passed through Nupe and some other districts in 1904, was that Northern Nigeria held out better prospects for the cotton industry than any other West African colony.

I have dwelt at some length upon the question of cotton, as it offers, perhaps, a prospect of the creation of the first large export industry of the Protectorate, and there is no need to insist upon the importance of feeding the looms of Lancashire with home-grown raw material. There are, of course, many other prospective industries, which should include all forms of tropical agriculture. The leather trade and ostrich farming are also industries to be developed.

There has been no time for the systematic exploration of the mineral resources of the country. The highlands to the north of the Benu6 have an historical reputation, and silver and tin ores are known to exist in them in some quantity. Antimony also occurs, and small quantities of monozite and other valuable thoriumbearing minerals have been found. Iron ores are common throughout the Protectorate ; and smelting is one of the oldest industries of which local records have been preserved. A small survey was sent out in 1904, but the discovery of minerals takes time, and the country must be more fully open to European enterprise before its true mineral capacity can be gauged.

Enough has, I think, been said to show that with the forest-bearing slopes and valleys of the southern provinces, the mineralised, though as yet unexplored, belt of highlands, which at the back of these traverses the country from west to east, and the open agricultural plains of the northern districts, the Protectorate contains in itself all the primitive elements of a valuable trade. Add to this that the population, though much depleted now, is to be counted in millions, who, under conditions of peace and security, are likely to show a