keen interest in all questions of economic development, may be trusted to do all that is humanly possible to encourage the commercial progress of the territory. The outsider who attempts any detailed investigation of trade conditions in Northern Nigeria must be prepared to walk as delicately as any Agag, and even then he is pretty sure to ruffle somebody’s feelings. The fact of the matter is, that the paramount position held by the Niger Company—the “monopoly” as some call it, although it hardly amounts to that and must decreasingly do so—is a very sore point with many of the officials. The aims of the latter and the aims of the company necessarily diverge, but there is, I think, a tendency on the part of some of the officials to forget the fact that the Niger Company’s enterprise is the explanation of our presence in the country. One very sore point is the question of “cash for produce,” and this affects not the Niger Company only, but the other merchants. The official case is, that the natives desire cash for their produce, but that the merchants will not pay cash, or pay as little cash as possible, because they make a very much larger profit on the barter business; that this strangles trade development by discouraging the native producer, who is automatically forced to accept goods he often does not require, and must afterwards sell at a loss in order to get the cash he wants. Indeed, the official case goes further. It is contended not only that the merchants will not buy produce against cash when asked for cash, but on occasion actually refuse to sell goods against cash offered by the native, demanding produce in lieu thereof. For example, if a native has sold his produce against cloth and then, possessing some loose cash, desires to purchase, shall we say, earthenware or salt, he is told that his cash will not be accepted, but that he must bring shea-nuts or ground-nuts, or whatever may be the product out of which the merchant can make the biggest margin of profit. Instances are given of merchants having refused to sell salt to natives for cash; of natives being able to buy cloth in the open market for actually less than the merchants reckon in paying the native producers, and so on. Why, it is urged, should the political officer encourage the native to bring produce for sale to the merchant when all he will get is cloth that he must sell at a loss in the market in order to get silver to pay his taxes? Hence we arrive at a point when, as in the last published Government Report, the “pernicious barter system” is denounced, lock, stock, and barrel. The views of the merchants are various. In certain quarters the official allegations are altogether denied. In others it is contended that the barter trade is the best means of getting into touch with the actual native trader; that it would not pay to import cash to buy rough produce like shea-nuts or ground-nuts, which in many cases