It seems to me that the British Cotton-growing Association may perhaps find it advisable, so far as the Western Province of Southern Nigeria is concerned, to reconsider two aspects of its policy. Fundamentally that policy is without question sound—viz. the recognition that agricultural development in West Africa can only be possible on any scale worth mentioning when undertaken by the natives themselves. A policy of large plantations run under white supervision by hired native labour will not pay in West Africa, and, politically speaking, is virtually impossible. The Association should receive public support in resisting any pressure which might be placed upon it to alter its fundamental policy by those of its supporters who may be impatient of a comparatively slow advance—slow, _i.e._, in comparison with the unwise optimism displayed by some of the Association’s friends upon public platforms. I doubt, however, if an export trade in cotton will ever reach substantial proportions—let us say 100,000 bales per annum twenty years hence—in the Western Province unless the element of competition is introduced. Hitherto, by combining with the merchants, the Association has established a fixed buying price. In the initial stages this was a good thing. The native farmer wanted the certainty that his crop would be purchased if he were induced to grow it. Now that the industry is well on in its stride it may be seriously questioned whether the Yoruba farmer, the certainty of sale notwithstanding, will be content with the prices offered him under the monopoly agreement now obtaining. He has always the oil palm to fall back upon; but he has, in addition, cocoa and maize. Cocoa is rapidly increasing, and the profit realized by the cultivator is a good one. The timber trade, too, is growing slowly, and the forest is always yielding fresh elements of trade. The bulk of the cotton produced in the Western Province to-day is roughly similar to “middling American,” which is now quoted, I believe, at 8_d._ a pound, but some of the Yoruba cotton fetches up to 3_d._ above “middling American.” It is asserted by the Association that 4 lbs. of seed cotton are required in the Western Province to produce 1 lb. of lint. The native cultivator is (now) supposed to get from the combine—_i.e._ from the Association and the merchants, as the case may be—from 1d. to 1⅛_d._ per lb. of seed cotton. I say “supposed,” because I was informed that the actual producer had not always got the amount which he was understood to be getting. As regards Northern Nigeria, until the close of last year the native had never been paid 1_d._ a lb. cash, and I was given to understand that conditions had been much the same in the Southern Protectorate, except at Ilushi, where it was proved to my satisfaction that the amount of 1_d._ cash had actually been paid.