Another element comes in here which is worthy of note. I refer to the price of foodstuffs. Everywhere the price of foodstuffs is growing with our occupation of the country. Round the main highways and large markets it has risen enormously in the past eighteen months. In one part of the Niger province the native farmer now reckons upon getting, I was informed, £8 to £10 per acre out of yams. Cotton at 1_d._ per lb. would bring him in from £3 to £4. That is rather an extreme case, I admit, nor does the whole country produce yams, and the farmers generally do not appear yet to have fully grasped the economic importance for them of the increased demand for foodstuffs. On the other hand, it is, of course, true that the sowing of cotton between the ordinary food crops is not uncommon. I have thought it well to describe the position just as I read it, and to make certain suggestions, the outcome of personal observation and discussion on the spot. It may well be that in certain respects I have read the situation wrong and that the suggestions made are faulty. Prediction at the present time, I am convinced, must be largely made in the dark, and they are no friends of the British Cotton-growing Association who describe the outlook in Nigeria in “high falutin’” terms. It is too soon to say how matters will develop. That development will in any case be slow may be taken for granted. The Administration is in urgent need of a properly equipped agricultural department with at the head of it the very best man that money can secure. Reviewing the whole situation, the only definite conclusions I have been able to arrive at in my own mind are—first, that all attempts at giving an artificial basis to cotton production in the Nigerias will, in the long run, defeat its own ends; secondly, that by some means or other the price paid to the native farmer must be raised if any extension of the industry worth talking about is to be looked for. Everywhere in Northern Nigeria, whether the personal view inclines to optimism or pessimism, I found the officials without exception deeply interested in and anxious to assist in every way the effort to build up an export industry in cotton, and fully persuaded of the great importance and value of the work of the Association. CHAPTER IV THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC IN SOUTHERN NIGERIA