the capacities of the trade, especially in kernels, are only in their infancy.[3] Many districts, rich in oil palms are unproductive owing to inaccessibility of markets or lack of transport; in others which supply oil, the kernels, for sundry reasons, among which insufficiency of labour to spare from farming operations no doubt predominates, are not collected, although it is commonly reckoned that three tons of kernels should be available for every ton of oil. In considering these figures, realizing the future potentialities of the trade, and realizing, too, the truly enormous sum of African labour which it represents (every nut is cracked by hand to extract the kernel), one cannot but reflect upon the foolish generalities which ascribe “idleness” to the West African negro, whose free labour in this trade alone gives employment directly and indirectly to tens of thousands in England and in Europe, from the merchant and his clerks, from the steamship owner and his _employés_ on land and sea, to the manufacturer of soap and candles and their allied trades; from the coopers who turn out the casks sent out from England in staves for the conveyance of the oil, to the Irish peasants who collect the stems of the common sedge shipped out to Nigeria from Liverpool for caulking these casks. The bulk of the oil is exported to England (£1,191,000 value in 1909), but nearly the entire kernel crop goes to Germany, where it is treated by the big crushing mills. It is possible that this state of affairs may undergo considerable change within the next decade, and the reason for it is, incidentally, of considerable economic interest, as it is of moment to Nigeria. Up to within three or four years ago palm kernels were crushed and the oil almost entirely used by the soap trade, but chemistry has now found a process of refining and making palm-_kernel_ oil edible, as it may, perhaps, do some day for palm oil itself, as a base for margarine, for which coprah and ground-nut oil were formerly employed. This has had as a consequence an enormous widening of the home market, and the soap trade has now to contend with keen competition for the supply of one of its staples. The resultant effect is the initiative of Lever Brothers (Limited), who, finding the need of enlarging and giving increased security to their supplies of the raw material, are, with commendable enterprise, erecting three large crushing mills in Southern Nigeria, the one at Lagos being already in a fair way to completion. If the numerous difficulties they will have to face are successfully negotiated, the ultimate result can hardly fail to be that of transferring the considerable palm kernel crushing industry from the banks of the Rhine to those of the Niger, besides creating a new export trade in oil cake from the Niger to England and the Continent. CHAPTER III THE FOREST BELT