PART II. 
production at Mwanza and the transport from Mwanza to Kampala 
and Jinja was cheap and easy. It would be a handicap to Uganda if 
they did not get rice from Tanganyika Territory, as ther own rice 
producing areas were too remote. To his mind cheap transport was 
the solution of the supply of native food crops. 
Mi. WORTLEY agreed entirely with Mr. Simpson that the 
question was one of cheap transport. As conditions ware in Nyasaland 
at present the Agricultural Department felt that it was necessary to 
keep iu pressing on natives the importance of producing adequute 
supplies of food crops for their own use. There was also the question 
of rotations of crops and it was an advantage to rotate food crops with 
cotton and tobacco. With regard to the question of transpoct, it wus 
to-day cheaper to import maize from Southern Rhodesia than to 
transport it 180 miles within Nyasaland. 
THE CHAIRMAN (Mr. Holm) had thought on reading the note 
that the adoption of the proposal depended on two things: one was 
comparatively cheap transport, and the second (a point not yet 
mentioned) the holding of a reserve of money by those natives 
indicated by Mr. Kirby, in order that they would be in a position to 
buy the food crops which they did not grow. He was doubtful 
whether the natives in the ** backwoods ’’ of these territories were yet 
in a position to have this principle applied to them and he thought 
that they would have to go through the ordinary stages of evolution 
as farmers; in other countries where there was a more intelligent 
community on farms, the farms were made as nearly as possible self- 
supporting. He thought Mr. Kirby had raised an important question 
and he hoped that it would be considered by all who were responsible 
for native agricultural development in East African Territories. He 
thought that the principle should be applied, where possible, but he 
did not think that it could be applied for some considerable time, nor 
did he think that they would be wise to attempt it at present. 
Mr. KIRBY agreed that it was a matter of evolution. He had 
in mind not only plantation labourers but ordinary natives, who could 
be fed with the assistance of more remote districts, if, as Mr. Simpson 
suggested, they had reasonable transport. They had another examnrle: 
Bordering on Lake Tanganyika in the remote district of Kigoma their 
efforts were directed to the production of millet, beans and rice which 
were transported by rail to the more sophisticated natives, and, more 
especially, to the natives employed on plantations and Government 
work, so that the latter had now an opportunity of getting food from 
an origin which did not exist in the past. 
In reply to the Chairman, Mr. Kirby stated that the note had 
been written to obtain information and to ventilate the matter, as they 
had felt that in the predominant interest of prodnetion of economic 
crops the prodnetion of food for export from district to district had 
been rather forgotten. 
Mr. SIMPSON said he had always felt that it was a great mistake 
that a bale of cotton or a bac of maize should be produced for export 
by natives in East Africa, if the natives of the area were not proverly 
fed. It was Impossible to have a contented peorle, capable of doing 
a day s work, unless they were proverly fed and the first duty of the 
Agricultural Denartment was to ensure that the people were supplied 
with sufficient food. 
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