‘ PART 71. 
Mr. KIRKHAM said that about three years ago he was touring 
in Java and was very much struck by the care of the Dutch Administra- 
tion for the 40,000,000 natives living on that island. With such a 
vast population and such a climate, foreign capital had come in with 
a view to making rich profits—as had been done—out of sugar. In 
general, as was done in East Africa, factories were put up, of which 
there were some 800 on the island, and sugar cane was bought from 
the native growers. This industry increased so much that Government 
realised that something had to be done to prevent the natives becoming 
too dependent on foreign capital and they laid it down that natives 
might only enter into contracts for the supply of sugar cane for a period 
of one year, and then conditionally that they planted the same land 
with rice next year, thus preventing the sugar industry from swamping 
the food production of the country. He thought that was a wise step 
on the part of the Dutch Administration. 
Mr. SIMPSON thought the problem was largely one of cost of 
transport. It was a very difficult problem in a centre like Kampala 
nowadays for a native to get his food cheaply, but, from the point of 
view of Africa, Kampala was a very large place and supported a large 
number of natives from outside. The natives in the Province lived on 
plantains and it was evident that it was not economic to transport 
plantains long distances. In places with crops like tea and coffee, 
there was a tendency to concentrate on the money crop and neglect 
food crops, but with a crop like cotton, as they had to organise the 
industry in Uganda, it was possible, in fact compulsory, that for every 
acre under cotton, there should be a larger acreage under food crops. 
In territories which were very sparsely provided with railway 
communications, it was very difficult indeed for food producers in 
outlying areas to supply their food products at a reasonable cost to 
natives who were growing crops for export; in fact, it was often 
cheaper for the latter to buy imported food. In Uganda the natives 
from outlying areas came in to work on public works and railways 
more particularly, and the internal costs of transport were too high to 
admit of the transport of food products at any price which the natives 
could afford, so that instead of becoming food producers, they became 
the labouring force of the Protectrate for the time being. 
Mr. KIRBY drew attention in that connection to crops such as 
rice and beans. Rice and certain kinds of beans would stand a certain 
amount of porterage. In a certain area in Tanganyika last year 10,000 
tons of rice were taken "120 miles by head porterage.to the railway: 
rice produced by the efforts of native producers, assisted by the buying 
power of the Indian shop-keeper. In that case the natives were able 
to grow cotton as a principal crop and could be fed on plantations 
through the production of more remote districts. He had in mind not 
only that the Coast natives should be fed from remote districts, but 
also that the remote districts should increase their production of food 
crops with a view to providing food for those districts which possessed 
adequate transport facilities and could grow economic crops to 
advantage 
Mr. SIMPSON said that there was a small rice industry in 
Uganda, but it was 50 or 60 miles from the port on Lake Victoria; 
attempts had been made to try to encourage that industry by 
prohibiting the import of rice from other territories. He had, however, 
been unable to support the proposal because there was a large rice 
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