lJi.ND SYSTEM AND COI^ONIZATION 75 



tural crops stock-farming, and especially sheep-farming, could be improved 

 and rendered markedly more productive than it is at present, care being 

 given above all to watering the animal.s and preserving them in healthy 

 condition. 



Pending more effective action in favour of agriculture some measures 

 were esteemed necessary to lessen the depression affecting agricultural 

 conditions. Among these one was urgent, namely a provision, however 

 rudimentary, of agricultural credit for the natives ; for the Ottoman agri- 

 ciiltural bank went into liquidation immediatel}^ after the Italian occupation 

 and some grants made directly by the colonial authorities did rot sufl&- 

 ciently take its place. 



The royal decree of 9 March 1913, no. 262 (i) for Tripoli authorized 

 the branch of the Banco di Sicilia e Tripoli, supported by the Bank of Italy, 

 and the royal decree of 6 November 191 3 for Cyrenaica authorized the 

 branch of the Bank of Italy at Benghazi, to effect operations in agricultural 

 credit so long as these banks employed their own capital with the govern- 

 ment's limited security, together with the capital already lent by the co- 

 lonial administration and capitf^l arising out of the liquidation of the Otto- 

 man agricultural bank, the further management of which was entrusted to 

 these banks (2). 



It was also necessary to solve a grave problem arising out of the large 

 extent of land, of the most fertile description, especially near the town of 

 Tripoli, which had been entirely abandoned, either because former possess- 

 ors were dead or had emigrated, or because the prospect of larger earnings 

 has drawn them to the towns and they had alienated their property in de- 

 fiance of the prohibition of sales, and the buyers had not considered it wise 

 to show themselves. The ruin of wells and cisterns and the progressive 

 invasion of the sand were to be feared, to say nothing of other losses. 



The royal decree of 6 September 1913, no. 1106 (3), did not aim, as some 

 wrongly think, at facilitating Italian colonization, but at bringing owners 

 back to cultivate their lands or, failing this, at bringing other natives, by 

 preference, to take their places, as public interest' dictated. This decree al- 

 lowed concessions for three years of abandoned lands, such concessions to be 

 renewable for the same period if the owner did not meanwhile present 

 himself or if, on presenting himself, he did not pay the concessionar3'' the 

 value of the improvements and repairs made by the latter during his occu- 

 pancy . 



The application of this decree at once gave satisfactory results. 



The royal decree of 20 March 191 3 provided against the loss which 

 would ensue on an excessive exploitation of the palm-trees for it fully regul- 

 ated the extraction of laglibi ; and the roj^al decree of ii Jamiaiy 1914 re- 



(i) Gazzetta Ufficiale, 8 April 1913, no. 82. 



(2) This matter was afterwards regulated by the Norme Provvisoire per la Concessione dei 

 Prestiti Agrari. (Provisional Rules for the Granting of AgriciUtural I^oans) of 15 October 1915. 



(3) Gazzetta Ufficiale, 6 October 1913, 232. 



