LAND TENURE AND COLONIZATION 77 



That this figure should in Erythrea be six is the more remarkable be- 

 cause of the vast almost desert expanses of territory included in the total 

 area, such as the deserts of Dancalia and the lands between the Gasc and 

 the vSetit. 



The export of live oxen from Erj^threa to Italy, of preserved meat in 

 cases and of. frozen meat or meat preserved by refrigeration presents a 

 problem not yet solved, which will certainly be studied and rightly de- 

 termined before long. The usefulness of such an enterprise is evident, in 

 view of the prices in force in Erythrea, where a live ox weighing three 

 quintals (i) does not cost more on the average, than 17 Maria Theresa 

 thalers, that is about 32s. 



§ 3. The LAND REGIME. 



In order well to miderstand the bearing of the recently adopted land 

 policy, it is necessary to show the essential lines on which Ethiopian pro- 

 perty was organized among the populations of the high plateau at the time 

 of the Italian occupation. 



In Abyssinia there is private property in land. The lands called resti 

 are the freehold of the families of agriculturists. The etymology of the 

 word resti implies occupation : it is derived from rassete which means 

 " to occupy " and marks the title by which the land was acquired. 



The resti is not an individual property but one which belongs to a race, 

 to a fainily : it is therefore a collective property. 



Its collective organization does not however cut it off from being private 

 and absolute. It can be transmitted by inheritance and alienated by sale 

 and purchase^ by exchange or by gift. Property in it is collective owing 

 to the constitution of families which are today still patriarchal, and because 

 of the method in which agriculture and shepherding are practised on it. 

 Beasts are bred and raised in the open aii and pastures and fallow-lands there- 

 fore remain common ; and since cereals are cultivated in turn over large 

 zones, fields are appropriated only temporarily. Hence the custom of dis- 

 tributing them by lot. Thus conditions are like those which Tacitus de- 

 scribed as existing among the Germans (2) and which still subsist in the 

 Apennines. The collective organization of private property, as determined by 

 custom and imposed by economic needs, is not incapable of reformation 

 but can be modified at will by those having rights in it. If therefore the 

 transition were to be made tomorrow from the system of agricultiire now 

 in force to intensive culture, there would be nothing to prevent the indi- 

 vidualization of property. The form of property can be modified as has 

 happened before, but the element which ought to subsist is that of the 

 cultivator's free ownership. 



(i) I quintal = 220 lbs. 



(2) Arva per annos mutuant et superest ager. 



