LAND TENURE AND COLONIZATION II3 



10,000 liras. This amounts to a failure of the experiment and should lead 

 to an abandonment of the method. 



2. The favourable result is due — as regards data and actual fact — 

 to the productive power of the holding, and to a return from the labour of 

 the colonist's family sufficient to allow of their permanent settlement on the 

 holding or to call for another family to replace them. Such is the ideal 

 end of the experiment. If it be attained, even if the specially privileged 

 conditions enjoj^ed bj- the first colonists' families be overlooked, the ac- 

 counts will give an exact idea of the holding's economic strength and of the 

 organization necessary to prosperous colonization in small holdings by a 

 white population. The most favourable h3'pothesis would presume an 

 expenditure on the experiment bj' the government of from 10,000 to 12,000 

 liras, that is to say of the dift'erence between the costs of installation and 

 the sum repaid by the colonist. 



• It will now be well to resume a scheme for colonization in Somaliland 

 by the means of small proprietors, drawn up at the request of the govern- 

 ment of Somaliland bj^ Professor Bizzozero, director of the peripatetic 

 chair of agriculture of Parma. This scheme is important because article 

 37 of the Regolamento per la inessa in valore delle terre nella Somalia italiana 

 refers to it and has largely incorporated it. We have already dealt with 

 article 37 in speaking of the land system in Somaliland (§ 3. B.) 



This attempt at colonization should be begun by a limited number of 

 cultivators' families, some twenty at most, who so soon as they reached 

 the colony would in the presence of the governor form a first agricultural 

 union for the colonization of Italian vSomaliland. Only the heads of families 

 would sign the union's constitution, each thus becoming responsible for 

 all his famil3^ As soon as the union were formed each of them would pay 

 the amount of at least one share of 50 liras together with a guaranteeing 

 deposit of 5,000 liras. This latter sum would be entered in a current account 

 book which would be delivered to the depositor on the same day. The agri- 

 cultural union would be superintended and inspected by the colon^^'s 

 government. This government would for the first two j^ears freely sup- 

 ph' the seeds of the herbaceous crops to be grown and the plants for lignous 

 plantations. The colony's technical agricultural ofiice would decide what 

 machines were needed on each holding, and the union would deliver them 

 to the cultivators, entering the sum charged for them on the current account 

 books. Each holding would receive from six to ten head of cattle, and even- 

 tually one or two camels and twenty-four sheep, the value of the animals 

 being likewise entered in the current account books. For articles of food each 

 family would have a book and the total sum due for purchases made from 

 the union would be debited to them monthly. The financial resources of 



