398 SCIENCE IN AFRICA 



scription from all the farmers in the district is compulsory, and is, 

 in effect, an additional tax, the proceeds of which are devoted to 

 local interests. The societies distribute seed, and organize market- 

 ing, and expensive machinery for oil presses or cotton ginneries is 

 purchased with their funds. These societies have undoubtedly led 

 to a marked improvement in native agriculture, but their compul- 

 sory character differentiates them from the British co-operatives 

 where the voluntary nature of membership is regarded as essential. 



The policy adopted for the improvement of native agriculture 

 in the Belgian Congo consists in many areas in making compulsory 

 the production of export crops such as cotton. In the initial stages 

 agricultural instructors work among the population and a certain 

 amount of coercion appears to be necessary to make each native 

 farmer put a fixed area of his holding under the selected crop, but 

 as soon as the natives have reaped a return for the produce the 

 system runs on smoothly enough. 



However desirable it may be from the sociological aspect to 

 maintain tribal custom in agriculture as in other subjects, it is 

 impossible to do so unless at the same time the economics of pro- 

 duction can meet the demands of the world's markets. An instance 

 of the conflict of opinion over the plantation as opposed to the 

 peasant system of agriculture is afforded by Nigeria; it has been 

 discussed by Buell ( 1 928, Pt. I, pp. 768ff.) . In this connection Dr. H. 

 Martin Leake (1935) looks especially to Corporations or Chartered 

 Companies to provide the solution. He points out that, to com- 

 pete in the world market to-day, produce must be of the highest 

 quality and carefully graded, so that a measure of technical con- 

 trol is indispensable. He argues that the system of peasant produc- 

 tion with its small independent units, which is now favoured on 

 sociological grounds, is ill adapted for the exercise of this control. 

 In official policy hitherto the sociological view has dominated, but 

 the pressure of circumstances is forcing the adoption of more and 

 more control, with the result that colonial governments are being 

 driven to administer two different and somewhat antagonistic 

 policies. To meet this dilemma he proposes the creation of cor- 

 porations having limited jurisdiction over defined areas, and he 

 suggests that not only would colonial governments be in a better 

 position to see that the essentials of the social structure were re- 



