48 Report of Schimmel $ Co. April 1913. 



are usually sold at knock-out prices. I have attended auctions where the offers 

 represented less than one rupee for every clove-tree on the plantation, and where 

 the lot was bought in because no high enough bid could be obtained. It is a matter 

 for astonishment that up to the present no European has taken the chance offered 

 by such bargains as are going in plantations: it would be impossible to become 

 possessed of a clove-garden more quickly or more cheaply than here. 



In all money-lending transactions regard must be had to the rate of interest 

 which is charged. No one in Zanzibar thinks it amiss to ask 30 p. c. interest. 

 But the average rate of interest is very much higher than that; some of these 

 leeches are not ashamed to squeeze 300 p. c. out of their victims. These money- 

 lenders resort to all manner of tricks to get their usury-rates. The most common 

 practice is as follows: —The Arab borrows 100 Rupees from the Indian; but the 

 money-lender makes him sign a bond for 1500 Rupees or even more, and when 

 the time of payment comes interest to a not inconsiderable amount is charged on 

 the amount stated in the bond in addition to the principal. The best laws and 

 regulations are powerless against such sharp practice; yet nowhere is an energetic 

 campaign against usury more urgently needed than in Zanzibar. So far as is known, 

 the Government regards a rate of interest of up to 12 p. c. as lawful. But the Indian 

 does not trouble himself about that. No debtor dares to make known to the 

 authorities what interest he has undertaken to pay; if he did he would be digging 

 his own grave, so to speak, for never another copper would the Indian usurer- 

 fraternity lend him. About six years ago the Government established a so-called 

 Agricultural Bank, where the Arabs can obtain advances on their crops at a low 

 rate of interest. This was done expressly to get them out of the clutches of the 

 Indian usurers, but the Bank has been altogether unsuccessful. 



It would truly be a difficult task to clean out this welter of usury in Zanzibar, 

 for although the business is chiefly conducted by Indians, other races, including 

 Europeans, also take a hand in it. Usury appears to have entered into the very 

 bones of the whole population, and nothing but severe measures, which would 

 at first be felt as a hardship, could in the course of time bring about an impro- 

 vement. If the economic life of Zanzibar is to be restored to healthy conditions, 

 the Government must make it its business to clear out this system of usury that 

 has made such an unprecedented growth within the last decades, and that forms 

 a grave danger to the economic development of the country. If the Government 

 should succeed, the production of the country would again expand, the revenues 

 of the Sultanate would increase, and the entire economic life of Zanzibar would be 

 restored to health. But for the present all this is in the dim and distant future, 

 for the British Government of Zanzibar is not likely to be easily persuaded to 

 adopt such stringent measures." 



From a report by the British Consul at Antananarivo 1 ) it appears that the clove- 

 plantations in the island of Madagascar number 400000 trees, of which 230000 are on 

 the island of S te - Marie. In that island the clove-plantations cover an area of 2391 

 acres, of which 415 have been laid down by Europeans and the rest by natives. The 

 exports of cloves during the year 1911 amounted to 288237 lbs., of the value of € 10000. 



According to A. Chevalier 2 ) the clove-tree is now fairly widely distributed through- 

 out the French Congo, although there is no question of any cultivation of cloves in 



x ) Pharmaceutical Journ. 89 (1912), 571. — 2 ) Compt. rend. 155 (1912), 1091. 



