ABSTRACT
In conditions in which official action impinges upon economic life closely at many points, administrative outlook and beliefs affect the trading situation substantially. In West Africa they condition the readiness with which administrators are prepared to accede to or to resist specific demands or suggestions made by trading interests or by African opinion. They can to a certain extent be regarded as independent causal influences in that they tend, consciously or unconsciously, to encourage or to discourage particular demands; vague and general discontent becomes crystallized in the course of interpretation by administrators into specific, and possibly quite different, ideas. Conversely, isolated personal grievances or complaints may be transformed in the course of administrative interpretation into generalized beliefs, and so produce generalized attitudes towards proposals for action and reform.
