ABSTRACT
It may not be amiss to say that it has now been shown that-
(1) cotton is, by far, the leading cash crop of the Sudan ;
(2) an impossible climate, labour difficulties, and transportation problems make it improbable that the province of Kordofan can produce a large quantity of “ raingrown ” cotton ;
(3) the area of the Tokar and Kassala districts, where “ flood ” cotton is raised, is so small that these sections cannot supply Lancashire with anything more that an insignificant number of bales ; and
(4) the necessity of husbanding the waters of the Nile in order to safeguard Egypt’s admitted traditional and historical rights, the temperamental inability of the Sudanese to handle machinery, and the restricted area where cotton can be grown in the Sudan north of Khartum, preclude the possibility of lands watered by pumps placing on the market any considerable supply of cotton. The corollary to all this is that the one and only hope of Manchester is that the Gezira plains, where gravity irrigation is used, may prove to be so bountiful a producer of cotton that they will justify the hopes England placed in the Sudan when Parliament pledged the credit of the British tax-payer to pay the capital and interest on an aggregate indebtedness of £13,000,000 contracted by the Khartum Government.
