FUTURE OF KENYA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 18955, 4 March 1936, Page 16

FUTURE OF KENYA

BETTER PRODUCE PRICES OPTIMISM OF OFFICIAL With better prices now being obtained for coffee and sisal, Kenya is recovering from the effects of the depression, ana the future of the colony is regarded as brilliant, according to Mr. C. J. Barton, G.8.E... who served there for 21 years as a colonial official, and has now been transferred to Fiji as Colonial Secretary. Mr. Barton, wiio is visiting Auckland, described Kenya as being '"just out of the wood." The coffee market was improving, and the price of sisal was going up. 'Use future of the colony could be described as brilliant, but it was definitely no place for a man without capital. Kenya produces wheat, coffee, maize, sisal, bananas- and cotton, but there is also a flourishing dairying! industry. Mr. Barton stated that purebred Hereford and Ayrshire cattle were raised, sometimes being crossed with the native cattle. Farmers had to contend with such things as rinderpest and cattle ticks, and this necessitated frecpieut dipping and stringent regulations. The butter produced in Kenya was of quite good quality.

Referring to the Indian population of Kenya, which outnumbers the European population by two to one, Mr. Barton said the problem presented by Indian immigration was quiescent at present. He referred also to the discovery of gold in the uolony and remarked that Kenya was one of the few places where the native population had not been exploited as a result of the discovery.