Notes on Agriculture, In Ethiopia

Abstract

The peasant farmer should be the backbone of the Ethiopian Army as he is of all other armies in the world. I suggest that the best means of establishing good relations between peasant and soldier in this country would be the payment in cash of a good salary to all provincial governors and sub governors: such as would enable them to pay at least a reasonable subsistence allowance (also in cash) to their followers. The money would be better spent in this way than in an expensive so-called "Agricultural Department" in the capital, whose only real activity, as far as I have been able to judge, is collecting the agricultural tithe tax.