Economists in Africa hold a narrow view of their scope. Traditionally they have been almost entirely concerned with the economic relationship between Africa and the West, with the import and export trade: the colonial situation was, in a sense, all that interested them. Nowadays their interests have extended to include statistical ‘survey work’ and, of course, problems of economic development. So successfully conducted are the surveys (at least in some countries) and so well backed are they by U.N. funds, that there is a real danger of a complete identification of African economics with statistics, and already the idea seems to be spreading that it is somewhat disreputable for economists to handle material which cannot be quantified. As for ‘development economics’, this—pace E.C.A.—is indeed an under-developed subject. Only recently have economists, such as W. B. Reddaway,1 begun to doubt the appropriateness to Africa and other under-developed areas of certain western concepts and assumptions. And scarcely any economists in Africa are yet showing any awareness of the need to study the structure of the indigenous economy—except statistically.