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heirs are minors or incompetent the government should exercise its control. The money arising from inheritances accruing to incompetent Indians should be expendable only for land or for other productive purposes. The government itself, through the use of a revolving fund, should purchase the inherited land and sell it to the Indians subject to restrictions, using their accumulation of inherited funds as part or all of the purchase money. If the inherited funds are not sufficient liberal reimbursable terms should be arranged. The object sought would be two-fold, to prevent the rising generation of Indians from being landless and to stop the use of inherited money as a means of sustaining the Indians in a life of irresponsible idleness. This solution would meet the difficulty encountered when a young Indian has an inherited share in several different allotments, none of which are contiguous or large enough to give him a fair sized working area. The estates could be purchased by the government and sold to the Indians in workable units, subject to restrictions.
Per capita distributions from tribal funds to be used for ordinary living expenses should also be rigorously restricted. They should only be available for expenditure for productive purposes. They are generally the proceeds of the sale or use of capital assets and do not represent Indian earnings. The government as guardian should conserve the capital of the ward and not permit him to dissipate his capital for living expenses. Let him know definitely that he must earn his living expenses, though he can use his capital as means for increasing his earnings.
These principles in the use of capital are believed to be sound, and the Indian must be taught them. Teaching them will be one of the duties of the superintendents and their field workers in the program of increasing the economic and productive efficiency of the Indians.
The policy of individual allotment should be followed with extreme conservatism. Not accompanied by adequate instruction in the use of property, it has largely failed in the accomplishment of what was expected of it. It has resulted in much loss of land and an enormous increase in the details of administration without a compensating advance in the economic ability of the Indians. The difficult problem of inheritance is one of its results. Before more allotments are made the Service should be certain that it has the