AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS IN THE TROPICS 223 



always be kept in mind that the small man does not grow 

 enough of anything to be worth sale in a large market, and that 

 only by the aid of co-operation, of middlemen, or of an estate 

 factory can enough produce be got together. Once the large 

 market is open, of course the prices tend to be more constant 

 than in the market of a single village or small district. 



In these and other ways, then, the great problem of 

 supplying the villager with available capital may be attacked. 

 The tropical peasantry being in general simple and ignorant 

 folk, must be protected from the rapacity of the markets as 

 much as possible ; this is probably best done by the en- 

 couragement of the tendency to socialism which exists among 

 them and shows itself, for instance, in the joint villages so 

 common in some countries. To expose the peasant to the 

 exactions of the moneylender and the chances of a fluctuating 

 market, as is so commonly the case at present, is to prevent 

 him from making progress. His best chance is through co- 

 operative work, but he is not as yet sufficiently intelligent 

 to be able to make proper use of this without guidance ; con- 

 sequently the government will have to help him, and to do 

 so without demoralising him — a somewhat difficult problem. 

 In general, the government may help by aiding in the establish- 

 ment of local markets, in the various ways we have considered 

 above, and by making loans on good security to allow of the 

 proper establishment of credit societies. 



This almost total lack of capital is the greatest existing 

 stumbling-block to the advancement of tropical agriculture. It 

 cannot be too strongly insisted upon that if agriculture is to 

 progress among all the people of the tropics and not only 

 among the capitalist agriculturists, then the matter must 

 be handled in a logical manner and this important question 

 of the supply of capital thoroughly dealt with. Until this has 

 been done, the scientific improvement of crops, of cattle, of 

 tools and of methods can have no effect. 



Transport. — Finance and transportation, said a President of 

 the United States, are the keynotes of progress ; of nothing 

 is this more true than in reference to agriculture and more 

 particularly to that of the tropics. A British Viceroy once 

 said that the first principle of civilisation was roads, the second 

 roads, and the third more roads. This expresses part of the 

 same thought, and also one of the guiding principles of British 



