CH. Ill] POPULATION AND LABOUR 15 



learnt at home to work comparatively hard, are as a rule ready 

 to do a fair amount of hard work, whereas the actual inhabitants 

 of thinly or insufficiently peopled countries are as a rule very 

 "lazy," nature being so bountiful to them that they do not 

 need to work hard to make a living. It is but comparatively 

 rarely that one finds an individual that has ambition to "better 

 himself," and willingness to work hard for that end. It 

 therefore follows that in thinly inhabited countries it is 

 necessary to import labour if any serious work is to be done, 

 especially by white men, or if any agricultural progress is to be 

 made. Thus Ceylon 1 and the Federated Malay States import 

 labour, the former from India, the latter from India, China and 

 Java ; the more thinly populated West Indian islands import 

 labour from the more thickly populated islands and from India ; 

 Hawaii from Japan; southern Brazil from Italy; whereas 

 India and Java do all their own work with their own in- 

 habitants. 



Southern tropical Brazil, as explained under Climate, has 

 really a climate more comparable to that of the temperate 

 zone. White men can live with less strain on the health than 

 in tropical Asia, and even breed there. The great industry of 

 coffee, the largest exporting industry of the tropics, is mainly 

 in the hands of white or nearly white Brazilians. The labour 

 is also chiefly white, especially Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese. 



1 Ceylon (or at least S.W. Ceylon) is not thinly populated, but the Sinhalese 

 are averse to hard or regular work, which has therefore to be done by the Tamils 

 imported from South India, especially in the colder "up country" districts 

 where tea is chiefly cultivated, and in which the Sinhalese do not willingly live. 



