38 AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS [PT. I 



from Africa. This was for a long time a very prosperous under- 

 taking, but was terribly thrown back by the liberation of the 

 slaves, and so far as the British West Indies are concerned, has 

 never really recovered its lost ground. 



The abolition of slavery practically threw the West Indies 

 out of the competition, which was now beginning, in tropical 

 agriculture under European management, and the countries with 

 cheap labour came to the fore, more especially Ceylon, which 

 now began to develope its great coffee industry. India and Java 

 also have taken a great part in this development. 



The history of agriculture in the British colonies has practi- 

 cally been the history of the planting enterprises, whereas in 

 Java the Dutch put into operation the famous "culture system" 

 of van den Bosch, compelling the natives to give a part of their 

 land and a part of their labour to the cultivation of "export" 

 products, such as indigo, sugar, and coffee. This system 1 , which 

 is now all but extinct, had a great vogue for many years, and 

 appears to have had no small share in making Java such a nation 

 of comparatively energetic and skilful cultivators as it now is. 



Ceylon, generally speaking, has led the way in the various 

 European planting enterprises first with coffee, then with 

 cinchona, cacao, tea, cardamoms, rubber, and other things. 

 The West Indies have cultivated sugar, fruits, tobacco, and of 

 late cotton. India has had successful planting enterprises in 

 indigo, tea and coffee, Java in sugar, cinchona, spices, tobacco, 

 tea and coffee, the Sandwich Islands in sugar, West Africa in 

 cacao, South America in coffee, cacao, etc., and so on. 



This great development of European planting enterprise in 

 the more civilised and opened up countries has of course quite 

 revolutionised the primitive agriculture or rather has built 

 up a modern agriculture beside it. Though there is still 

 much of it, probably more than in primitive times, it is now 

 quite overshadowed in importance to the world at large by the 

 European enterprises, which provide the material for a large 

 export trade. Whether planting in the tropics will always 

 continue to be under European management is another question, 

 but the northern powers will not permit that the rich and as 

 1 For details, see Part III, Chapter n. 



