146 AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS [PT. Ill 



roads are likely to be poorly kept, public works, in the way of 

 bridges, buildings or improvements, will be difficult to secure, 

 and the governmental administration will have to come down 

 to a similarly low level. Such conditions remind me of those 

 prevailing at Tortola, where, while there is practically no poverty, 

 life is on a low level, and progress is slow or absent; 



"A district so constituted is liable to rapid fluctuation in 

 its prosperity. A drought means starvation and distress from 

 want of resources; propitious seasons as quickly restore the 

 small measure of prosperity. 



" With a peasant proprietary body, the exports of a com- 

 munity will be small ; the individuals will be chiefly engaged 

 in raising food, and in producing a limited quantity of articles 

 for export, in order to supply the small amount of clothing, 

 and the tools and implements which must be imported. Should 

 the tendency be towards extensive exports, the peasant-pro- 

 prietary system, by acquisition of property, will pass into the 

 estate system." 



The white races of Europe and America at present control 

 the tropics, and they must and will have the products of the 

 latter in large quantities. This is evident from a glance at 

 the list of tropical cultivations described in this book. They 

 include rice, tea, cocoa, coffee, coconuts, sugar, pepper, cinnamon, 

 tapioca, many fruits, sago, tobacco, quinine, indiarubber, and 

 many products of less importance. The white powers cannot 

 and will not allow the largest and perhaps the richest areas of 

 the world to be wasted by being entirely devoted to the supply 

 of their own native population, when they are capable of both 

 feeding a large population of their own, and supplying the 

 wants of the colder zones in many foodstuffs, fibres, oils, timbers, 

 and other useful products, otherwise unattainable. 



The white races govern the tropics on the ground that the 

 native is unfitted to govern himself in a way suitable to the 

 general political state of the world, and the same consideration 

 applies with equal force to agriculture. Native agriculture, far 

 from being efficient or perfect, is on the contrary very backward 

 in many respects, and must be improved. Even in the industry 

 which of all others should be best understood and practised by 



