204 AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS [PT. IV 



As Sir Frank Swettenham has pointed out, there is at 

 times a tendency among Government officers to look askance 

 at Europeans anxious to engage in planting enterprises, as if 

 they were trying simply to exploit the country for their own 

 benefit. This is a very one-sided view of the matter. The 

 native of a thinly peopled country, if given a chance, is a 

 worse exploiter than any other, with his chena cultivation, his 

 tapioca fields, or what not. Of course the investor from abroad 

 is not there from philanthropic motives ; he hopes to " make 

 his fortune." He does not want to cut himself off from his 

 country and friends, and to risk health, life, and money in a 

 strange land and in an enervating climate for a return similar 

 to that which he could get at home. In making his own 

 fortune if indeed he ever does make it he makes prosperity 

 and wealth for many of the natives of the country, and for 

 those who have worked for him. He should receive every 

 encouragement, and all obstacles which would tend to drive 

 him to other countries, or check his success in his adopted 

 country, should as far as possible be removed. 



Every encouragement can be given to all kinds of agri- 

 culture, without causing mere exploitation of the country. The 

 more that genuine agriculture is encouraged, the less will be 

 the risk of such exploitation, and the desire to carry it on. 

 Exploitation pure and simple, be it chena cultivation, tapioca 

 cultivation on extensive areas without proper provision for con- 

 tinuous occupation and cultivation of the land, or the system 

 of moving on to new land when the old becomes weedy, so 

 popular with the natives of some thinly peopled countries, 

 should be checked with the strong hand. Misfortune, insepar- 

 able from all enterprise, may at times involve abandonment of 

 land, but no cultivation which is carried on with the deliberate 

 intention of exhausting and then abandoning the land should 

 be allowed. 



The way to make the country attractive to outside capital, 

 population, and labour, is obviously to remove the various 

 hindrances, discouragements, and disadvantages under which 

 agriculture suffers, to encourage it in every possible way, and 

 provide it with the necessary practical and technical help, and 



