Chapter XVII 

 Foreign Coconut Enterprise 



IF any further confirmation of the profitable 

 possibilities of the coconut industry were 

 needed, it would be promptly furnished by the 

 anxiety displayed among the financiers and mer- 

 chants of Germany and other countries to partici- 

 pate in its development. Already the coconut 

 world owes much to the work of foreign pioneers, 

 who have shown no lack of enterprise and deter- 

 mination in their endeavour ; and, as we all 

 know, Germany has of recent years on every 

 possible occasion annexed or sought to annex 

 tropical territories yielding among other products 

 coconuts. Typical of their alertness in this direction 

 was their eagerness to annex New Guinea when 

 the British Government declined to allow Australia 

 to annex that territory on the ground that " there 

 was no danger from German expansion in the 

 Pacific." 



It would be interesting to know what the states- 

 man who was responsible for that remarkable 



M 



