CHAPTER V 



ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND OPPOR- 

 TUNITIES IN THE TROPICS 



WHEN the white man first began to visit tropical countries 

 for adventure or discovery or curiosity or business, he found 

 these countries in the possession of native races, mostly brown 

 and black. Tropical agriculture was originally, of course, al- 

 together in the hands of these native races. Until the organiz- 

 ing and commercial mind of the white man interfered in the 

 development of possibilities in the Tropics, practical agricul- 

 ture was to a large extent confined to the collection of wild 

 products growing naturally in abundance in the primitive 

 jungles or as the result of simple methods of cultivation in 

 small areas about native huts. 



The European explorers at once recognized the commercial 

 possibilities in tropical countries. The white man's attitude 

 toward the Tropics from the very first has been one of ex- 

 ploitation. This has involved the use of the native as a peon 

 belonging to an inferior race. In the early literature regard- 

 ing agricultural and commercial possibilities in the Tropics, 

 it is usually stated with refreshing frankne c s that the native 

 races are obviously inferior to the white race and that their 

 supposed rights to property in tropical countries must yield 

 to the superior demands of the white race. 



As rapidly as men of finance could be interested in tropical 

 development, huge corporations began to be formed involving 

 absentee landlordism in its purest and most exaggerated form 

 with practically all the stock owned in European countries. 

 It is a notorious fact that the native tropical races have usually 



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