194 AGRICULTURE IN THE TROPICS [FT. Ill 



extension and improvement of old ones, the improvement of 

 methods of cultivation and of preparation of produce, greater 

 economy and efficiency all round, and greater stability of 

 agricultural industries and freedom from epidemic diseases or 

 other crises becomes possible, and we have to consider how 

 best to further it. Both estate and peasant agriculture should 

 be fostered, the former especially in a thinly peopled country 

 as its extension helps to open up and populate the country 

 very much more rapidly. The needs of both these forms of 

 agriculture are very similar, or at least can be fairly well 

 harmonised. The country must be made as attractive to the 

 agricultural capitalist and to the labourer and peasant as is 

 possible. To do this the first great essentials are the settlement 

 of the questions of land and its availability (i.e., roads, drainage, 

 etc.), finance, and labour for large estates. Without assurance 

 of satisfactory treatment of these points, capital will go else- 

 where for investment, unless there is some industry so attractive 

 as to overcome even these disadvantages. The questions of 

 easy acquisition of land, road frontage, drainage, canals, etc., 

 are of equal importance to both forms of agriculture, and finance 

 is also vital. Large capitalist enterprises may well be left to 

 attend to this matter themselves, but some system of cheaply 

 financing small enterprises, and thus helping the villagers to 

 escape the burden of heavy debt and high rates of interest, 

 preferably by mutual cooperation, should receive early con- 

 sideration in every tropical country. 



To raise the standard of agriculture throughout the country 

 we must also raise the standard of living; these two are in 

 intimate relation to one another. The villager will not grow 

 larger or better crops, or improve his agriculture unless he has 

 an immediate local market, sufficiently remunerative to tempt 

 him to grow for it, and sufficiently certain and permanent to 

 give him reasonable security against future loss. One important 

 factor in attaining these various ends we have seen to be the 

 intermingling of village and estate agriculture in suitable 

 blocks, one block comprising the one form only, the next the 

 other. Combined with this practice, which will give the villager 

 object lessons in his own district, is the principle that the 



