TECHNICAL EDUCATION IN TROPICAL AGRICULTURE 3! 



of the West Indies in competition with Ceylon, for such 

 is, in no wise, my desire. On the contrary, if, pro tern., 

 there is to be only one college, then I agree that Ceylon 

 should have it; but what I do maintain is this and 1 

 maintain it as emphatically as I can that our welfare as a 

 trading nation, as well as on account of our Imperial 

 interests in the West, renders it quite as important and 

 perhaps more so that we should establish a college in 

 the Western Hemisphere, as it is that we should have 

 one in the East. 



Estimates as to the cost of a college, as well as of the 

 annual amount necessary for its upkeep, vary consider- 

 ably. It has, however, been estimated by the President 

 of this Congress, Professor Dunstan, that 50,000 would 

 be sufficient to establish a college in Ceylon on a secure 

 basis. To this, of course, as time goes on, other amounts 

 could be added from private sources. If it is so in the 

 East, it would certainly be so out West, where the cost 

 should not exceed that which is necessary in the East; 

 this being so, someone has to put down 100,000 sterling 

 to establish the two colleges to commence with, and 

 those who do so will get better value for their money 

 than any shareholders receive in any three of the best 

 paying rubber estates, although they have already got 

 back their capital several times over. 



There is, of course, only one source from which such a 

 sum can come, namely, the general public, who will 

 benefit by the establishment of the two colleges in every 

 possible way, both as regards the assurance of increased 

 supplies of raw materials for their factories, as well as 

 the large shipments of foodstuffs which we now draw 

 weekly and daily from the tropics, and without which the 

 bulk of the population in this country, and the rest of 

 the world generally, would find it difficult if not im- 

 possible to exist for more than a few months. The 

 importance, therefore, of scientifically training tropical 

 agricultural experts and planters is not confined to any 

 one country, but is quite international in character. 



We must agree that the Government of this country 

 will have to find the money, and in saying this we do not 

 think, when the public who are behind the Government 



