6 Hoiv to Pay for the War 



their country or whether they will expect to be paid for 

 their services. Before the public can be asked to approve 

 of the scheme we must know the whole of it and be told 

 what industries are to be dealt with, and how it is proposed 

 that those already connected with established industries 

 will be treated should the State decide to take them over 

 and develop them. 



Up to the present everything is extremely ambiguous : 

 so far as I can gather the Committee is only considering 

 large-scale proposals and therefore no one can say where 

 their influence will extend to or where it will cease, and 

 this is bound to cause great unrest and anxiety among 

 those who have already done so much to develop the 

 resources of the Empire. Every man in the Tropics is 

 fully aware of the fact that any further development of an 

 industry, or an increased output from the soil, must mean 

 an increased number of labourers engaged in that particular 

 work, and so they are wondering where all these labourers 

 are to come from. Let the Committee enlighten them on 

 this matter before they continue to receive propositions and 

 to dangle tempting methods before the eyes of the ignorant 

 British Public (ignorant so far as tropical development is 

 concerned) of how to help pay for the War out of our 

 tropical possessions by obtaining such sums as ;^50,ooo,ooo 

 a year out of palm products or 2,000,000 tons of sugar 

 from British Guiana. 



Of course, having settled the Labour difficulty, if ever it 

 be possible to do so, we then come to the question of 

 Capital, for it must be remembered that an income (that 

 is a net profit) of /'5o,ooo,ooo a year on palm products alone 

 from two centres that do not include India or Ceylon, will 

 need an enormous amount of capital to develop, and so will 

 Mr. Bigland's 2,000,000 tons of sugar which he insists can 

 be obtained from British Guiana. Such capital, of course, 

 could be obtained by the State from out of the pockets of 



