8 How to Pay Jor the ll^nr 



definitel}' — and it must be definitely — not on the ambiguous 

 terms hitherto used — what other tropical interests besides 

 vegetable oils, sugar and fibres, the Committee or the 

 Board yet to be nominated, mean to develop, and to let us 

 know at the same time exactly how they are to secure the 

 labour, &c., necessary to obtain the produce with which 

 they mean to deal. 



As I have already stated elsewhere {Tropical Life, May, 

 1917, p. 73), " I understand that it is proposed that a 

 beginning should be made by establishing monopolies of 

 vegetable oil products such as oil palms, coconut palms, 

 and other oil-bearing trees, and presumably later on, to 

 include cacao beans. Do such concerns, I would ask, grow 

 on gooseberry bushes, or can they be produced in the 

 Tropics without much risk ? Can the right, therefore, 

 to exploit or, if the Committee finds that term too harsh, 

 to develop these industries be granted by the State to any 

 board or committee without confiscation or, in plainer 

 English, without committing an action which morally, if 

 not legally, amounts to pure robbery." 



If industries already established are not to be taken 

 over, I do not understand where these enormous quantities 

 of trade products are to come from, for surely we are not 

 expected to wait until the trees have been planted and 

 the crops come to maturity, before starting forth to help 

 pay for the War. I may be wrong to think so, but taking 



deplored by every Imperialist, Mr. Bigland had to take his place. It 

 could well be claimed, therefore, that the Committee had arrant^ed for 

 three prominent members to lay their views before the public. Mean- 

 while it is to be hoped that Lord Selborne will be induced before long to 

 let us know his views ; it should not be difficult for him to do so, since it 

 could well be claimed that Mr. Bonar Law gave him the lead when he 

 spoke in the House of Commons on January 29, of increasing the revenue 

 of the country by developing the immense latent resources of the Empire. 

 See the report of his speech in the House of Commons in the Times 

 of January 30, pp. 7 and 8, showing that he made his remarks the day 

 before Mr. Bigland addressed the London Chamber of Commerce. 



