10 Hozv to Pay for the War 



speeding up the present producers. To do so would cause 

 trouble with the natives, and if we start that then, far from 

 increasing our production, we shall obtain smaller outputs 

 and encourage serious race trouble as well. This is a little 

 point that the Labour organizer already referred to would 

 be wise to digest, for on the two occasions that I have 

 heard him speak in support of the Committee's scheme 

 he has asked us to adopt the propositions put forward^ 

 because if we do not do so there will be trouble with the 

 " lads " when they come back from the War, since they 

 do not mean to pay for the War as well as to fight in it. 

 Perhaps a speaker at the London Chamber of Commerce 

 was not far out when he said that there probably will be 

 trouble when the men come back from the War, but that 

 it will be between the men and their trade organizers and 

 strike leaders before anyone else. In any case, the people 

 of this country, if they trouble to read the foreign papers, 

 know perfectly well that revolt and riot are not the exclu- 

 sive property of the white race, and if from want of tact 

 and judgment they cause the coloured people to revolt as 

 Germany did, the cost of doing so is increased twofold to 

 us, because we first have to quell the trouble and then 

 have to go without the help of those who have been help- 

 ing us to collect the tropical produce that we cannot do 

 without, through their having been killed or driven away 

 during the riots. If the British workman is a valuable 

 asset to the Empire, those who imagine that the natives 

 abroad are not equally useful are making the mistake of 

 their lives. For this reason, if the whole scheme so far as 

 the Tropics are concerned is to be based on the propor- 

 tion of an income of ;^50, 000,000 per annum from palm 

 products from Africa and tlie Pacific alone, then I would 

 claim that the whole idea, if it is to be of any use in help- 

 ing to pay for the War within the time of the present 

 generation, far from being a fairy tale, will become a 



