14 Hoiv io Pay for the War 



they first secure substantial numbers of natives from some 

 place that they alone must know of if they expect their 

 proposals ever to materialize. So far as I know the world 

 and its labour supplies I cannot understand how this Com- 

 mittee or anyone else can expect to further increase to 

 any appreciable extent within the next ten years or 

 more the output of the Empire's products on the scale 

 suggested, without causing serious inconvenience to, 

 and probably permanently crippling, established and 

 flourishing concerns already in existence. When you 

 come to an end of your supplies of labour, so far as 

 numbers are concerned, and you still want to increase your 

 output, there is only one thing left to be done and that is 

 to increase the proportion of work per labourer per day. 

 In other words, if we are to obtain fifty or even twenty-five 

 per cent, of these enormous outputs from the British 

 Tropics we shall have to force the pace and to drive the 

 native to work at such a rate that even if the present 

 generation is satisfied with* the results nothing but harm 

 will befall those who have yet to come. Possibly this is 

 what Mr. Wilson-Fox is thinking of when he tells us that 

 the realization of his ideas might be accompanied by evils 

 which his Committee has failed to take into account. If 

 this pamphlet comes before their notice, as I have no 

 doubt it will do, neither Mr. Wilson-Fox nor any member 

 of his Committee will be able to say that they have not 

 been warned to take this possible and highly probable 

 evil into account. 



On the other hand, as I show more fully in various 

 articles reproduced from Tropical Life in the latter part of 

 this book, much can be done by judiciously supporting, 

 financially and otherwise, enterprising men with energy and 

 push who prefer to " make good " in the Tropics than to 

 rust at home ; and also, by scientifically training planters 

 and agricultural experts we can insure not only that our 



