Develop India 133 



India. " If the price of cocoa ever fell, to ati unremunera- 

 tive level," His Excellency pointed out, " the Gold Coast 

 is almost certain to be still able to go on selling at a profit, 

 whilst other centres have already well exceeded the border 

 line of cost price,' ... for cocoa is capable of being 

 produced in the Gold Coast at a phenomenally cheap price, 

 and were a slump in the market to occur, the farmers in 

 this colony and in Ashanti could still sell their produce at 

 a profit long after the rates have fallen so low, that 

 practically every other cocoa-growing country had been 

 reduced to disposing of its crop at a loss. 



" On the other hand," His Excellency went on 10 say, 

 " there is no blinking the fact that the cocoa gardens of 

 this colony are cultivated in a more slovenly and perfunc- 

 tory manner than any areas of approximately similar 

 value in the West Indies or the Eastern Crown Colonies. 

 In the opinion of my technical advisers it is all too 

 probable that the farmers of the Gold Coast and Ashanti 

 will, sooner or later, have to buy their experience at a 

 heavy price through the failure of their crops, brought 

 about by the persistent neglect of elementary agricultural 

 principles." 



Every word of this should be read and digested by the 

 sugar-cane growers in India, for there is much in common 

 between the slip-shod ways and old-fashioned methods in 

 which the production of sugar-cane is carried on in India, 

 and the cultivation of cacao on the West Coast of Africa. 

 Both countries and industries must modernize their methods 

 and organize their industries, the one in connection with 

 cacao and the other with sugar. Until they do so, they 

 cannot expect to enjoy the goodwill or confidence of their 

 fellow-men, because they are not justifying their existence 

 as useful members of the Empire by making the most of 

 their chances. The Empire to-day cannot afford to have 

 millstones hung round its neck in the shape of large 

 masses of inefficient and half-fed people who have not, 

 apparently so far, been able to raise the level of their own 

 comfort or their share of the national wealth as high as it 

 should be. 



As I am urging elsewhere, in my own paper Tropical 

 Life, the time has come when it is necessary for the 

 Empire as a whole to see that every acre of land and each 

 unit of the population on that land contributes, year by 

 year, its full quota of money, food, raw materials, &c., for 



' See Tropical Life for December. 1916, p. 198. 



