134 //o2£^ io Pay for I he War 



the public good, and the land and the individual that fails 

 to do so will have to receive attention, and be levelled up 

 to the required standard or otherwise dealt with. All 

 ranks, colours and creeds within the Empire must be 

 treated in the same way — English duke, Indian prince, or 

 African chief owning or holding sway over vast areas of 

 land. And a similar treatment must be meted out to the 

 workmen and workwomen in this country, the ryots in 

 India or the native labourers in Africa, the West Indies 

 and the South Sea Islands. Each and all, if they wish to 

 continue to enjoy their independence and freedom from 

 the iron heel of bureaucratic and arisocratic thraldom 

 which the subjects of some of the European powers have 

 to put up with, must in future agree to put forth a larger 

 percentage of that which they produce (food-crops, manu- 

 factured goods, machinery, structural works, «&c.) than 

 they have done in the past. We must tune up our own 

 standard of national efficiency to Germany's concert pitch, 

 for if we do not do so we shall not be able to maintain our 

 supremacy either in the world of politics or of commerce; 

 and one of the first industries needing attention is the 

 production of sugar within the Empire and especially in 

 India. 



As I state on p. 37 of " The High Price of Sugar,"' it is 

 not too much to ask India, if She stops or restricts the 

 emigration of her surplus population, to rouse herself and 

 produce far more sugar in future in order to make up the 

 deficiency elsewhere that the absence of her labourers may 

 bring about. 



Even India, in spite of her (so-called) surplus millions, 

 which are, or rather v/hich would be, no surplus if her 

 economic resources were more fully developed, must go 

 in for a more intensive system of cultivation, in order to 

 cheapen costs and to increase the output per man and per 

 acre. In transport alone the saving would be consider- 

 able, as even Cuba, the home of huge areas, is beginning 

 to find out. Everyone can understand also that it would 

 take fewer men and implements, and less time and culti- 

 vation (hence less money) to produce three tons of sugar, 

 and dry sugar — not semi-molasses — to the acre instead of 

 one ton or less as at present. Better cultivation and in- 

 creased supplies of manure will help here, and if the 

 ryots cannot afford to adopt such improvements, local 

 committees or authorities ought to be formed to see that 

 they are financed at a fair rate of interest, and, when the 

 crop is sold, that they receive promptly and in full, the 



