Dcvelof' hiiiui 137 



probably maybe for party purposes, of the national wealth 

 going abroad for investment, but whatever the reason of 

 its doing so may be, the sooner these truly Little 

 Englanders and anti- Imperialists learn that the trade of 

 this country can never be properly developed if capital is 

 not sent abroad freely to be invested in real estate or 

 commercial enterprises, the better for everyone within 

 the Empire, for if we do not send our capital abroad to 

 increase our trade, other nations will send theirs. Even 

 if everyone of the rubber companies now being floated by 

 the do/en are not all they should be, with none of them 

 will the money be actually wasted. With the most 

 unsatisfactory company yet floated the money will be used 

 to some extent in opening up the Tropics and paving the 

 way for a more practical or genuine planter to come along 

 and complete its development. Every penny invested in 

 the Tropics is a penny to the good, for it forces those who 

 have given the money to take an interest in the locality 

 where the estate is located, or said to be located, and so 

 teaches the stay-at-home a little geography, which most of 

 them sadly need. If, perchance, the investor, in his hurry, 

 puts his money on the "wrong horse" and finds that 

 rubber cannot be produced in that locality, he cannot say 

 that the home Press has not warned him, and, at the 

 worst, he will have learnt a valuable lesson in economic 

 geography that he would have known long ago if he had 

 taken the real interest in the potentialities of the Tropics 

 and our colonies that every Englishman really proud of 

 his country should do. It is all very well to stop in 

 London and reap big dividends, and watch Jubilee 

 processions with troops from every nook and corner of the 

 world — civilized and uncivilized — but someone not in 

 London has had to work, and often to die of illness 

 or disease contracted to secure these splendid dividends, 

 and to develop those lands that need the native police and 

 soldiers that were sent to swell our late Queen's Jubilee, 

 over which the ordinary Londoner was, on the whole, more 

 anxious to claim the glory than his share in obtaining it 

 warranted him to be entitled to. Unless young London 

 shows itself more willing to go abroad to the Tropics, 

 where so much money is being made out of rubber, cacao, 

 and other produce, and help to increase the output, and to 

 send a larger portion to the United Kingdom, they may 

 find that the next Jubilee procession in London will lack 

 representatives from some of those centres which were 



