Our PEASANT POPULATION. 289 
congenial society. He likes to live in a healthy place 
and delights in seeing his family sleek and well. The 
paradise for coolies seems to be parts of the Corentyne 
Coast, There they find everything that they desire to 
make life happy, and the time they devote to rice culti- | 
vation is to them recreation for their spare hours. They. 
pay no wages, and if they were not busy with their rice | 
they would only be idling. Rice growing to them is 
in a way what cricket or bicycling is to us. The grow- 
ing of rice has been the occupation of the coolie for 
thousands of years, and if the principles of heredity are 
at all corre& the coolie will take to rice growing as 
naturally as a setter will take to setting. The black) 
2 
man is quite different. Although the coolie is so penurious } ‘ \ 
yet the black man is fonder of money than the coolie, \ 
: 
; 
iss 
with this great difference, the black man likes money for 
what it will bring ; he likes to spend it, whereas the coolie 
likes money for itself, he lrkes to hoard it; the black man 
likes to earn a lot and spend a lot, the coolie is content / 
to earn a little and spend less. If rice growing ever; | y 
becomes a big ARONA aun there is no reason why it 
hands of thé coolie. 
We must also consider coffee and cocoa, but these are 
scarcely applicable to our coast lands; they take many 
years before they yield anything, and, I am told, that 
if this cultivation were attempted on the coasts, a breakage 
of the draining engine or any accident that might put 
the cultivation for 48 or more hours under water would 
result in the loss of several years’ labour. Dr. MORRIS 
pointed out that when our population spreads from the 
coast to the interior they will probably find a great variety 
ho 
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