66 EXPLOITATION OF PLANTS 
but where there was a great river, or the country was 
a small island, were generally sufficient. Capital was 
available, and the only obstacle to progress was the 
provision of the necessary labour (the fifth requisite 
for progress) to grow the crops, and so for a long 
-time the labour employed upon plantations owned by 
Europeans was forced labour in the form of unadulter- 
ated slavery. 
With this, real exploitation of the tropics by 
Europeans began. The first great agricultural enter- 
prise was the sugar industry of the West Indies, where 
all the necessary conditions were fulfilled in a very per- 
fect manner. Transport was easy from these small 
islands, and in the islands themselves presented but 
small difficulties ; sugar was known to grow well, and 
had a good market in Eurgpe ; land was easy to obtain ; 
capital was provided from Europe; and the labour 
problem was easily and simply solved by importing 
African slaves. Rapidly there grew up a great and 
prosperous industry. But with the abolition of slavery 
all this was thrown out of gear, and the West Indies 
sank into a state of great agricultural depression, out 
of which they are now slowly rising. 
The next great industry to rise was based upon hired 
labour, and was the coffee industry of Ceylon. Land, 
transport, and capital presented no difficulty, and labour 
was obtained from the densely populated Presidency 
of Madras, close by. The duty on coffee in England 
had just been reduced, and its consumption was in- 
creasing. By 1838 the success of the industry was 
assured, and in that year 10,000 acres of crown land 
were sold to planters, while in 1841, when the boom 
