59 
Dominions; I, I take it, am appointed to speak to-day 
on behalf of the Crown Colonies, most of which, as my 
brother officers are aware, are situated in deplorably hot 
and often deplorably damp _ localities—which are 
peculiarly suitable to agricultural production. And it 
is because, in these climates, agricultural products are 
evolved in such luxuriance, that to us who are associated 
with the Crown Colonies in the tropical zone, agri- 
culture has perhaps the greatest importance of all the 
matters that come under our consideration. In the 
Colony over which I have for the time being the honour 
to preside, a very remarkable development has, as your 
President has told you, recently taken place. During 
the last vear the Gold Coast Colony has produced con- 
siderably more than one-fifth of the total cocoa crop of 
the world. But what makes this so peculiarly remark- 
able is that there is not at the present time a single cocoa 
garden from one end of the Gold Coast to the other 
which is owned or managed by Europeans; that that 
great industry and that great development has been 
from first to last in the hands of the natives themselves, 
and up io the present time thev have only received verv 
scant aid at the hands of the Government. During the 
last few vears an Agricultural Department has been 
established in the Colony, and its officers have, with the 
greatest zeal, visited all parts of the Gold Coast, and 
have personally advised the natives in the cultivation of 
their crops. But that is comparatively speaking an 
entirely new development, and in many other countries 
t think it will be found that a similar experience has 
been ordinarv. That is to say, that the planter, be he 
European or be he native, has in the first instance 
initiated the industry, and it is onlv at a long distance 
of time that the Government has come to his assistance 
with scientific aid and advice. Now that is something 
which, though it has happened in the past, we hope will 
not be repeated in the future—and it is for the purpose, 
[ take it, of marking out for ourselves a policy of devel- 
opment in agricultural knowledge and instruction that 
this great Congress has been called together to-day. 
And, if I may say so, it could hardly have met in anv 
circumstances in an institution better suited for its 
accommodation, or under a Presidency more fitting than 
