and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society.— October, 1912. 339 



sition, but the particular prospectus wo have in 

 mind contained names which would have been 

 absolutely worthless to the comoany promoter 

 unless much had been made of the fact that the 

 persons who bore them had been in public ser- 

 vice. To our minds, however, the chief import- 

 ance of the warning lies in the exposition which 

 it gives of the policy of the Government. That 

 policy is to protect the small bolder against 

 himself. By far the greater part of the coconut 

 trees in bearing are in small groups owned by a lew 

 Malays or Chinese. To these people the acre or two 

 represents a permanent income sufficient to 

 keep them in comparative comfort, contented 

 and, broadly speaking, prosperous. The majo- 

 rity of these people are simple and illiterate, 

 and no particular genius would be necessary to 

 induce them to part with their holdings for 

 hard cash. They are not accustomed to the 

 possession of more than a few dollars, and in 

 nine cases out of ten money got for a plantation 

 which keeps a family in permanent comfort 

 would soon be squandered and the people would 

 be beggars. Tlie concession hunter is not a 

 philanthropist usually ; in fact, he is rather the 

 reverse, and it would be sheer brutality to leave 

 the whole body of small holders at his mercy. 

 In countries far more advanced than Malaya it 

 is found expedient to save the lower classes 

 from themselves. In many parts of India de- 

 plorable results have followed the policy of 

 laissez faire. Tens of thonsands of ryots have 

 become the bond slaves of unscrupulous money- 

 lenders, because the Government gave these 

 Shylocks the benefit of legal support and made 

 little or no attempt to save the peasant from 

 their clutches. Few lower class Asiatics — few 

 indeed of the lower classes in any part of the 

 world — can resist temptations to secure a pre- 

 sent advantage at the price of future embar- 

 rassment. They are like children, and the only 

 Government that is of real service to them is 

 one which does not shrink from being paternal, 

 and which brushes aside nonsensical and inap- 

 plicable arguments about th a liberty of the in- 

 dividual. We do not allow our children to 

 destroy themselves by foolish indulgences. We 

 coerce them for their own good. 



If any considerable attempt is made to buy out 

 the small plantation-holders, and if the law is 

 insufficient to enable the Government to act 

 paternally, we hope that a new law will be pas- 

 sed. Such a measure would not be in restraint 

 of trade. A coconut tree grows quite as well, 

 possibly even better in the vicinity of a native 

 hut than it would do in a company owned plan- 

 tation. It does not need the same degree of 

 skilled attention as the rubber, tree. Coconuts 

 are a perfectly sound form of investment, and 

 there is ample land available which can be leased 

 on very moderate terms, by anyone who applies 

 for it. But that does not suit the company pro- 

 moter. He wants to buy a few acres of trees in 

 bearing, to take up a thousand or two acres of 

 jungle at a cost of about $5 per acre and to palm off 

 the lot upon the British public at fiveor six times 

 what he has spent upon it. If he can get a few 

 needy public service pensioners, or one or two 

 grey-headed money grubbers with titles to join 

 him in his conspiracy the promoter feela that he 



is doing well. But we have quite onough watered 

 capital in Malaya as it is, and desire no more. 

 True, there are plenty of men who will damn the 

 Government up hill and down dale for its inter- 

 ference. They are the people who would get 

 jackal-pickings w hen the lions of finance were 

 gorging themselves on swindling promotions. 

 The Government can hear their damns with 

 equanimity. It is not on bursts of activity for a 

 few months that the financial stability of 

 a state can be founded, but upon the honest in- 

 vestment of capital in solid business which has a 

 fair chance of returning good profits Any com- 

 pany which gets a real expert to select suitable 

 land, which buys that land direct from the Gov- 

 ernment for its shareholders, and which plants 

 coconuts under an efficient and honest manager 

 will in due time have a most valuable property, 

 aud be able to pay a high rate of interest. There 

 are difficulties, no doubt, the greatest being the 

 fact that coconut trees take about ten years to 

 raaturo, and seldom yield more than thirty to 

 40 nuts each per season until they are at least 

 seven years old. On the other hand, knowledge 

 of coconut cultivation is much more complete 

 than knowledge of rubber trees, the yield is more 

 regular, the organisation of labour more easy, 

 and the expenditure on cultivation less. To 

 people who are in a position to wait for a return 

 on their money, it is as sound an investment as 

 can be named. But there is not going to be a 

 copra boom like unto the boom in rubber, and 

 there is no room for reckless speculation or for 

 swindling. A coconut proposition has got to 

 start and work right through on what we have 

 described in another connection as " natural 

 capital," and we shall do our utmost to thwart 

 any attempts that may be made to embarrass 

 the future of Malaya by persons whose moral 

 code is summed up in " beggar my neighbour." 

 —Straits Times, September 9. 



COLOSSAL BANANA FAILURE. 



Dangers of Optimism, 

 In 1907 the cocoa plantations of Surinam, in 

 Dutch Guiana, we^e destroyed by a devastating 

 disease. Naturally the Dutch colonists were 

 anxious to make good their losses, and their 

 thoughts turned towards the most lucrative of 

 all fruits — the banana. Just about that time the 

 banana trade boom began in England, and far- 

 seeing folk were convinced it had come to stay. 

 Nor were they wrong in their estimates. Ever 

 since then growers and shippers of bananas have 

 prospered to an extent that arouses the envy of 

 many trading communities. 



Stimulated by the example of the Cauary 

 Islanders who grew bananas when the cochineal 

 industry was no longer remunerative, the in- 

 habitants of Surinam thought they could not do 

 better than follow suit. Landowners approached 

 the Dutch Colonial Government for assistance, 

 and were granted money wherewith to begin the 

 cult of bananas. Large suras were advanced to 

 put the enterprise on a sound basis, and athree- 

 sided contract was entered into. Tho Colonial 

 Government of Surinam provided money, the 

 Dutch West India Mail Company ordered four 



