LBCHMBHR, 1910,] 



527 



Miscellaneous. 



carriage remains as it began, the cheap- 

 est and most easily used form of "trans- 

 port. 



To turn to transport upon laud, the 

 most primitive torm is the carriage of 

 goods upon the heads of men along 

 narrow paths winding through the forest 

 or over the plain from one village to 

 another, or to the nearest town or other 

 place where there was a market for the 

 sale of produce. One man beiug only 

 able to carry a moderate load and for a 

 moderate distance, it is evident that 

 this method will ouly open up the coun- 

 try to a very moderate degree. It is too 

 costly to open up any distant markets. 



The next stage is the use of animals 

 bearing packs of goods, driveu along the 

 paths. This method would probably 

 come in very soon after the first named, 

 and would obviously be the cheaper, 

 owing to the greater strength and endur- 

 ance of the animals, and the smaller 

 proportionate cost of feeding them. At 

 the same time the cost would not yet be 

 sufficiently reduced for distant markets 

 to be much opened up. This method is 

 still by no means uncommon in the 

 tropics, especially where proper roads 

 have not been made. 



The first step towards really modern 

 and up-to-date facilities, however, is the 

 provision of roads, for along these wheel- 

 ed vehicles, which can carry goods much 

 more cheaply and efficiently than any 

 animal, can be driven. This stage has 

 now been reached in very many tropical 

 countries, and every day the construc- 

 tion of new roads and bridges goes on 

 apace. 



Now it must be clearly recognised that 

 the construction of such roads is unneces- 

 sary if we are to have in a country only 

 the very simple type of agriculture des- 

 cribed under the expression grow-what- 

 you-want-and-cousume-wbat-you-grow. 

 Such agriculture not only does not 

 require means of transport, but is actu- 

 ally injured by them, for there is almost 

 certain to be enough of entei prise in the 

 country to take advantage of them, and 

 thus to more or less break up the aucient 

 simplicity. Not only, then, are means of 

 transport and the other preliminary fac- 

 tors required for progress, but given them 

 progress is almost certain to follow to 

 sorne extent at any rate. 



Now the roads that have so far been 

 made eveu in the most densely peopled 

 districts of the tropics are quite insuffi- 

 cient for what i3 required if there is to 

 be any great progress. To make roads 

 when the country is filled up with 

 people, and all the land occupied, is a 

 troublesome and expensive task, and we 



would again draw attention to a propo- 

 sition that we have several times put 

 forward, that the land, wherever possi- 

 ble, should at once be broken up by 

 laying out upon the maps a system of 

 rotfd reservations, as iu fact has already 

 been done in the western states of the 

 Union, and thus breaking up the country 

 into blocks of not more than about a 

 square mile each. These road reserva- 

 tions need of course only to be marked 

 upon the maps, so that the land shall 

 nob be sold, and then as the country 

 fills up the actual roads may be made, 

 and means of transport for advancing 

 agriculture will thus be provided, With 

 the advent of motor transport upon the 

 roads, such a proceeding would appear 

 yet more desirable, for however far 

 away a man's house may be, it is within 

 easy reach by means of a motor. 



The next stage, after the roads, is of 

 course railroads, which however only 

 come much later as a rule, and when 

 there is a considerable volume of pro- 

 duce demanding shipment from the 

 ports. 



The next of the great preliminary 

 factors is capital or money. In one way 

 this includes the other, for with a supply 

 of money one can very often buy trans- 

 port, labour, and land ; but this is not 

 always the case. In this discussion we 

 use the terms in a very broad and 

 general sense, A supply of food kept 

 in reserve may of course be regarded as 

 capital, or the provision of a local 

 market for produce may be looked upon 

 as makiug available capital that could 

 not otherwise have been utilised, and 

 so on. 



The possession of capital is necessary 

 for progress in most things, but perhaps 

 nowhere more so than in agriculture, 

 which without it must remain at 

 the grow-what-you- want-and-consume- 

 what-you-grow stage. Even this is found 

 iu general to require a little monetary 

 help, for there is bound to be some wait- 

 ing for crops, and the poorer villagers 

 have sunk to (if indeed they were ever 

 above) a stage of agricultural equili- 

 brium in which they cannot eveu carry 

 on such agriculture without the aid of 

 the local money lender. Either they 

 have sold him their crops at a discount 

 before they were ripe, or they have 

 borrowed money from him to tide over 

 the period of waiting. As a rule he 

 lends at 50 % interest, and this makes a 

 heavy drag upon progress in agricul- 

 ture. The ordinary peasant has all that 

 he can do to pay the interest or renew- 

 als on his debts, and cannot afford to 

 borrow money at such a rate to try 



