THE LABOUR PROBLEM 
113 
it is because he needs money for some particular object ; 
he wishes to buy a wife, or his wife, or his wives, want 
some fine dress material, or sugar, or tobacco ; he 
himself wants a new axe, or hankers after rum or cheap 
spirits, or would like to wear boots and a suit of khaki. 
There are, then, various needs differing in number 
with the individual, but all lying outside the regular 
struggle for existence, which bring the child of nature to 
hire himself out for work. If he has no definite object in 
view for which to earn money he stays in his village. If 
he is at work anywhere and finds that he has earned 
enough to supply his heart’s desires, he has no reason 
for troubling himself any further, and he returns to his 
village, where he can always find board and lodging. 
The negro, then, is not idle, but he is a free man ; 
hence he is always a casual worker, with whose labour 
no regular industry can be carried on. This is what the 
missionary finds to be the case on the mission station 
and in his own house on a small scale, and the planter 
or merchant on a large one. When my cook has 
accumulated money enough to let him gratify the wishes 
of his wife and his mother-in-law, he goes off without 
any consideration of whether we stiU want his services 
or not. The plantation owner is left in the lurch by his 
labourers just at the critical time when he must wage 
war on the insects that damage the cocoa plant. Just 
when there comes from Europe message after message 
about timber, the timber merchant cannot find a soul 
to go and fell it, because the village happens at the 
moment to be out on a fishing expedition, or is laying 
out a new banana plot. So we are all filled with 
righteous indignation at the lazy negroes, though the 
real reason why we cannot get them is that they have 
?,F. 
I 
