ii6 VII. SOCIAL PROBLEMS IN THE FOREST 
Increasing their needs does effect something, but not 
much. The child of nature becomes a steady worker 
only so far as he ceases to be free and becomes unfree, 
and this can be brought about in several ways. The 
first step to be taken is to prevent him for a certain time 
from returning to his village. Planters and forest- 
owners never, on principle, hire labourers from the 
neighbourhood, but engage for a year young men from 
strange tribes who live at a distance, and then bring 
them where they are wanted by water. The agree- 
ments are drawn up by the Government, and, like many 
other things in French colonial administration, are 
calculated to effect their object with due regard to 
humanity. At the end of each week the labourer is 
paid half, but only half, of his wages ; the rest is put 
by and is handed over to him at the end of the year 
when the white man has to send him home. He is thus 
prevented from spending his money as quickly as he 
earns it, and from going home with empty hands. 
Most of them hire themselves out in this way to get 
money enough to buy a wife. 
And what is the result ? They have to hold out for 
the year, because they cannot get back to their village, 
but very few of them are really useful workers. Many 
get homesick. Others cannot put up with the strange 
diet, for, as no fresh provisions are to be had, they must 
as a rule live chiefly on rice. Most of them fall victims 
to the taste for rum, and ulcers and diseases spread 
rapidly among them, living, as they do, a kind of 
barrack life in overcrowded huts. In spite of all 
precautions they mostly get through their pay as soon 
as the contract time is up, and return home as poor as 
they went away. 
