Page:Tales in Political Economy by Millicent Garrett Fawcett.djvu/19

 very pleased with his scheme; it was as clear as daylight, he thought, that it would make everybody in the island better off, and that owing to the great fertility of the land the transition from the palm to the coffee plantations could be carried out with very little difficulty.

A time was appointed for him to explain his plan to the council of the chiefs. They listened to him patiently till he came to the part where he tried to make it clear that in two years the palm plantations might be entirely abandoned; and then they rose in great wrath, and shouted him down. A comparative calm followed in a few minutes, when the old chief, to whom he had first broached the subject, rose and said: "Your scheme would ruin us; the palm plantations are our own property; you propose to us that they should be abandoned, and that we should submit to ruin and degradation. Leave our calm and peaceful island for ever: it was an evil day that ever you set foot in it."

Captain Adam blamed himself very much for not having found out that the palm planta-