Page:The empire and the century.djvu/868

 thoughts would remain without result. The recommendation of individual administrators would no doubt vary widely; but there is no reason why the principle of local initiative, which has been so successful in the self-governing Colonies, should not be adapted by the white element in the Crown Colonies to produce through different channels similarly satisfactory results. What is needed is that public interest should awaken to the fact that vast territories, of which the industrial wealth has been as yet barely touched, lie waiting for development. If this could happen, the rest would surely follow. Did Lancashire believe that the cotton required to feed her looms could be produced wholly within the Empire, there would not be lacking either capital or energy to establish a cotton-planting industry in all suitable Colonies. The creation of the British Cotton-Growing Association already points to a movement in this direction. Not only questions of planting, but questions of transport, questions of labour, questions of administration, and questions of taxation—which extended administration must always carry in its train—would no longer be simply catalogued in a list of obstacles—they would be faced and dealt with. Men would not content themselves with pointing out that native cottons are usually of the wrong staple. They would introduce systems of cultivation which should produce cotton of the right staple. They would not rest with the observation that difficulties of transport raise the price of native goods above any profitable level. They would insist on the creation of systems of transport which would put an end to this artificial price. They would not feel that all was said on the thorny question of native labour when it is pointed out that food in the tropics is too cheap to induce the native to work voluntarily for his bread, and that any attempt to force him to work is slavery in disguise. The most practical minds would be set to find a solution of the labour problem, and in the organization of free labour existing generations would make a further step in the path