SOME IMPERIAL ASPECTS OF HEALTH IN THE TROPICS

We have traced the relations of Europe with the tropics through three stages,—a period of plunder, a period of trade, and a period of occupation. The period of occupation has revealed unexpected sources of wealth. There was a good deal of romance in the influences that inspired the adventurers of the earlier periods, but there is nothing of romance in the solid substances that have of late excited the cupidity of nations and engaged all the Great Powers in conflict for a share of the tropical regions of the earth. With the economic uses of the tropics I deal elsewhere, but in proportion as the experience of occupation has enabled us to realise them, it has compelled us also to realise the extent to which the agencies of beneficial occupation,—industry, commerce, military and naval defence, and good government—are dependent on the preservation of health against tropical diseases.

All industrial enterprises depend upon an adequate and regular supply of manual labour. In the tropics the supply is controlled by three material facts. First, the most profitable lands,—for instance, the lands most appropriate to the cultivation of sugar and cotton—are largely found in malarial areas with no efficient labour-supply. Secondly, and consequently, with the exception of India where there is a pressure of population, we have no tropical possessions of any commercial importance in which the elementary operations of industry are not carried out by imported labour.