INTRODUCTORY 5

under the direction of intelligence as acute as any

intelligence of the West, prepare to enter into com-

petition with white labour in the industrial markets of the world. 1 ^

That Japan, which has now established its military and naval ascendancy on the shores of the Pacific, will proceed to the fuller development of its industrial re-

sources, is scarcely doubtful. The labour of China is under its hand. We have therefore an additional reason

to take stock of our imperial and of our industrial position. We have within our Empire a body of coloured labour greater than any which Japan can at present command.

There is nothing to prevent us from attracting by immi-

gration as much more as we please. But in order to use our own, or to attract more with profit to the Empire, we must face the whole question of tropical administra-

tion. We must study with an open mind the thorny questions of native labour. We must prepare and make known those parts of hitherto undeveloped colonies to which it may be considered desirable to attract labour. We must introduce systems of transport by means of which not only the fruits of labour but labour itself may be able to circulate within the Empire. We must, no doubt, in many instances recast our local labour laws. We must frankly recognise the fact that labour is the foundation upon which development rests.

We may at the same time have the satisfaction, even

in our earliest beginnings, of knowing that the develop-

ment of the tropical colonies, if we undertake it seriously, will not end with industrial development. There are 1/ many sides to the history of nations, and in the attempt

to introduce order and industry into the at present un-

civilised areas of many of our tropical possessions, we shall no doubt meet with innate powers unsuspected now, that in more favourable conditions may blossom into life.

Our fathers, by a self-denying ordinance, did what they could to set the subject populations free. It was nobly