The granting of large entailed estates may lend a colony a semi-feudal character. But if the land system is popular, landed property will be diffused, the proceeds of labor will go to the producer and the colony will contain few persons living on incomes derived exclusively from ownership. Moreover, being more favor able to production than to consumption, the colony will draw to itself adult males from the industrial Topulation of the mother country, but will attract few members of the less active classes. Since the reward of industry is greater than in older societies, and the com munity is but little differentiated, economically or socially, manhood rather than property controls the body politic, the temper is indi vidualistic and liberty-loving and the conditions favor the germination and rootage of demo cratic ideas. Despite its social and political radicalism, the colonial society is conservative in its moral and religious ideals. Unless non economic motives have presided over the be ginnings of the colony, the pursuit of wealth is the chief interest of the settlers, and there is little room for speculative thought. The lack of cities, of intercourse and of leisure is unfavorable to the cultivation of the sciences or the fine arts. During the early life of the colony the preoccupation with private affairs leaves little margin for public life. If the mother country is wise enough to establish security without interfering vexatiously with private interests, the admimstration of affairs of general concern is turned over to it without regret. A dependence upon the richer and riper culture of the parent state may indeed cause the political connection to continue long after the colony is ready for self-government. Lands thickly peopled by non-European races, and tropical regions where the climate is such that white men will not settle there with their families, do not develop into settlement colonies. Unfit to serve as an outlet for the surplus popu lation of the temperate zone, they can be legiti mately utilized by the more advanced races only as a field for the employment of com mercial or industrial capital.
The commercial type of the investment colony is best seen in the early establishments of Portugal, Holland and England, for trade with the East Indian and African peoples. When colonial enterprise is dominated by the commercial motive, penetration of the interior of a new region is not required. Trade is con ducted from the decks of merchantmen, from hulks anchored at the mouth of streams or from fortified stations situated on the sea coast or on the banks of navigable rivers. Settle ments of traders and soldiers spring up, but there is little motive to extend political control over large inland regions. A chartered com mercial company has at first no occasion to clash with the natives. Its armament is chiefly directed against envious rivals, eager to share in its lucrative trade. Later, when in its eager ness for an exorbitant profit, it attempts to dictate to the natives or limit their production of the staples of trade, it comes to blows with them, and squanders its resources in profitless wars. The earlier commercial colony was valued as a source of tropical products, such as sugar, coffee and spices, which could be resold in Europe at a large advance. Since the advent of machine industry, however, the commercial colony is valued rather as a market for surplus manufactures.
The chief means of relieving the superabun dance of capital that threatens to lower the rate of profits in the advanced countries is the appli cation of capital in the industrial development of the more backw.ard regions. Tropical lands un
der native systems are almost invariably under exploited from the point of view of modern industry. The forest and mineral wealth is largely untouched, and even the area under in tensive native cultivation, lacking as it does the best facilities for irrigation, tillage and trans portation, produces by no means the value it might yield. Owing to ignorance, to unstable conditions or to the lack of accumulated wealth, industry is almost wholly deprived of the aid given by large applications of capital. Under these circumstances it is possible for the more civilized peoples, without in any way exploiting the native populations, without depriving them of their earnings or their patrimony, to apply capital and directive skill in such a manner as to reap a generous profit.
The example of Mexico and of certain coun tries of South America shows that backward regions may be developed by capital invested under the protection of local governments, and that no adequate reason exists for administering these countries from a distance. In other cases, however, a rapacious and unstable native rule paralyzes industry, and the utilization of natural resources is impossible until a responsible and equitable government has been instituted. It is necessary for some civilized power to suppress tribal and local warfare, to stamp out brigand age and to establish an efficient police, a right eous administration of justice and a rational system of taxation. When order and stability have thus been assured, the next step is the investment of development capital in the form of harbors, railways, highways, telegraphs, im proved natural waterways and irrigation worlcs. As the means of communication are perfected, there follows naturally the employment of capi tal in the opening of mines, the cutting of forests, the clearing and planting of estates, and, possibly, the establishment of factories. The development of a tropical region by the aid of capital from abroad requires the presence of a small body of white men in the capacity of officials, traders, planters and superintend ents, representing in the midst of the less ad vanced population the superior power and in telligence of the civilized peoples.
The extension of modern forms of agricul tural exploitation into climates where white men cannot endure heavy field-work creates special problems respecting the relations of capital and labor. Successful enterprise requires an abun dant supply of suitable and reliable labor, and this can come only from the natives or from other colored races. In the old plantation colony the problem was solved by enslaving the local population, or by kidnapping negroes from Africa. Owing partly to the racial in equality of employer and employee, and partly to the character of tropical agriculture, which cannot bear interruption, especially at harvest time, there is a strong tendency in all planting colonies to compel the specific performance of the labor contract. Under the indentured labor system in the British colonies strikes are un lawful, and refusal to work can be punished; on the other hand, the government closely super vises the terms of the labor contract, suppresses all obnoxious features and provides machinery for compelling the fulfilment of its provisions by the employer.