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were prosperous beyond theirTdreams. The oils and fats of West Africa, which used largely to go to Germany, were useful to us, and their loss was crippling to the Germans. The Falkland Islands industry of whaling was stimulated for war purposes, and they benefited thereby. Moreover, during the war, when human passions were at such a volcanic pitch, we were happily spared the cataclysms of nature. The hurricanes, earthquakes, droughts, which from time to time ruin the economic margin on which some of the Colonies exist, were happily absent, and it almost looked as if Nature were holding her hand to leave the field entirely free for the devastating activities of man. Present Depression. But the creeping paralysis of depression has spread to almost all the colonial industries which flourished during the war. The tin on which Malaya depends so much cannot now obtain a price which covers the cost of production. Nigerian tin is in the same position. The price of rubber does not cover the cost of production. We have been approached with pressure to enforce schemes of a compulsory limitation of output, but we have not felt able to accept such schemes. From almost every one of the Colonies complaints are corning in that its principal products cannot now be sold at a profit. Even the sugar Colonies, principally Jamaica and British Guiana, are in difficulty about the disposal of their crop. The cotton crops of Uganda and Nyasaland have suffered very heavily from the fall in prices, and the same would have been true of West Africa but for the broadminded action of the British Cotton-growing Association, which, rather than discourage the native producer by a sudden overthrow in the price at which he has been led to hope to produce, have been purchasing cotton at a price which involves a loss to that association of £400,000 or £500,000 in the present year. We are told that this period of depression is only a temporary phase. Ido not know how far that is true. The decline in the consuming-power of the world, which is making its effect felt on the highly organized industries of Britain and, I have no doubt, of the Dominions, is by repercussion producing a similar result upon the raw materials which are produced by our tropical Dependencies, and practically every one of the Budgets of these Colonies and Protectorates is going through a period of extreme financial difficulty and even crisis. The violent fluctuations in the value of money and the changes which affect the greatest States operate with far more direct and unshielded force upon those smaller organizations, and therefore, as far as the immediate situation of the present is concerned, we are passing through a stormy period in the economic and commercial life of practically all the Colonies. But if one leaves the immediate difficulties and turns to their great and undoubted wealth and potential capabilities, one cannot help feeling how magnificent is the asset which the British Empire possesses, and of which, pending the development of more responsible and representative forms of government in these Colonies, we in Great Britain and at the Colonial Office are the trustees. Future Development. My submission to the Conference is that we must not lose heart in any way about these splendid tropical possessions which we have, but endeavour to secure credit and money for them to give them that essential technical apparatus they require to develop their great resources. In them you find every conceivable product that the world knows of, and every contributing factor even to the most highly organized superfine forms of industry. Nothing is lacking; and now that we see the American exchange is largely turned against us, and we have such great payments to make to them, we ought really more and more to turn our attention to trying to develop these wonderful hothouses, these great tropical gardens and plantations, so as to be able to purchase as far as possible the raw products that we want from them. How can any money invested in these places go out from the Dominions,, or from the Mother-country ? It can only go out in the shape of the products of labour. How can it return —in capital or interest or in profit ? It can only come back in these raw materials which we especially and particularly need, and which may some day make us independent in the most remarkable way of many foreign lands.