The remaining tropical colonies of Great Britain--using the term "tropical colony" in its strictest sense--are the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Hongkong, St. Helena, British Honduras, Grenada, St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Antigua, St. Kitts-Nevis, Dominica, Montserrat, and a few islands in the Pacific which are insignificant commercially. A careful examination of the British trade returns shows that the total export and import trade between the United Kingdom and all the British tropical colonies in 1896 reached a value of $146,000,000, and that of this sum $121,000,000 represented trade with the tropical colonies which employ imported contract labor and with Lagos and Barbados. In other words, the trade between the United Kingdom and those British tropical colonies where free labor is used and where there is no great pressure of population made up less than eighteen per cent of the total trade with the British tropical colonies. It would appear from the facts I have given that the commercial development of those parts of the tropics where the population is sparse will be dependent on the importation of labor from more densely peopled areas. If the question is approached from an entirely different standpoint the necessity of contract labor in the tropics becomes more strikingly apparent. The development of the tropics will be in the direction of agriculture rather than manufacturing, and the requirements of tropical agriculture in respect of labor are most arbitrary. It is not sufficient that the labor supply is ample, in the ordinary sense of the word; it must be at all times immediately available. Thus, a mine owner whose men go out on strike is, briefly, placed in this position: He will lose a sum of money somewhat larger than the amount of profit he could have made during the period of the strike had it not occurred. His coal, however, is still there, and is not less valuable--indeed, in the case of a prolonged strike, may actually be more valuable--when the strike is over; work can easily be resumed where it was dropped, and during the idle days the ordinary running expenses of the mine cease. The greater part of the loss sustained in the instance I have supposed is not out-of-pocket loss, but merely the failure to realize prospective profits.