tropical countries, in regard to matters dependent on local effort, make it evident that wherever the white man cannot be permanently or advantageously acclimatised and wherever, therefore, the great majority of the population must always be natives, the only security for good government and for the effective development of the resources of the country consists in providing this native population with white superintendence, and with rulers and administrators who will bring to their task the knowledge derived from the experience of a higher civilisation; and, constantly changing, will be always under the influence of the standards and ideals which they have been brought up to respect. "This is the root idea of British administration in the tropics. At the same time we have abandoned forever any desire to secure tribute from these possessions, and we no longer seek any direct or exclusive advantage. "We find our profit in the increased prosperity of the people for whose interests we have made ourselves responsible, and in the development of, and access to, markets which we open at the same time to the rest of the world. Our primary obligation is to maintain peace, and safety of life and property, and equal justice for all irrespective of race or class. Subject to these conditions, we interfere as little as possible with native religions, customs, or laws; and under this system we are successfully administering the affairs of hundreds of millions of people of almost every race under the sun, with trifling cost to the British taxpayer, and with the smallest army of white soldiers of any of the powers of Europe. In India, where three hundred millions of people acknowledge the Queen as Empress, the total white garrison is only seventy thousand men; in Egypt, with a population of nine millions, the normal white garrison is thirty-five hundred men; while in Ceylon, the Straits Settlements and protected States, the West Indies, and West Africa not a single white regiment is stationed for the maintenance of our rule, which is secured entirely by coloured soldiers and police under British officers. Our experience should at least go far to satisfy the objections of those Americans who anticipate that the occupation of tropical countries would involve the retention of vast numbers of American soldiers in an unhealthy climate, and would lay an intolerable burden on the American treasury."