This difference is well brought out by Mr Meredith Townsend in an essay on the charm of Asia for the Asiatics[111]; and he is speaking not of Asia in general but of Southern Asia. He says Asiatics “will not, under any provocation, burden themselves with a sustained habit of taking trouble. You might as well ask lazzaroni to behave like Prussian officials.” After quoting Thiers’ description of the immense labours of detailed administration which he supported while minister of State, he says “No Asiatic will do that.... One half the weakness of every Oriental government arises from the impossibility of finding men who will act as M. Thiers did.” These races, bred in the tropics, are in fact incurable lotus-eaters, their chief desire is for the afternoon life or, as is commonly said of the Malays throughout the Eastern Archipelago, they are great leg-swingers, they prefer to undertake no labour more arduous than sitting still swinging their legs. All this, though more or less true of the tropical races in general, is pre-eminently true of those inhabiting regions which are moist as well as hot, the Malays, the Burmese, the Siamese, the Papuans, the Negroes of the African jungle regions. Such peoples have failed to acquire the energy which leads men to delight in activity for its own sake, not merely because a hot moist climate inclines directly to indolence, but rather because the prime necessities of life are to be had almost without labour; the heat dispenses with the necessity for clothing and shelter, while the hot sun and the moisture provide an abundance of vegetable food in response to a minimum of labour. Hence, no man perishes through lack of energy to secure the prime necessities of life; and there has been no great weeding out of the indolent by severe conditions of life, such as alone can produce an innately energetic race, one that loves activity for its own sake. For the same reason these same peoples also exercise but little foresight, they are naturally improvident; the abundance of nature renders it possible to survive and propagate without any prudent provision for the future.