The missionaries are allowed to trade to eke out the very small salaries granted them from Europe, and of course are obliged to carry out the trade principle of buying cheap and selling dear, in order to make a profit.

Like all savages the natives are quite careless of the future, and when their small rice crops are gathered they bring a large portion of it to the missionaries, and sell it for knives, beads, axes, tobacco, or any other articles they may require.

A few months later, in the wet season, when food is scarce, they come to buy it back again, and give in exchange tortoiseshell, tripang, wild nutmegs, or other produce.
Of course the rice is sold at a much higher rate than it was bought, as is perfectly fair and just--and the operation is on the whole thoroughly beneficial to the natives, who would otherwise consume and waste their food when it was abundant, and then starve--yet I cannot imagine that the natives see it in this light.

They must look upon the trading missionaries with some suspicion, and cannot feel so sure of their teachings being disinterested, as would be the case if they acted like the Jesuits in Singapore.

The first thing to be done by the missionary in attempting to improve savages, is to convince them by his actions that lie comes among them for their benefit only, and not for any private ends of his own.