stock sugar estate in one of the finest districts of the Colony. "We understand the villagers of Triumph are getting on very well with their sugar estate; a few days ago a black man purchased a single share, for which he paid 2,000 dollars in cash. The shareholders have ordered from England upwards of £2,000 worth of new machinery." From private sources I learn that the proprietors of this estate had paid to the Colony the amount which entitled them to a transport (or conveyance) of the property, $26,000. The number of shareholders is now, I believe, eight. Another source of supply has not been altogether overlooked. It was hoped that it might be found practicable to induce some portion of the negroes of the Southern States of the Union to emigrate to the British West Indies, and I visited Washington with that object in 1862.* Political considerations interposed to prevent the carrying the scheme out at that time; but I was strongly impressed likewise with the conviction, from such opportunities as I had of personal communication with them, that the freed slaves were by no means voluntarily disposed to quit the country of which they had the prospect of becoming citizens, by any prospect of bettering their condition elsewhere. Indeed, even the arrangements made with the sanction of the Federal Government to induce the "coloured people" to emigrate to Liberia were bitterly denounced by some of their leaders. The escaped negroes state, and in some instances in a deplorable condition; the houses in the latter cases in ruin and disrepair, and the lands attached to them undrained, uncultivated, and neglected; the back lands totally abandoned, thereby forcing the owners to lease lands on contiguous estates for the growth of their provisions. Even on those villages where there was no want of drainage, and where provisions grew luxuriantly, we found the means of internal communication most defective, and the most utter disregard for all sanitary considerations. The villages just referred to are those which, with their lands, comprise entire estates, which were bought by communities of the labouring population, varying in number from seventy to one hundred, and were subdivided by them in equal shares, some of which estates have already been, and others are in course of being legally partitioned and transported to the original shareholders or their representatives. There is another class of villages which are those situated on the front lands of estates, and were originally sold to the people by the proprietors with the view of forming a resident population on their plantations. The understanding in these cases seems to have been that the estate was to keep up the drainage and public roads passing through said villages, and the villagers themselves merely to maintain the drains leading from their lots to the main draining trenches of the estates; but from the estates themselves having in some cases changed hands, and in other cases from the course of the drainage having been altered, this understanding has not in all instances been adhered to, and the villagers have suffered in consequence."-" Report on Villages," May, 1865. *"Lord Grey urged the enlistment of free black and coloured labourers from the Southern States, which mode of supply the West India Committee of 1842 had suggested, but which was somewhat hazardous of international misunderstanding, and could only be effected by small and irregular instalments as occasion might offer."-Sir C. B. Adderley, antè, 298. who settled in Canada during the existence of slavery have also not been lost sight of; and more than one deputation has visited the West Indies to "inquire and report," but hitherto without any substantial result. These facts will, however, serve to illustrate the extent and magnitude of the chronic demand for labour in the larger part of these possessions. Co-operation in trading speculations was also largely tried, but, so far as my own information goes, with no encouraging degree of success; these endeavours are, however, not to be disregarded in any attempt to forecast the future social condition of the communities in which they have been made. Failures in the outset do not necessarily infer the impossibility of ultimate success; and the tendency of such associations to create capital from local resources, and for local purposes, may yet have considerable influence, if wisely directed and prudently managed, upon the progress of the Colonies of which we are treating. 6. Some idea may be formed of the extent of the system of village communities in British Guiana when it is stated that out of a total of 131,492, representing the rural population or peasantry, upwards of 83,000 are returned as inhabitants of villages, being an increase of upwards of 25,000 in the ten years included in the returns of the Census of 1871. Of other Colonies I do not possess sufficient information of recent date to enable me to speak with confidence. But of the villages in Antigua, upon which it was my duty to report officially some thirty years ago, we read in a local paper commenting upon the latest census, 1871, the following graphic description :-"In the majority of instances the plot of land purchased rarely exceeds forty square feet in extent, and on a portion of this a wretched hovel is erected, often containing but one room, and that unfloored and imperfectly ventilated, and in which not unfrequently five or six persons, adults and children of both sexes, sleep together at night." This does not indicate much improvement, but at the same time does not, unfortunately, compare unfavourably with certain recorded illustrations of the habits of the rural population in some parts of England.* 7. It was unquestionably a grave error of policy on the part of the planters not to have given their labourers at the time of * See the Times of January, 1873, "A Case in Wiltshire." And again, in that journal for the 23rd May, quoting from the report of the Irish RegistrarGeneral, the subjoined passage descriptive of an Irish cottier's home :-"The Registrar of Louisburgh, Westport, says, I will give an example of the contents of a dilapidated one-room house. A man and his wife with five children (two in scarlatina), a mother-in-law, with a son and daughter and grandchild; two pigs, two donkeys, and some hens." emancipation, security of tenure to allotments of land upon their estates, and to mix up, as many of them persistently did, the questions of rent and labour; the negro has strong local as well as personal attachments, but if he becomes once unsettled or distrustful, it is difficult to overcome those adverse influences. Still, we must in fairness remember that this is one of those instances in which it is easy to be wise after the time; and under the feelings engendered by the somewhat rough-and-ready method in which slavery was abolished, the planters were, not unnaturally, but little disposed to recognise the newly-acquired social status of their quondam slaves. 8. The one vital condition upon which these Colonies are dependent, speaking generally, not merely for prosperity but for actual existence, is the cultivation of the soil; and the great difficulty in the way of their success is deficiency of population. At present, industry is nearly exclusively devoted to the production of the one article-sugar; but it is self-evident, not only that an enlarged labour market would almost indefinitely augment the returns of that staple, but that it would supplement it by ample contributions of the thousand other valuable products of tropical soils, which the want of hands alone prevents from assuming their proper places in our bills of lading and prices current. 9. In a brief address to the smaller freeholders of British Guiana, which it became my duty to prepare in connection with the local Exhibition held in Georgetown in 1871, I called attention to the immense diversities of useful products available to them with comparatively little labour or capital, instancing amongst others, varieties of farines, dried bananas, arrowroot, and tous les mois, cassaripe, and other articles capable of contributing in various degrees and ways to the food supplies of other countries. A curious illustration of the importance of common things was adduced in the circumstance of a Spanish Creole, of Trinidad, who converted old soap-boxes into beehives, from which he derived bees' wax, a commodity valued at from £7 10s. to £8 10s. per cwt. and of which the exports from Jamaica in one year, prepared in equally primitive fashion, was valued at £5,575. Of leading articles, such as elastic gums, tobacco, cocoa-of which 6,500,000lbs. were exported from Trinidad alone in 1870*-coffee, Indian corn, cocoa-nut oil, tanning and dyeing substances, and especially of vegetable fibres, it seems almost needless to speak, they are only *The declared value of cocoa imported in 1870 was £371,997; in 1871, £396,151; and in 1872, £467,464. The consumption has been steadily increasing for some time.-Times, January 20, 1873. samples of an inexhaustible stock of natural resources hitherto in no way adequately turned to account in many of these dependencies, and peculiarly within the capacity of the agricultural population to render profitable. 10. The future of any community can hardly be considered satisfactorily provided for, when its chief element of vitality consists in the cultivation of a single staple, and especially when, as in the case of sugar, the area of cultivation of the cane is becoming yearly more extended and scattered, and the extraction of sugar from the beet is assuming a formidably competitive character. Even the Colony of Honduras is gradually superseding mahogany cutting by the cultivation of the cane; whilst, as regards beetroot sugar, irrespective of the efforts making to establish it as a native industry in this country, we find that the imports in the months of January 1869, 1870, 1871, and 1872 respectively, were as under: 1869......... 4,580 tons. 1870........11,770,, 1871.. 21,750 tons. .26,215,, } For the five weeks ending Feb. 3. The California newspapers of November, 1870, announced the production of the first ton of crystallised beetroot sugar there, manufactured by home-made machinery; and I am enabled to quote the following from the circular of an eminent Liverpool firm as to the general prospects of beetroot sugar:-" The crop of 187273 is not likely to exceed that of last year, owing to unfavourable weather; that of last year was disappointing, owing to the expectations of a short crop from the West Indies not being realised. The beetroot industry is now extending all over the Continent of Europe. Many additional factories, of monster size, have been erected in France, capable of producing from 5,000 to 20,000 tons per annum. In Europe production has been doubled within the last few years, and now exceeds 1,000,000 tons, and during the next five or ten years will probably reach 2,000,000 tons, equal to the present consumption of the whole world. In Holland, where it has only existed a few years, 5 or 6 new factories were started last year. In Rome a company has been patronised by the Italian Government; and there are several joint-stock companies in the United States. England alone lags behind only one isolated experimental but successful manufactory at Lavenham, and not a single new company announced for the cultivation of beet sugar and its contingent products." Canada may now be included in the list of countries where beet cultivation for the manufacture of sugar has been commenced. 11. A very exceptional case of great variety in the exports of local products may be instanced in Jamaica, where Sir John P. Grant, the Governor, remarks, in alluding to the returns of actual acreage under cultivation in every sort of produce, "The result will, I believe, surprise those who have been in the habit of regarding Jamaica as a mere sugar-producing island." In the list we find annatto, arrowroot, bamboos, bees' wax, cassava, cocoa-nuts, coffee, bananas and plantains, ginger, lime-juice, pimento, walking-sticks, succades, tamarinds, tortoiseshell, yams, bitterwood, fustic, and logwood. This list seems to have excited the emulation of the inhabitants of Dominica, who are quite conscious of the insufficiency of their staple, low-quality muscovado, to compete successfully with vacuum pans, central refineries, and beet-root sugar.* 12. Should, however, the time ever arrive when the capital now invested in the West Indian Colonies in the production of sugar shall be withdrawn to any serious extent, before other remunerative products shall be developed to induce the continuance of its employment there, the consequences can hardly be other than most disastrous to the interests of all classes in those communities. There would be, no doubt, an element of danger in the mere accumulation of physical strength in such communities, namely, that it might overbear the proportion of legislative and administrative intelligence available; for, under existing impressions as to their climatic drawbacks, the West Indies seem unlikely to become the permanent abodes of proportionate numbers of men of European birth, although I cannot myself see any adequate reason why a class of smaller landed proprietors should not establish themselves there in a position of comparative comfort, if not of positive luxury. The remark of the President of the Virgin Islands upon this point I believe to be quite as applicable to many, if not most, of the other Colonies. He says, "I think I may safely add, that I have seldom seen a better opportunity than is presented in Tortola for a few men of practical experience, having a little capital to commence with, to make a comfortable livelihood, and in a few years to add considerably to their original capital in a healthy tropical climate." The deficiency of supplies of live stock of all kinds, and of garden and farm produce, is a chronic matter of complaint throughout these Colonies, and not merely affects the comfort but enhances the cost of living there. It must, moreover, be borne in mind that capital has a natural tendency to flow wherever profit is to be realised, and consequently, that a greater * Dominican newspaper, August, 1871. |