PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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18 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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It is very hard to answer each question, and the resolution sent up by the Northside Planters' Association ought to be sufficient to show what our opinion is in the matter.
With kind regards, &c.,
HERBERT JARRETT KERR.
It was not to be expected that a few years of the Convention would altogether steady prices.
SIR,
Enclosure 5 in No. 22.
Hon. W. A. S. VICKERS (Westmoreland), to Hon. H. CLARENCE BOURNE.
Fontabelle, Savanna La Mar, December 22, 1906.
I HAVE to acknowledge with thanks your letter, 10450/12627, and in reply have now to answer your queries: —
1.
What has been the effect of the Convention on prices?
I take 1903 as the first year prices were influenced by the Convention. In 1902 the estates I have charge of sold their sugar, lower than they had ever done in the writer's experience, and I have before me the books of one estate that the net proceeds of Muscovado sugar per ton averaged £6 1s. 9d. for the year, and of another estate £6 2s. 9d. Since 1903 the lowest prices we have averaged for sugar was 1904, when of the same estates alluded to before, one netted £7 3s. 2d. and the other estate £6 14s. 5d.; the latter was due partly to the mismanagement of my agents in Halifax. Of course the maximum was in 1905, when we netted nearly £13, which was due to a short beetroot crop and nothing else, but I should imagine, in my judgment, in 1903, 1904, and 1906 the Brussels Convention has meant £1 a ton to us planters. In fact in taking the prices into consideration, one must remember that
up to the time of the Cuban reciprocity treaty between the United States and Cuba, for many years British West Indian grown sugar was protected against the Continental bounties by the laws of the United States, where all our sugars went in those days and can't since the Cuban reciprocity.
2. On the extent of acreage under cane?
The parish of Westmoreland had in 1901-2: Estates only, 5,206 acres; the whole parish, 5,616 acres; or 410 acres besides estates. In 1902-1903 the estates had 5,200
acres; the whole parish, 5,818 acres. In 1905-1906 the estates had 5,234 acres; the whole parish, 6,491 acres; or 1,257 acres of canes were grown outside the actual estate cultivation in 1906 against 410 in 1902. Anyhow, I think 1907 figures will show a considerably larger amount of outside cane grown.
3. In the development of local confidence and energy?
There has been a considerable amount; vide the purchase of cane, which has largely increased and often under contract.
4. To what extent has it led to the introduction of fresh capital from outside? The London merchants have been much more ready to take up estates' work. In fact a member of a prominent firm of West Indian merchants was staying in my house in 1901 and he told me that his firm had then decided to withdraw from their West Indian business as it was too risky and they had given notice of such intention in several of the smaller islands.
add that that firm in London may probably had more money in Jamaica sugar than any other house in London to-day, all due to the Brussels Convention.
5. What is the amount of such fresh capital? That will be answered in 6.
6. What value of new machinery has consequently been imported from Great Britain, Canada, and the United States of America, respectively?
As to that I have been unable so far to get accurate information. I will, how- ever, deal with that in a general way. Up to 1903 there were two vacuum pans in Westmoreland, namely, at Belleisle, 1881; and Cornwall, 1901. In 1903 Shrews- bury put up an absolutely new set of works, vacuum pan, and have since added a triple effect.
Maisemure, I think in 1903 or 1904, put up a climax boiler and green bagass furnaces. Friendship remodelled their works about three years ago, put in a water-tube boiler, a five-roller mill, and several other things. Retreat last year put up a new plant, vacuum pan, &c. Retrieve last year put up a five-roller
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mill, imported over a mile of tramway, and altogether in the last four years there have been more improvements on sugar estates in this parish than in 15 years before. Besides that, most of the other places have got their works in a little better order lately.
7. To what extent have any such effects been checked by the recent uncertainty of the continuance of the Convention?·
That is a difficult question to answer at present, but I will give you a personal experience that happened to me in London this year. I went and saw Mr. Czar- nikow, one of the biggest sugar men in London about raising money to put up a new set of works on the estates I represent. He went into the matter with me carefully and he seemed to approve of what I proposed, which was that I wanted a certain amount to put up a factory, which was to be spent on the factory and had a reserve fund for contingencies, equalling half the amount we wished to borrow and offered a first mortgage on the estates new works and all, and after we had discussed the matter, he turned round and said to me "my advice to you is to wait till next year, then we will know what the British Government means to do about the Brussels Convention and then I will tell you what I will do."
8. What acreage of canes has consequently been abandoned?
So far it has not troubled anybody, except people like myself, who want to bring fresh capital here, but it seems to me if a firm of London merchants in 1901 thought badly of their West Indian business, why should they have gone largely into sugar since, except on account of the Brussels Convention, and why should they not, the Brussels Convention failing, go back to their old opinion.
I am quite aware of how important a matter this Brussels Convention is to the sugar industry of this Colony, especially as the majority of planters are very much in the hands of the London merchants, and any want of confidence from that side must mean a very great disaster on this side. There are many places where sugar will grow, where bananas will not, and in spite of the success of the banana industry, we seem to have heard a great deal more of want of revenue than we used to some years ago. The Planters' Association at a full meeting on the 13th passed resolutions with every owner and attorney present, with one exception, and he wrote he could not come but the resolution had his fullest sympathy. So I think we can say that the resolutions had the unanimous support of the sugar planters of Westmoreland. They will be in due time forwarded to His Excellency, who will be asked to send them to the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
The Hon. H. Clarence Bourne,
Colonial Secretary,
SIR,
Kingston.
Enclosure 6 in No. 22.
I have, &c.,
W. A. S. VICKERS.
Hon. W. A. S. VICKERS to Hon. H. CLARENCE BOURNE.
Fontabelle, Savanna-La Mar, January 8, 1907. IN further reply to your letter, No. 10450/12627, of the 4th of December, in further answer to No. 6 question. What value of new machinery has conse- quently been imported, &c.? I wrote to Mr. Aitken, who has been an engineer here for 35 years and who has up to a couple of years ago held almost all the work in this parish, and asked him if he would give me a confidential estimate of how much new machinery had been brought in this parish from 1902. I see he has given me from 1901, but Cornwall and Bluecastle will be the only two affected by the 1901. Mr. Aitken is a most careful man and his estimate may be taken as a mini- mum and not as a maximum one. Just to show, I have taken my books and I see Belleisle spent £1,007 on machinery in 1902-3, almost the whole of it being on new machinery; and in 1903-4 £403, of which over £200 was for new machinery; and in 1901-2 £887, of which there was £700 for absolutely new machinery; so taking 1902-4, £1,200 was spent on new machinery at Belleisle, and there was £800 the year before, and the cost of erection is not calculating those amounts, as it went through the weekly books which I suppose would add a fifth or sixth, as there were some boilers to build in and that is taking nothing new in the last two years, which, of course, there have been some things, but of no great amount, but quite a couple of