41-
operation, and the rush to ruin was arrested. Between the 30th September, 1900, and the 31st December, 1906, only five sugar estates passed out of cultivation. For these the Convention had come too late. They were too heavily involved, and had to go.
5. Let me for a moment point out how the Convention has acted as a stimulus to the sugar industry. The value of machinery imports is regarded locally as a fair index to the condition of the industry. Whereas during the seven years, from 1st April, 1892, to the 31st March, 1899, when the tide of adversity was held back by the promised action of the Imperial Government, the average annual value of the machinery imported was $217,985, that average value had risen during the succeeding seven years to $300,847. Further, the area under cane cultivation which had fallen from 76,100 acres in 1892 to 66,582 acres in 1899, now stands at 72,390 acres. These figures show the rehabilitation which the Convention effected, and the rehabilitation manifested itself also in the improvement in the trade and commerce of the Colony. There has been more money in circulation, and a refer- ence to page 101 of the Colonial Office List shows at a glance the effect upon imports and exports.
6. Now, the state of things is suspended animation. Owners of estates, fear- ful of what may be in store for them, are curtailing expenditure wherever it is possible to do so. They will neither extend their cultivation nor make further improvements in their machinery. This very excusable action on their part will, I doubt not, soon make itself.felt in trade and commerce. I will mention cases in point, viz., plantations de Kinderen and Vergenoegen. Of these estates, which would have changed hands but for the present uncertainty, one is being kept in cultivation pending events on the condition that no improvements are to be effected, and no loss incurred, and the other is passing out of cultivation.
7. Anything which will have the effect of disturbing the equilibrium of the sugar industry-such as withdrawal from the Brussels Convention-will bring the Colony back to the state of things existing in 1899. The road to ruin will be resumed. There are at the present time 45 sugar estates in the Colony employing 10,510 East Indians and 42,300 unindentured immigrants, and these have 20,190 children dependent on them. There are also some 20,000 persons of African descent supported by wages earned on sugar estates. Of the 45 estates one-fourth (it is undesirable at this stage to specify them or their owners) will not take long to collapse once the shield of the Convention is withdrawn.
8.
It may be argued that these estates are being kept going under a vicious system of protection. Is it protection, and if so, is it vicious? The advocates of the Brussels Convention do not regard the Convention as a form of protection. Their argument is that it places the sugar industry in the precise channels of a healthy free trade by getting rid of the cankerous growths of kartels and bounties. I personally consider that argument sound, and I say that apart from that argument, the system now in force is not vicious, for this reason, that the Colonies and the Mother Country cannot safely and equitably be dealt with as if they were on the same plane. In the United Kingdom if some measure is taken which adversely affects a particular industry to such an extent that it becomes patent that it must succumb, there are many other industries and ventures into which the capital embarked in the decadent industry can gradually be placed, and there are many opportunities for the transfer of the labourers. But in the Colonies in the West Indian Colonies at any rate---that is not so. Alternative industries are not every- where available. There is certainly not a choice of them, and in British Guiana there are only two alternative industries. These are rice and gold mining. While the rice industry is steadily progressing, it has not reached the stage when it can at once absorb the labourers who would be thrown out of employment by the clos- ing of sugar estates; nor can the rice industry ever take the place of the sugar industry in the provision of the necessary revenue for administrative purposes. The mining industry (which I may state is not an industry to which the East Indians resort) cannot at present take many additional hands. Further, the owners of sugar estates after getting out on the best terms possible will not re-embark their capital in the Colony. It is not to be expected that they would.
9. Therefore, in such circumstances as I have described, the Government will be brought face to face with a considerably lessened wages fund, with reduced trade, owing to the decrease of the money in circulation, with a large number of labourers thrown out of employment and clamouring for assistance, and, in fact,
as I sa be diff
10
11
to the namel Britis
the Co
as is c quence suffer
be onc
there
ance t
every
that il
recons
words
the du
1328€
(I
My La
copy c in whi the Br
SIR,
are ve
throug
contin
indust
West ]
which