17195
FURTHER CORRESPONDENCE
RELATING TO THE
BRUSSELS SUGAR CONVENTION.
No. 1.
BARBADOS.
THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received May 14, 1907.)
[Copy to Foreign Office and Board of Trade, June 12, 1907. Confidential. L.F.] [Answered by No. 64.] (Confidential.) MY LORD,
Government House, April 19, 1907.
IN reference to the several representations which I have forwarded to Your Lordship from various bodies in this island expressing a desire for a continuance of the Brussels Convention, I think it expedient to offer some remarks, under cover of a Confidential despatch, to record some of the impressions I have formed in regard to the sugar question as it affects Barbados, after an administrative experience of two and a half years.
2. My predecessor, in his Confidential despatch of the 8th March, 1902,* gave a very deplorable account of the sugar industry, and expressed the opinion that unless the Imperial Government came to the rescue a very serious crisis in the affairs of the island was imminent.
3. He wrote as follows:
"There are at the present time, out of 449 sugar estates in the island, 49 estates in Chancery, and including these, 182 estates, with a total area of 42,000 acres, working under the provisions of the Agricultural Aids Act, No. 5 of 1887, that is to say, 182 estates have only been able to keep afloat during the hard times of recent years by working with money borrowed on the security of the growing crops. There are doubtless other estates which carry on their operations with money borrowed on the same security, but these may be regarded as not so financially unsound, and will possibly be able to weather the storm which seems to be approaching."
4. At the same time most, if not all, of the troubles which had befallen the sugar cane industry in the British West Indies had been attributed to unfair competition by the bounty-fed sugar extracted from beet grown in Europe, and the signing the Brussels Convention was looked upon as a specific for "resuscitating the industry and averting the further decadence of the sugar-growing Colonies in the West Indies."
5. There can be no question that when my predecessor wrote the despatch quoted very grave causes for anxiety existed in Barbados. The merchants had declined further advances to the sugar planters, and had not the Imperial Govern- .
• See No. 74 in [Cd. 940], April 1902.
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