demand for spices is increasing, and these islands could grow every
one of those mentioned, if only the people would give their attention
to them and treat them according to their special requirements.
A great feu^tor in the future development of these islands is the
growing of fruit. They are geographically the Channel Islands of
the northern continent, and their manifest destiny is to grow such
special products, and such fruits and vegetables, as the more tem-
perate countries are unable to produce for themselves. Bananas
are in great demand in the United States and Canada. The
production of these is already large, but evidently the trade is only
in its infancy. Jamaica alone exports nearly a quarter of a million
sterling worth of bananas every year, but the northern people
want more and more. Bananas yield a crop in a year or so ; the
bunches sell for about seven to ten pounds per hundred, for which
ready money is paid. The planter can thus clear fifteen to twenty
pounds per acre for his fruit, while under the shade of the banana
plants he is establishing his land with cacao, coffee, spices, or other
permanent subjects. Besides bananas there are many fruits in
great demand, such as oranges, pineapples, shaddocks, forbidden
fruit, sapodilla, mango, avocado pear, granadilla, water-lemon, water-
melon, tamarind, guava, cocoa-nut, star-apple, papaw, sweet sop,
sour sop, sugar-apple, mammee-apple, Barbados cherry, lime, lemon,
grapes, figs, cashew-nut, ground-nut, loquat, Malay apple, rose-apple,
pomegranate, almond, genip, damson-plum, balata, breadfruit, date,
mangosteen and durian. All these and many more are found in
these islands — are found, indeed, in the small island of Dominica,
but some are at present practically imknown to northern people.
Then besides fruits there are abundant supplies of vegetables, which
could be shipped to reach northern markets in the depth of winter,
and realise good prices. The finest green peas, the best new po-
tatoes, and the most luscious tomatoes are obtainable here a fort-
nighir before Christmas, and the supply is limited only by the means
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The Colony of the Leeward Islands. 251
at hand for disposing of them and getting them quickly and freshly
into the proper market.
The cultivation of the West Indian lime has already been dis-
cussed. This is essentially an industry of these islands, and it
deserves to be fostered as one of the many elements conducive to
their future prosperity.
Of fibres suited for cordage and weaving purposes there are at
least a score or two that could be easily grown. I need only give
a brief enumeration of them. Sisal hemp (Agave) is now being
largely taken up in the neighbouring Bahamas. If more land is
required to grow this fibre there are thousands of acres in Anguilla
and the Virgin Islands exactly suited to its requirements. This
might be had at possibly one-third or one-half the present price of
the Bahamas' lands. Mauritius hemp {Furcrcsa) could be grown
at Anguilla and elsewhere, and there are cheap machines manu-
factured in Mauritius that will clean it. Bowstring hemp plants
of a special kind are found growing wild in parts of Antigua. The
fibre is excellent, and as it is suitable for weaving purposes the
demand for it is not likely to be influenced in any way by the pro-
duction, however large, of Sisal or Mauritius hemps. There is
Egyptian cotton and ordinary cotton to be tried at Antigua, St.
Kitts, and Anguilla ; tobacco at St. Eitts, where long ago it was
a staple industry ; cocoa-nuts for firesh nuts, for oil, for fibre, and
for cocoa-nut butter in all islands possessing sandy beaches.
And besides these there are industries in arrowroot, in cola nut, in
fruit syrups, in preserved and dried fruits, in silk-raising, in resins,
gums, indiarubber, scent plants, and numerous medicinal plants.
A promising new industry for the West Indies is that of gambier.
This, as already mentioned, is an extract from the leaves of a
plant (Uncaria Oamlier), and since the people of the United States
have taken to using it for tanning purposes the price has gone up
considerably. Plants of gambier were forwarded from Kew to the
West Indies last November. They arrived there safely, and are
now in course of being propagated for general distribution.
This is a sketch only of what may be done in these islands.
What is necessary is to select some half a dozen of the most promis-
ing industries and prosecute them with energy and enterprise. A
few years ago there were only two botanical establishments in the
West Indies ; now there are eleven. The new additions consist of a
series of botanical stations, which may be described as botanical
institutions of a simple and unassuming character, whose functions
are useful rather than ornamental. They are specially charged
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262
The Colony of the Leeward Islands.
with the work of growing and distributing economio plants and
giving practical information respecting their growth and treat-
ment. This information is put forth in the form of bulletins, which
are widely and regularly disseminated amongst the people. The
Curators also, by precept and example, diffuse a thorough knowledge
of horticultural methods as applied to tropical plants. This scheme
of botanical stations has been assiduously fostered at Eew for many
years, and it was in connection with the final organisation of it I
was invited to visit the West Indies during this winter. There are
botanical stations in the Leeward Islands at Dominica, Montserrat,
Antigua, and St. Eitts-Nevis. Already there are thousands of
valuable economic plants ready for distribution at these stations,
and the men in charge (mostly trained at Eew) are capable of giving
information and assistance respecting the special industries suited
to each island.
As regards labour, I am satisfied that there is enough already in
the islands to start many new industries. It can, I believe, be shown
that the labour is in excess of the demand, or, at least, in excess of
the capital, when, as in Dominica, the value of the yearly exports
falls so low as £1*6 per head of population. In Montserrat it is
only £2'6 per head, while in Antigua and St. Eitts-Nevis, where
more systematic industries are pursued, it rises respectively to
£7*6 and £7*8 per head. In both these cases, however, it is
far below what it is at Trinidad. There the value of the annual
exports reach the high rate of £11-7 per head of population.
These figures are more clearly set forth in the following table, com-
piled from the Colonial Office List for the current year : —
Presidenoy
Antigua'
Montserrat
St. Kitts-Nevia
Domtnioa
Virgin Islands
Area
square
miles
Estimated
population
Popalation
per^uare
Value of
export«,1889
Value of
exports per
hcAdof
populatioD
108
153
291
68
36,000
11,000
44,100
29,600
6,000
196,172
824
338
288
101
86
266,621
28,392
346,172
47,326
4,341
£
7-6
2-6
7-8
1-6
•8
11-7
Trinidad.
1,764
112
2,308,832
It is the opinion of some that a system of negro peasant pro-
prietors is best suited to the requirements of the West Indies.
I am strongly of opinion that such a system universally applied
1 Excluding Barbuda and Hedonda.
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The Colony of the Leeward Islands. 258
would be very injurious to the negroes themselves, and most detri-
mental to the future of the islands. It will be noticed that in the
islands above mentioned, such as the Virgin Islands, Dominica,
and Montserrat, where there are most peasant proprietors or free-
holders, there the value of exports is lowest.
Peasant proprietors, consisting entirely of negroes, when removed
from the influence and example of Europeans, quickly lose heart.
They gradually exhaust their land and grow little beyond what will
supply them with the bare necessaries of life. If peasant proprietors
become the rule, the European must perforce retire. He can only
exist where the land is laid out in large and systematic plantations
and where labour is available for their maintenance and support.
The people mostly wanted in the West Indies are Europeans
with capital who will work hard themselves and supervise the
labour of the people. I do not recommend white settlers with
little or no capital to go out to these islands. The experiment has
been tried more than once, and it has signally failed. The Euro-
pean should bring his capital and be the employer and controller of
the labour, and not be a labourer himself, even on his own allot-
ment. The climate and circumstances of tropical life are all against
him.
As regards the negroes, much could be done to teach and train
them in cultural pursuits. At present the education they receive
tends, I fear, to take them away from the land and to crowd them into
towns to become needy clerks and shopmen, instead of prosperous
and contented cultivators.
Efforts are being made to start industrial schools and to train
negro boys as gardeners at the botanical stations. Such efforts
in time must produce a change, but meanwhile the present labour
supply must be judiciously utilised and the land so cultivated as to
be retained in a continual state of fertility.
More labour will probably be required in time, and there are
means for obtaining this labour for the Leeward Islands as it is
obtained for Trinidad, British Guiana, or any other West Indian
Colony.
The new Leeward Islands to which we look forward must be
gradually evolved by putting fresh life and energy into the people
already there, as well as by introducing men possessed of capital,
who will do for these islands what is in course of being done with
such signal success in Jamaica. Jamaica has evidently entered upon
a new order of things. It has large and flourishing industries, and
its enterprise in starting and successfully inaugurating the first Inter-
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254 The Colony of the Leeward Islands.
national Exhibition ever held in the West Indies sufficiently shows
that the people beUeve in themselves, and believe also in the future
of their country. Under the able and energetic administration of Sir
William F. Haynes Smith, who is untiring in his efforts for the ad-
vancement of the Colony under his charge, there is more hope now
than ever that the Leeward Islands will enter upon a prosperous
career. They have been the last in the West Indies to show signs of
life and activity, and hence it is all the more desirable that the hands
of their Governor should now be strengthened, and that the people
should turn to the best advantage any and all circumstances that
offer an improvement upon the old order of things.
The islands have suffered from want of capital, from want of good
internal communication by roads and railways, and from want of
rapid and suitable steam communication with the markets of the
outer world. All these, I beUeve, are in course of being supplied,
and there is also a likelihood that good hotels will be built and
visitors encouraged to make their winter homes in these beautiful
islands, where they will become acquainted with the scenery of the
tropics and find health and enjoyment in a world as new as it is
interesting and instructive.
The Paper was illtistrated by a number of lime-light views, re-
presenting the scenery, fauna, and flora of the Islands.
Discussion.
The Chaibman: I will now introduce Mr. Washington Eves,
who has just returned from a visit to the Exhibition in Jamaica, the
success of which is very greatly due to his exertions in this country.
Mr. C. Washington Eves, C.M.G. : I am sure we are all indebted
to Mr. Morris for his able and interesting accoimt of the Colony of
the Leeward Islands, and the prospects of the various islands of the
group. All who know Mr. Morris must be aware of his thorough
and practical acquaintance with the West Indies and their affairs.
He is always ready to give us, at this Institute, the benefit of his
researches and experience, and to-night both the lecturer and his
audience have been assisted by the pictures which have been shown.
The result has, I think, been so &r successful as to lead us to hope
that our papers may be often illustrated in a similar way. It is true,
perhaps, that such pictures fall short of giving a perfect idea of the
loveliness of West Indian scenery, but they are sufficiently attrac-
tive to lead to greater interest in the places which are described,
and possibly to induce some of those who look upon the pictures to
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The Colony of the Leeward Islands. 265
go and Bee with their own eyes the interesting and beautiful spots
thns indicated. Tennyson says *' Things seen are mightier than
things heard." It is impossible for me to touch upon the many
points of the lecture. No matter with what part of the West Indies
we may be directly connected, we must all be concerned with the
Leeward Islands, their history, the experiment of federation, the
condition of their people, the decline of some of the older industries,
and the establishment of new ones. Some of these questions, such
as the cause of the decline of the older industries, might give rise to
different opinions. It is impossible to discuss these now. We are
brought face to face with new facts and new conditions. The Colonial
and Indian Exhibition of 1886 showed us how varied were the pro-
ducts of the Colonies, how immense their resources if properly en-
couraged and utilised. We hear a great deal in these days about
commercial arrangements between the Mother Country and the
Colonies. I think myself we ought to rely more upon the Colonies
than we do, and a commercial arrangement by which we shall be-
come better acquainted with colonial products, and find, through
natural means, a better market for our English goods in the Colonies,
would seem to be not only unobjectionable, but highly desirable.
There is one other point I -should like to mention. Mr. Morris has
referred to Jamaica, and her successM Exhibition. Jamaica is, of
course, not a Leeward Island Colony, but, having just returned from
that Island with Mr. Morris, I should just like to say a word about
it. I am speaking in the presence of Sir Henry Barkly, who is re-
membered as having, during the time he was Governor, brought the
Colony through a great crisis, and who has kept up his interest in
Jamaica through all these years, even so far as to become one of our
Exhibition Committee in England ; and I should also like to bear
my testimony to the progress in the present time, which was begun
under Sir Anthony Musgrave, a former Governor of the Leeward
Islands, and Sir Henry Norman, and is being continued in such a
striking manner under Sir Henry Blake, our present Governor.
Whilst I naturally see no reason for the extinction of the sugar in-
dustry, I yet noticed on every hand signs of vigorous development
of new industries. Fruit, from being a minor product, has, if I may
use the term, become a major one. With energy, skiU, and a
moderate introduction of capital, I believe an almost inexhaustible
wealth could be extracted from the soil, giving good wages and the
most varied occupations to the people. Of the enthusiasm with
which the Exhibition has been carried out, of the cordiaUty of the
welcome given to visitors from this country and other European
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256 The Colony of the Leeward Islands.
States, of the affection for England and our Queen, this is no time
to speak. I will only add that if what I saw is but the awakening
of Jamaica, what may we expect to see when her day becomes more
advanced, her powers more developed, and her capacities for a per-
manent and increasing prosperity more fully shown ?
Mr. R. G. Webster, M.P. : I think we ought to thank Mr. Morris
very heartily for his interesting and valuable paper. It was my
good fortune very recently to travel out with him to the West Indies,
and I had the pleasure of being present at two lectures he delivered,
one in Jamaica at the time of the Exhibition, and the other at
Barbados, and I can assure you of the great interest that was
taken by all who were present in his observations. It has been
truly said that in the West Indies we have a perfect Biviera to
which we may escape from our horrible fogs and detestable cli-
mate, and I imderstand you had the benefit of these conditions
while some of us were basking in the sunshine of the West Indies.
It is not a very difficult thing, as some of you know, to take a
journey thither. You betake yourself to Moorgate Street, book your
passage by one of the comfortable vessels of the Boyal Mail Line,
and after a not too long voyage find yourself under sunny skies.
But there is a seamy side to the West Indian Colonies at the present
time. There has been hanging over them for some time a great cloud
— I refer to the bounty system, which affects the staple industry.
Some of us did our best to remove that difficulty, but there were grave
obstacles in the way. I still hope, however, though the industry
is not as one would wish to see it, that the fact that the West Indies
have other marketable commodities may help them to tide over that
difficulty, and I think we owe thanks to the First Commissioner of
Works for having sent out Mr. Morris to give to our West Indian
fellow-subjects the benefit of his knowledge and experience as to
the many commodities that can be grown in those islands. We
who live in England do not always recollect probably that in times
past our sailors and soldiers fought bravely to defend these posses-
sions. Surely the blood of these men was spent in vain if we do
not do our best to make the islands prosperous. I am glad to see
that Jamaica seems determined to go ahead. Aided by the Prince
of Wales, Sir Henry Barkly, Mr. Washington Eves, and others,
they inaugurated a very important exhibition, which I for one had
the pleasure of seeing, and I hope the result of that effort may be to
call attention to the great agricultural wealth, and to the attractions
of that island. It may become at no distant date a sort of Biviera
for our American friends. The whole gist of the paper is, I think,
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\
The Colony of the Leeward Islands. 257
eontained in this sentence — '' What is wanted is a diversified system
of cultural industries so that there may be no collapse of prosperity,
as at present, on account of fluctuation in the price of any single
article." If our friends will look to this point, I venture to think
there are better times in store for them. In the West Indies they
have to deal with a black population, who appeared to me to be, as
a rule, an industrious population. It would not be an advantage, I
think, that they should become a peasant proprietary, as some people
urge, because then, I think, they might become lazy, being content
to live on their little holdings and bask under their sunny skies.
The best system is, I think, as in Barbados, where labour is em-
ployed by capital, and where the forms are well cultivated. What
is wanted is capital and enterprise, and sooner or later the United
Kingdom and also the American continent will, I think, aid our
West Indian friends in developing their great natural resources.
Sir Walter Sendall, K.C.M.G. (Governor of Barbados, and
formerly Governor of the Windward Islands) : Those of you who are
acquainted with the circumstances of Barbados will understand me
when I say that anyone connected with the Colony is not altogether
in a favourable position for offering any very practical observations
in regard to the particular islands which have been the subject of the
lecture, to which we have listened with so much interest and profit.
At the same time it would be exceedingly ungracious to refuse to
bear such a part as is open to me in the business of the evening,
and I at once gladly avail myself of the opportunity of expressing
my appreciation of the very great advantage which everyone con-
nected with the government of the Colonies enjoys, when he comes
to this country for a short period of recreation, in being immediately
welcomed to this Institute, and offered the opportunity which a
meeting such as this affords of exchanging a few friendly words on
the Colonies in which we are mutually interested. You will not
expect me to offer any very original observations or to give any real
information which will be new to the great majority of you. I am
speaking in the presence of Sir Henry Barkly, Sir Bawson Bawson,
and other gentlemen who — to use a phrase which will be famihar —
have " passed the chair " in many Colonies, and who are thoroughly
acquainted with every topic on which it would be possible for me
to dwell. The subject of this evening being the very interesting
lecture which Mr. Morris has deUvered on the Leeward Islands, I
should like to say that he has given a most faithful and useful
epitome of the condition and prospects of those islands so far as I
oan judge, not from personal knowledg;e of the islands, but from
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268 The Colony of the Leeward Islands.
aoqoaintanoe with other islands which are similar to them in agri-
cultural circumstances, population, and general condition. It was
a very happy idea, I think, to illustrate the lecture as Mr. Morris
has illustrated his lecture to-night. Many of you, no doubt, are as
familiar as Mr. Morris and myself with tropical vegetation, but I
can assure those who are not that the pictures which have been
shown on the screen give a very fair idea of those portions of tropical
scenery that the lecturer described. I am glad Mr. Webster has
reminded us of a lecture which Mr. Morris was good enough to
dehver in Barbados, on his return from Jamaica, on the very day *
he sailed for England. We caught him,' so to speak, during the few
hours he spent in Barbados, transported him to the Goimcil chamber,
set him on the platform, and got him to talk to us. He gave us a most
interesting account of the growth of the sugar-cane, and then gave
us, what was of more consequence, some very practical suggestions
with regard to the possible introduction into Barbados of another
product which has not received much attention there, but which
Mr. Morris assured us might be adopted with great profit and
advantage — a plant which produces a valuable fibre. Mr. Morris,
in his excursion in Barbados, discovered a quantity of one variety of
this plant which, he assured us, had very great commercial value
properly treated, and he told us how it should be cultivated and
propagated, describing also a machine by which the leaf of the
plant can be made to produce this fibre. A few weeks after I
myself left the island, and I am glad to say that some of those who
heard the lecture told me the matter had been taken up and that
some of the machines had been ordered. I therefore hope a start
may have been made, for Barbados has hitherto been dependent,
and must for a long time to come be more or less dependent,
on sugar; nevertheless everyone interested in the prosperity of
Barbados will hail with satisfftction and deUght the prospect of
something else being introduced that may enable the island to
become to some extent independent of sugar. I do not think there
is any great fear of the prospects even of sugar in Barbados. I
hope and believe the island is now fairly prosperous, and, looking
forward, I do not see any reason for any great discouragement. At
the same time there is no doubt the cultivation of cane-sugar in
these days is to a certain extent precarious. I recollect in 1885,
when I first went out to take up the government of the Wind-
ward Islands, I spent a day or two in Barbados, and of course
I heard everyone talking about sugar. The topic of the day
is the quotation in the Daily Telegram giving the current
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The Colony of the Leeward Islands. 259
price, and at that time my Barbados friends were looking
rather pleased because the figure stood, I think, at 10s. 5d. Very
soon the price dropped to 10s. and even to Os,, which means so
many shillings per hogshead or ton less. The quotation is now
13s. or a little more, and the difference between that and 95. or 10s.
is one that everybody interested in the cultivation of sugar will
thoroughly appreciate. So long as the prices remain at that
figure, I do not think there is any fear for sugar in Barbados.
Another point, however, besides the fluctuating price, is the fluctua-
tion in quantity of the crop. Last year in Barbados was one of
unusual prosperity, the crop amounting to about 85,000 hogsheads.