April i, 1886.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



687 



THE COCONUT PALM AND ITS PBO- 



DUCTS IN THINIDAD 



ioxui tliri subject of the following article in the 

 Demerara lioyul Gazette. No doubt labour is cheaper 

 in Ceylon than in Trinidad, but by no means to 

 the extent that Mr. Legge suppoaes : — 



Persons interested in the development of the so- 

 called minor industries of the colony may not think 

 space and time wasted if we call attention to a 

 phase of the coconut and coconut oil industry of 

 Trinidad. Our export of coconuts last year was 

 517,920 nuts, and, us everyone knows, there is one 

 coconut oil and tibre factory in the colony owned 

 by a certain enterprising firm of this city. The 

 Blue Book however does not discriminate in either 

 its statement of imports or exports of oils and we 

 cannot therefore give figures thereanent. However, 

 the growth and export of coconuts is a minor in- 

 dustry to which no doubt increased attention will 

 be given as time goes on. Ceylon, it appears, is 

 the country that now holds the industry in its own 

 hands. The anomaly that is always presenting 

 itself to students of West Indian Trade was seen 

 by Sir William Eobinson, who wrote a minute to 

 the Colonial Secretary of Trinidad that "with 

 coconuts growing in the colony we are actually 

 sending home for coconut oil. Where is the Agri- 

 cultural Society?" The reply was that the im- 

 ported price of the product was about 00 cents per 

 gallon and the local price 75 cents to $l-'20. 

 Thereupon Sir William wrote: — 

 This Duly proves that the supply of home grown coco- 

 nuts is not large enough. There is no diflficulty in ex- 

 pressing the oil. This is a mattrr that the Agricultural 

 Society ought to look into. Oeylou exports over 

 2.500,000 gallous of coconut oil annually. Trinidad 

 with auy amount of laud fitted for the growth of the 

 tree cannot supply its own wants. 



Out of the fibre, let alone the nut itself, a fortune is 

 to be made. 



The -Agricultural Society took the matter up and 

 letters were received — and are now published — 

 from gentlemen actually concerned in the 

 industry. They were not slow to point out 

 why imported oil and fibre was cheaper than 

 the local product ; and their letters are a curious 

 and instructive illustration of the causes that tend 

 to retard the development of these colonies. We 

 do not refer to causes originating in the eco- 

 nomic policy of the several Governments ; 'such as 

 the absence of thorough and systematic protection 

 and artificial stimulation of local industries, in 

 which we have no faith, believing that it is to the 

 interest of a country to produce whatever it can 

 produce the cheapest and be^l and exchange for 

 other products that are yielded cheaper and better 

 by other countries more favourably circumstanced, 

 but we refer rather to purely natural causes such 

 as the absence of labour consequent upon a sparse 

 population, the inferiority of such labour owing to 

 the lazines.- or iuapitudc of those who possesses 

 it, the distance from markets, cheap and rapid 

 ocean transit and like causes. It is fundamental 

 causes of this sort that militate against the pro- 

 gressiveness of these colonie.^, and only the slow 

 workings of time will tend to their removal. And 

 as we have said the correspondence to which we 

 refer anent the coconut and coconut oil industries 

 illustrates the working of these causes. It docs 

 seem strange to the superficial thinker that these 

 colonies, which can grow coconuts with a pro- 

 Ijficncss ecjual to Ceylon, should be able to import 

 (oconat oil at 00 cents a gallon from Ceylon and 

 vet unable to produce at a price from — as in the 

 case of Trinidad — 75 cents to ftl-20 per gaOon. 

 One ol the causes h perspicuously laid baro by 



Mr. Edwin Legge of Naiival Cecal, a gentleman 

 who states his views are the result of considerable 

 experience :— 



In the first place let us consider the question or 

 rather statement in the Governor's letter, — " the fact 

 that coconut oil c«u be imported cheaper than it can 

 be purcbuec'l in the colony." This is easily aD.swered. 



First, liy the dilference between the pricp of labour 

 in Trinidad and that prevailing in such other coconut 

 oil, producing colonies as India and Ceylon. « » » 



I am not sufficiently acquainted with the labor mark- 

 ets of India and Ceylon to draw a comparison between 

 them and that of this island as to the cost of convert- 

 ing, say 1,000 coconuts into oil, or as to the yield of 

 their nuts compared with ours. I merely know what 

 is generally know», that in those countries the cost 

 of labour is nominal, benig at the i ate of 3 or 3 cents 

 or a handful of rice per man, while my factory hands 

 receive from 60c. to §1 30 each. I know only too well 

 what the cost of mauutacturiug coconut oil is to me and 

 others on the East Coast, and will, further ou, give you 

 parriculars of the cost and also of the yield of oil 

 per 1,000 nuts. As I have been for some years en- 

 gaged in the manufacture of coconut oil I am able 

 to speak on the subject with a little authority. His 

 Excelleiicy is quite right when he says there is no 

 difficulty in expiessing the oil. None whatever, pro- 

 viding always that you have the necessary plant, as 

 oil-making by hand is entirely out of the qu' st'on, 

 and to erect a suitable factory with all the appliances 

 required would involve an outlay of at least 20,000 

 dollars. The profit of such a factory, in the present 

 state of the coconut oil trade, would barely pay 8 

 per cent upon that sum. 



There is at present but two oil factories in the island, 

 this one, Nariva Cecal, which is by far the larger, 

 and th.it belonging to Messrs. Urich & Sons at Mayaro, 

 and there are only two other coconut estates whose 

 crops would even warrant the erection of a factory on 

 eiiher of them. They are Mr. Gauteaume's at Mayaro 

 and Mr. F. Agostini's at Icacos, but neither of these 

 gentlemen would, I think, build a factory unless driven 

 to it by being uuable to dispose of their nuts other- 

 wise at a profitable rate. The whole of the East Coast 

 furnishes a crop of eight and a half million nuts, 

 1,600 000 being grown and used ou the Cecal. Of the 

 remaining 7,000,ijOO two proprietors have about 800,000 

 nuts each, while the restis divided among a number 

 of small proprietors, but ten of whom have a yearly 

 crop r:uiging from 90,000 to 150,000, the others own- 

 ing each a few trees with a yearly crop of 12,000 to 

 "0,OUO nuts. A central factory at Mayaro has been 

 suggested, but no one has been found sufficiently cour- 

 ageous to embark in the enterprize. 

 Mr. 1-'. A. Gauteaunie lays bare another cause why 

 coconut oil can be imported cheaper than it can be 

 produced, notwithstanding the profuseness of coco- 

 nuts in Trinidad and the presence of mills for ex- 

 pressing an untold quantity of the oil : — 



The only cause of Ceylon being able to compete with 

 us in our own market is simply a question of labour. 

 Ceylon has a chenp and regular supply of this, whilst 

 we are deprived of a similar advantage. The Suez 

 Canal and steam communication has enabled the Ceylon 

 growers to economically ship to European markets, 

 Fibre will not pay uulcs made on a large scale and at 

 great (ratlay for mnchineriee. Then there is not a 

 sufficient demand in the Colony or neighbouring Inlands; 

 exportation to Europe will not pay, it has been tried. 

 In thin article also (^vlon beats us. and for the same 

 causes as mentioned before. 



Nearly all tlie writers of the letters from which we 

 have made the foregoing extracts advocate the 

 protection of the industry by duties on the imported 

 article, but that being a purely local question we 

 need not go into it now. We have confined our- 

 selves to the purely natural causes which niilitiile 

 against the success of the socallcd minor industries. 

 We believe it is so with many other articles than 

 coconuts and their bye products, that they do not 

 pay to produce either tor local cotisumpUpn or 



