1884.] PLANTING ENTEBPBISE IN TEE WEST INDIES. 263 



or that capitalists, looking upon them as hopeless, should have sought 

 other openings for their investments ? 



For the last thirty or forty years the tide of emigration, as regards 

 tropical planters, and consequently yie How of capital, has steadily 

 set to the eastward, and thousands of men possessing capital and 

 energy have settled on the Nilgiris, on the slopes of the Himalayas, 

 and on the mountains of Ceylon, to cultivate tea, coffee, and cinchona. 

 More recently they have gone still further east, to Perak, Johore, 

 Sumatra, and Borneo. 



iSTow, however, that the dreadful coffee-leaf disease has induced 

 so depressing an influence in all Eastern countries, and whilst 

 Englishmen are contemplating investing their capital in countries not 

 under British rule, and in places so remote and so little accessible to 

 the chief markets of the world, it seems not inappropriate to consider 

 what lands, what facilities for culture, and what returns on capital 

 the West Indies — within some eighteen days of England, and in close 

 and easy communication with the vast markets of Europe and 

 America — have to offer the pioneer and the planter. 



In order to j)lace the subject-matter of my paper before you, this 

 evening, in as clear and as intelligible a manner as possil)le, I would 

 remark that by the term ' British Possessions in the West Indies,' I 

 wish to include the Bahamas, the whole of the British West India 

 Islands, together with British Honduras (a dependency of Jamaica), 

 and the Colony of British Guiana. 



Both geographically, as being aU in the Western tropics, as well as 

 by their vegetable productions and planting industries, these posses- 

 sions form a natural group, having a common interest in the 

 development of the natural products of the soil — all of which are 

 of an essentially tropical character. 



Having thus defined the scope and range of my paper, and 

 indicated its geographical limits, I would mention that I purpose, in 

 the next place, to enter upon a brief statistical inquiry respecting 

 the present position of our West India possessions, and endeavour to 

 show in what respects they have advanced, or fallen back, from their 

 position of some fifteen or twenty years ago. Following this, I will 

 refer, as fully as my time will permit, to the planting enterprises which 

 have been, or are in course of being, carried on in the West Indies, and 

 indicate in what respects they offer grounds for a more hopeful view 

 than is generally taken respecting the future of these nearest and 

 oldest of our vast tropical possessions. 



With regard to the relevancy of statistics as bearing upon the 

 subject-matter of my paper, I may mention that, as the West 

 Indies are essentially and purely agricultural, and as their 

 industries and commercial relations are based upon the natural 



