1884.] PLANTING ENTEBPBISE IN THE WEST INDIES. 34U 



It might not, for many reasons, be advisable to follow the example 

 of the Montserrat Lime-juice Company as regards this particular 

 industry, for the demand for lime-juice is somewhat limited and pre- 

 carious, but with so many other West Indian industries ready at hand, 

 there can be little difficulty in founding hundreds of industries as 

 successful and as promising as that of the Montserrat Lime-juice 

 Company. 



Turning now to British Honduras, which is closely connected 

 with the West India Islands as being a dependency of Jamaica, I 

 may mention that I lately had the pleasure of visiting it, at the 

 request of the local Government, for the purpose of inquiring into 

 its * flora, and the natural resources of its soil.' My of&cial report 

 has lately been completed and presented, and as, probably, it will 

 shortly be published, I need not dwell now at any particular length 

 on the subjects treated therein. 



By permission of Colonel Sir Eobert W. Harley, the present 

 Administrator of British Honduras, I am, however, enabled to lay 

 before this meeting many interesting facts connected with the 

 country, which I believe will place this hitherto much maligned 

 and much neglected Colony in a new and not unfavourable light. 



Up to a recent date British Honduras was merely a settlement 

 for the purpose of cutting logwood and mahogany, and it was not 

 until 1862 that it was raised to the dignity and importance of a 

 British Colony. 



Speaking of the want of accurate scientific knowledge of the 

 natural resources and capabilities of British Honduras, the Colonial 

 Guardian, published at Belize, recently remarked : — - 



' We have for a sufficiently long period lived without a knowledge 

 of the capabilities of about three-fourths, and in total ignorance of 

 eveu the physical configuration of more than one-half of the Colony. 

 We have been willing quietly to allow, without a contradictory 

 murmur, the climate and soil of British Honduras to be slandered, 

 until the civilised world has come to look on her as a vast pestiferous 

 swamp, unworthy the habitation of civilised man. So long as 

 mahogany was plentiful and brought good prices, little did the more 

 wealthy colonists reck whether this continuous slandering of her 

 soil barred the way to colonisation. But fortunately mahogany is 

 failing, and dne necessity is driving them to think of agriculture 

 and of its only hope of development — immigration, as the true 

 foundation of her progress. But the long lethargy has borne evil 

 fruits, and British Honduras is only thought of in Europe as another 

 Europeans' grave not dissimilar to the pestilential coast of Western 

 Africa. To disabuse the world of this erroneous opinion will 

 be no easy task, unless we can lay before it substantial proofs of our 

 statements.' 



