2. Report of the Agricultural Committee. 



witbstaodiDg the many cases of individual misfortune it has 

 to deplore, and to which its best sympathies are due, the 

 Committee trusts that, as regards the Colony at large, these 

 gloomy anticipations will prove overcharged, and that a 

 return to a more prosperous state of things is not so far 

 distant as might be inferred. To adopt the- words of the 

 London West India Association in its last annual address: 

 « The Committee cannot but hold forth some prospect of 

 » hope for their Colonial fr ends for the future. Recent 

 » changes in the internal colonial relations of other powers 

 » seem to foreshadow a certainty that they are destined to 

 » pass through the expensive transition from a state 

 » of slavery to one ot freedom: and the consequent dimi- 

 » iiution in the quantity of sugar in the markets of the 

 » world, must doubtless tend towards an increase of price; 

 » while the application of improved science, with other re- 

 » forms, will contribute towards diminishing the cost of 

 » production.)) 



In its Report upon the Exhibition of last year, the Com- 

 mittee had occasion to advert to the future prospects of the 

 Colony, whose welfare and prosperity are so intimately 

 connected with the subject the Committee is called upon to 

 promote; and, while pointing out that much would necessa- 

 rily depend upon the supply of a regular and adequate 

 amount of cheap labour, it emitted the opinion that the cul- 

 tivation of the cane might still be advantageously pursued 

 in this Colony. 



The production of Sugar here unavoidably became, of 

 late years especially, a commercial speculation. This was 

 the result of the payment of the iademaity, a series of so- 

 cial disorganisations, a greatly extended system of credit 

 and competition, and latterly a course of adverse events and 



