Report of the Agricultural Committee. 3. 



tegislative changes. The effect of these changes and events 

 was greatly to enhance, under the above circtimstances, the 

 cost of production, and to cause a continual absorption of 

 advances made to support an industry established on the 

 faith of protective duties. Many were in consequence 

 drawn very reluctantly into the speculation in the endeavour 

 to save a part, if notthe whole, of the capital they had unwill- 

 ingly involved. The effort proved worse than useless, and 

 the result, disastrous ; it has affected directly ©r indirectly 

 the greater part of the community. 



On the other hand several instances of success, the fruit 

 of the exertions and good management of a few resident 

 proprietors, have existed throughout. These, during their 

 career, have enjoyed, perhaps, higher prices on the average 

 for their produce than can be calculated upon for the future: 

 but, OQ the other side, the cost of production will how ne- 

 cessarily decrease in proportion to the fall in Sugar. The 

 extreme competition for labour, and all the requisites for 

 the manufacture of our staple, must cede to the pressure of 

 the times. 



Prosecuted in the former way the industry has failed be- 

 fore the encdiiragement extended to slave sugar growers, 

 and to the effects, in all its ramifications, of the high cost of 

 labour here. The immediate effect of that encouragement 

 v.as to bring about the present depreciated value of Sugar 

 in the English market, which has resulted in the sacrifice 

 of so vast an amount of British capital. But if the industry 

 be now undertaken in a legitimate way, suited to the al- 

 tered and actual state of things, by resident proprietors, 

 the Colony has still the prospect of attaining to a consider- 

 able degree of substantial prosperity. 



The few successful exceptions just instanced appear to 



