IN THE WEST INDIES 405 



capital and labour wages. We send out a lot of Governors, 

 not one in ten of whom knows anything of tropical products 

 or can promote old or new industries. 



We have incurred a gigantic obligation in having to rule, 

 educate, police, and provide sanitary and medical aid for 

 the poor of a huge population for which there is no labour 

 provided ! 



The fact is, if we do not expend largely and soon, some of 

 the islands will lapse into the state of Hayti and St. Domingo. 



To Rev. J. D. La Touche 



March 2, 1898. 



England has brought this about, and England must pay 

 to set the matter right not by bounties or duties, but by 

 advancing money, some to clear off large standing loans, some 

 for promoting new industries the latter chiefly in the way 

 of establishing Gardens for new profitable vegetable products 

 and some loans to encourage capital. 



Jamaica has prospered ever since, under the stimulus 

 of good Governors, she encouraged new industries. Thirty 

 years ago, sugar formed something like f of her wealth, it is 

 now I believe nearer J, and instead of a chronic debt she has 

 an annual surplus, and is making roads, railroads, &c., &c., &c. 



Sir J. P. Grant and Sir A. Musgrave were the chief instru- 

 ments, and the abuse they got from the sugar planters was 

 scathing. That this danger of a relapse of some of the Islands 

 into black barbarism is a reality cannot be disputed, it is a 

 terror to the whites of some of them. 



, Yet great progress had already been made in organising 

 West Indian industries. 



To Dr. Fawcett 1 



April 1, 1897. 



It astonishes me to read of the extension of your useful 

 work in agriculture, botany and horticulture, since my old 



1 William Fawcett (1851), B.Sc. Lond., F.L.S. to 1916. He was assist- 

 ant in the Botanical Department at the Natural History Museum 1880-86, 

 when he became Director of the Public Gardens and Plantations in Jamaica. 

 He held various positions in the Jamaica Institute, 1887-1907, and retired in 

 1908. He has contributed several papers to the Bulletin of the Botanical 

 Department, Jamaica, and in addition to a Guide to the Gardens, has published 

 on the Flora, Woods and Forests, and Economic Plants of Jamaica. 



