60 TRINIDAD. 



coffee, and is supplied from its own pasture-lands with draught 

 animals and flesh provisions. Porto Rico exports, besides sugar 

 coffee, tobacco, cotton, timber, and oxen, both for draught and 

 slaughter ; and provisions of all kinds are perhaps cheaper there than 

 in any other island. This is, in great part, if not entirely, owing to 

 the agency of a class of small proprietors. I have always been con- 

 vinced that the existence of such a body is a necessary element in the 

 welfare of all communities, but particularly of those which are free, 

 and chiefly or solely addicted to agricultural pursuits. Wherever 

 such a class does not exist, there is an immense gap left open, 

 which the lower orders will invariably attempt to fill up either 

 by forcing themselves through, or dragging the higher classes into 

 it thus creating permanent danger to social institutions. This 

 danger is greatly mitigated, if not entirely obviated, when there 

 is a gradation established from the lowest up to the highest : those 

 who start from below and above to meet in mid-range, must inter- 

 change ideas in their progress upwards or downwards, and'serve as 

 an intermediate link between the two extremities of the social 

 scale. The formation of a class of industrious small proprietors 

 ought to be encouraged, not by the granting of privileges as I 

 have heard it contended but by the removal of obstacles from 

 their path. Such a policy would be particularly opportune in 

 countries where, and at a period when, by the progress of events, 

 many families have sunk from comparative affluence into the 

 lowest depths of misery. I do not know what was attempted else- 

 where, but it is certahvthat, in Trinidad, whilst indirect encourage- 

 ment was being given to petty shopkeepers and would-be artisans, 

 all kinds of obstacles were thrown in the way of the small pro- 

 prietors. I am ready to admit that the adoption of such opposi- 

 tion was a sort of desperate attempt at saving sugar-cultivation 

 from entire ruin, and which has been so far successful. It has, 

 however, only put an effective check to the increase of small pro- 

 prietors ; it has driven none to the cultivation of the staples. 

 Time is at hand when this policy ought to be abandoned, a policy 

 based on the sophism, that to make people industrious it is necessary 

 to tax them, a policy which finds its answer in the United States, 

 and even in Australia. Its adoption was much encouraged by the 

 late minister for the colonies, Earl Grey ; but it is evident that he 

 and others have mistaken the effect for the cause. People ad- 

 vanced in civilization pay generally a large amount of taxation ; 

 ergo, they are civilized and industrious, because they are heavily 

 taxed. I willingly admit that political economy has been useful 

 in destroying many errors, but it has not been so successful in 

 making theories practical. It is evident that legislation based on 

 a sophism could not have been productive of permanent good. 

 Moreover, societies, in their normal evolutions, must pass through 

 certain stages or phases ; and wisdom consists not in opposing 



