Foreword vii 



fully, or who wanted to value an acre of 

 planted coco-nuts at 25 to 45 an acre and 

 upwards. Such amounts are quite possible 

 because they include cost of company promo- 

 tion, vendor's profits, middlemen's commission, 

 interest on capital, cost of management, &c., 

 and also the price paid for the land and 

 buildings, which I do not. This is distinctly 

 shown by my . stating "except the planter's 

 own labour and interest on capital," the capital 

 of course being needed to buy the land and 

 erect the buildings, as well as to maintain the 

 planter until his estate gives him some return. 

 As I write, the Bulletin of the Department of 

 Agriculture for Trinidad, July-December, 1912, 

 which has come to hand, puts (on p. 173) the 

 cost of clearing land to plant coco-nuts at 305. 

 an acre, and of roads, traces, lining, holing, 

 planting seed-nuts, weeding and cutlassing 

 and drainage at 3 an acre 4 los. in all, 

 leaving 5 IDS. to 7 los. per acre for cost of 

 weeding and cultivation until the estate gives 

 a return. 



I was glad to see on my return from West 

 Africa that Mr. Hamel Smith had not allowed 

 the misuse of my Foreword to go by un- 

 challenged, and that many of the papers, 

 including the three leading financial papers in 

 London, published the following or a similar 

 letter to this one taken from the Liverpool 

 Post of February 26, 1913 : 



