WEST INDIES. 



BRITISH WEST INDIES. 

 ANTIGUA. 



The seat of government of the Leeward Islands furnishes little 

 towards the contemporaneous history of the paper trade. Of its 

 population of 35,000, about 95 per cent is black or colored. The 

 percentage of illiterates can not be officially stated, but is large. 

 Having no water power, developed or undeveloped, and no wooded 

 areas, the island can never figure as a producer of paper. 



IMPORTS AND CONSUMPTION. 



But four kinds of paper are imported /. e. , newspaper print, 

 toilet and wrapping, medium wrapping, and coarse wrapping. The 

 three first named are supplied from London, the fourth from the 

 United States. Some storekeepers buy direct, others through 

 wholesale importing houses. The island has three weekly news- 

 papers, with nominal circulation. From the fact that letter paper 

 and envelopes are classed as "paper" in the Government returns, the 

 precise total of importations of paper proper can not be given. 



The blue book for 1897 gives the following returns of imports of 

 "stationery and paper" subject to duty: 



The duty is 10 per cent and one-third of the gross amount of 

 such duty additional. Inasmuch as the consumption of paper de- 

 pends upon the population, and as this population is decreasing 

 rather than increasing, the prospects of an advance in the consump- 

 tion are not encouraging. American paper manufacturers might, 

 however, control the market in news, toilet, and medium wrapping, 

 by going below the English prices for these articles. 

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