218 SUNSHINE AND SPORT IN 



blows of Continental bounties and the great output 

 of its beet substitute, and rum is nowadays as 

 important as the sugar itself. Coffee is another 

 product of some importance, and the best Blue 

 Mountain coffee is all grown for export and cannot 

 be bought in the island. 



By far the most important trade to-day is the 

 export of bananas to Europe and America, and in 

 this growing enterprise much American capital is 

 profitably invested, for the United Fruit Company, 

 in conjunction with Messrs Elder Dempster, control 

 almost the whole of the trade. The Americans 

 have come in for hard words from those Creoles 

 who, seemingly unable to secure the trade for them- 

 selves, resent the enterprise of the interloper from 

 Boston. Yet the market is an open one ; the 

 Yankees are not there for their health, and they do 

 not appear disturbed by their reception. The 

 criticism more directly aimed at the diversion of 

 the subsidy paid in connection with the direct mail 

 contract to put Costa Rica bananas on the home 

 market to the detriment of Jamaica-grown fruit is 

 less easily met. The Costa Rica banana gives 

 quantity rather than quality, and the working class, 

 the chief consumers of the fruit in both hemispheres, 

 likes plenty for the money. In any case the 

 position is an unsatisfactory one, and it is surmised 

 that the Government will decline to renew the 

 subsidy when it expires. 



Cattle-farming is still in the hands of the 

 English, and, as has been said, the pen-keepers 

 have some other interests to engage their attention 

 and employ their capital. What may be the 

 industrial future of the island is at present doubtful, 



