Labour and Colonisation — The Outlook. 35 



improvement in the near future. The main point is, that whereas 

 on an estate we have every acre under cultivation the vil- 

 lages are hardly ever fully planted. With the divided interests 

 there can be little attention paid to the general welfare. Here is 

 where the manager is required for he does not care for one or two 

 particular beds but for the whole. It is of the greatest importance to every 

 village that there shall be general superintendence and that private interests 

 shall not hamper improvements. Most of the owners of village lots could 

 live comfortably if they made the most out of their grounds and had no 

 idlers ready to pounce upon their provisions. It is evident that the plan- 

 tation system is better for all concerned than the want of order so promi- 

 nent in every village. 



Those who condemn the colonization movement should remember 

 that British Guiana exists to-day as a result of the plantation system, 

 and that all the people, except tne native Indians, are either immigrants 

 or their descendants. 



III.— THE OUTLOOK. 



Can we afford to give up the plantations and let Demerara sugar 

 disappear from the world's markets ? This is a question that only admits 

 of an emphatic " No ! " We can have gold, diamonds, bauxite, balata, 

 rice and coconuts and encourage these industries in every possible way but 

 we still want our sugar. Anthony Trollope speaks of our government as 

 a mild despotism tempered with sugar, and it would be a pity to lose this 

 sweetening influence. 



Some of our political agitators appear as if they would not care if 

 Demerara sugar were dead and buried ; they would kick down the steps 

 on which they ascended, without thinking of possibilities. Few, however, 

 are so careless of the welfare of their colony, for half the people still de- 

 pend upon the plantations and are sorry when one is abandoned. Some 

 think only of the held labourer and yet a prosperous estate employs 

 mechanics as well as overseers and managers. Every one that has been 

 abandoned was a loss to the district and we can find people deploring the 

 downfall of estates like Vreed-en-Hoop and Windsor Forest which once 

 gave them work. Within my own memory scores of plantations have 

 been either abandoned or merged into others, with consequent discharges 

 of many workers, who in most cases had to accept inferior positions. The 

 point is that every one suffers from a failure. 



Here is another aspect, the mercantile ; Ueorgetown is largely de- 

 pendent on shipping and hitherto cargoes have been made up almost 

 entirely of sugar. Shopkeepers in town and country would lose much 

 were there no sugar plantations. However, the reader will say he knows 

 all this and yet there are people in the colony who appear to despise the 

 plantations, and feel aggrieved that immigrants should be brought for 

 them alone. 



