38 Timehri. 



waB no wife, family or home. We can see how this has produced that 

 want of forethought now so conspicuous in his character. Even in 

 Africa the man has not that home life so desirable, and here we can say 

 there is no such love and kindness to wife and children as is seen in the 

 East Indians. Nevertheless he is very useful and in some respects all 

 the better because he is not tied to one place. The West Indians 

 who worked at Panama had no real home, and we can say the same 

 of our gold-diggers, balata-bleeders and wood-cutters. There are 

 no bonds to keep the man at home ; even when he has a house 

 and village lot he goes off for three months or more not much 

 caring what may become of his wife and children. This makes him 

 unreliable for continued work and yet helps the colony, for a man 

 who is much attached to his home could not so easily undertake 

 pioneer work. We have to ignore him as a plantation labourer and give 

 him such jobs as can be done at intervals. Being very strong he is the 

 best tropical labourer, but he only works when he is inclined or has some 

 heavy inducement in the shape of high wages. His idea is that a day's 

 work requires two clays rest, for he does not see that true rest comes at 

 night and cannot consist with idleness. In some cases, however, he will 

 work very hard ; on his own provision ground as on the estate, however, 

 the work must not be continuous. In getting negroes from the West 

 Indies we have to reckon for this intermittent character of their work. 

 We shall tind them very useful as " navvies " when the railway to the 

 interior is being laid down. The great drawback of such want of fore- 

 thought is that there is rarely any saving ; the man is generous and 

 wasteful when he gets his pay, but nothing is set aside to provide against 

 sickness. The community must provide everything. 



Our experience with Chinese goes to prove that they are useful and yet 

 hardly suitable for plantations. Possibly, however, their somewhat erratic 

 dispositions came through the fact that so few women were brought and 

 that therefore family life was wanting. In China the home is very 

 important and probably an introduction of families would help the 

 planters as much as did those of the East Indians. The Chinese are more 

 clannish than some other people, and as we already have a very respect- 

 able body of merchants and shop-keepers of that race there would be a 

 tendency to draw off from estates to serve their own countrymen. In 

 any scheme for opening up the interior Chinese would be very ustful, 

 bu;. for real colonisation .ve must get families. 



The native Indians could be made useful in wood-cutting and clear- 

 ing land, but we must not expect much from them, for they arc probably 

 more independent than any other people in the world. 



In any attempt to provide a labour supply we have to consider lirst 

 the wants of the sugar planter, and when he is provided for, look to 

 other industries. For the new railway another class is wanted and 

 possibly we can get what we want in the colony with perhaps a few 

 Barbadians. There is, however, the want of real colonists who will settle 

 down on their own homesteads along the railway. 



