58 Timehri. 



This number may be divided into three sections, those employed on 

 the sugar estates, those engaged in the rice industry and those who have 

 set up on their own account in agricultural and other pursuits. 



Of those engaged on the sugar estates the number may be put down 

 at 50 per cent., the remainder being distributed between the rice industry 

 which absorbs the larger portion, and the other minor industries, leaving 

 out a small percentage for those otherwise engaged. 



Those immigrants who have elected to remain on the sugar estates, 

 after their term of indenture has expired, are engaged in the cultivation 

 of small plots of land and working for wages. In spite of what a few 

 defenders of the Immigration system may say and in spite of the con- 

 clusions arrived at by Messrs. McNeil and Chimman Lall in their report 

 on indentured labour in the colonies, that the advantages outweigh the 

 disadvantages, it is an incontestable fact that the competence amassed by 

 a few of the immigrants has been due, not to the miserable wage paid 

 by the estates authorities but by their independent efforts in other 

 directions 



I quote the following from the report of the Indian Department 

 of Commerce, signed by Lord Hardinge and others as proof of my con- 

 tention. "We have attempted to show,'" concludes the report, " that the 

 economic advantage gained by the coolie, while actually serving under 

 indenture, is not so great as is often supposed, and that the real benefits 

 which he gains from emigration arise after the close of his indenture 

 period from the opportunities then before him of purchasing or leasing 

 land or setting up in business and making himself a position as a settler." 



My reason for referring to this rather debateable point is not only to 

 prove the failure of indentured immigration as a factor in the economic 

 welfare of the immigrant, but to emphasize the value of a system of free 

 immigration that would enable the people to settle onthehnd with the 

 object of developing its vast latent resources with decided benefits to 

 themselves and permanent advantage to the colony as a whole. 



Such a scheme, if well worked out, I feel sure, would not only 

 commend itself to the leaders of thought in India, but will place it beyond 

 every suspicion of helotry. 



As regards those immigrants who have renounced their rights to 

 return passages, a scheme was decided on, some time ago, to settle them 

 in certain areas in the Colony organised into settlements, but the attempt, 

 through improper drainage and irrigation, has not been productive of the 

 results anticipated. 



Those immigrants, however, who have launched out on independent 

 lines have become prosperous land owners. 



Along the Corentyne and West Coast of Berbice and in the 

 Mahaicony and Mahaica Districts are to be found thriving cultivations 



