The Colony’s Foreign Trade. 263 
prices of commodities advance in sympathy, and in the end the labourer 
is but little better off financially, besause, although he has more money 
for disbursement he finds its purchasing power is reduced. 
It is in regard to the subsidiary industries that gratifying progress 
is to be seen, not so much in the value of the products as in their volume 
and eall for labour. Not the least of these is the rice industry. Just 
ten years ago the export trade of this cereal began. In the first year we 
sent away only 10,506lbs. Last year’s trade report gives the export as 
being 6,686,820lbs., but the record year was 1909-10, when the exports 
reached a total of 12,294,815lbs. The prediction of a former Comptroller 
of Customs, now no more, in regard to the growth of this industry has 
been fulfilled. When first the cereal engaged the attention of his 
statistical staff, he wrote :—‘‘ It will be observed that a beginning has 
been made in this direction—very small, it is true, but sufficient to 
strengthen our hopes for such a trade. It will take time, it will encounter 
difficulties, but it is pretty sure tocome to stay.” A very large protec- 
tion is afforded the rice industry, importations of rice having to bear a 
duty-burden of 50 cents per 100lbs., first imposed in 1910-11, previous 
to which the impost was 35 cents per 100lbs. In the year of the 
Martinique disaster the consumers of rice were specially taxed in order to 
meet this colony’s contribution to the Distress Fund. An additional tax 
of six cents per LOOIbs. was put on, making the duty 41 cents altogether. 
The protection referred to is a substantial one, and has had the effect of 
reducing importations of rice to a negligible quantity. In the year when 
first the local product was exported, the per caput consumption of 
imported (Indian) rice was 49]lbs. Last year it was not quite 2lbs., and 
in the year immediately preceding the figure stood at .67. The protec- 
tion has had the effect aimed at: it has secured fuller employment and 
remuneration for the capital and labour interested in the industry. The 
question, however, is whether this protection may not be carried too far 
—whether it may not raise prices too high to the consumer, which would 
be all the more apparent when the commodity used partly as a substitute 
for rice, viz., flour, happens to be high in price. Note in passing that 
there is but little freedom of exchange in regard to the sale of local 
rice, or rather of the paddy—the raw material of the article. Comment- 
ing on the sensible falling-oft of the flour imports in the year 1909-10, 
the Comptroller of Customs said : ‘‘ No data are available for the purpose 
of ascertaining the quantity of locally-grown rice consumed within the 
colony ; but as far as may be judged from a study of the imports of flour 
since the inception of the rice industry in the colony, it would seem that 
the home-grown rice is not supplanting flour as an article of food to any 
great extent solong as the price of both articles is normal. In short, 
it would appear that the people prefer their dietary to consist of a 
certain proportion of rice and a certain proportion of flour, and the ratio 
is only as a general rule affected by serious disturbances in the price of 
either article.” It may be deemed a peculiarity of British Guiana that all 
classes of its heterogeneous population eat rice, and so it is not surpris- 
