280 Timehri. 
planters’ indents are just under 3,000 (2,800 are the actual figures, I 
think), they under this arrangement pay half of the cost of immigration, 
and the general revenue half. But since the planter contributes heavily 
to the general revenue, in practice the planter invariably pays the greater 
part of the cost of immigration, and the numbers introduced therefore 
depend on the prosperity of that industry. But since land, labour and 
capital are the factors of production, and not land and capital alone, it is 
evident that you cannot have any considerable economic development 
without a large increase of the labour forces, while, as I have shown, 
such increase does not depend on the colony’s labour needs but on the 
state of the sugar industry. 
His Excellency, speaking at the Reading Rooms, said that he thought 
in the past the colony had made the mistake of putting all its eggs in 
one basket. That mistake was the direct outcome of the system we are 
discussing. Because the planters paid the greater portion of the cost of 
immigration (and in the old days they paid even more than they do now), 
the immigration scheme was allowed to become an East Indian immigra- 
tion scheme; there was practically no provision made for any other 
industry that might arise requiring other labour than East Indian. 
Accordingly all new industries to procure labour had to outbid sugar in 
the local labour market, and with sugar at 26s. to 30s. per cwt. the 
result was a foregone conclusion: they either disliked the outlook so 
much that they never started, or starting succumbed. I submit my case 
is proved. The present scheme must be changed. But for what? 
MAKE ImporTED LABOUR FREE. 
It would seem at first glance as if the simplest thing to do would be to 
make all industries pay for the labour introduced from outside. But 
how are you going to do it? You cannot make a law compelling all in- 
dustries to use imported labour if they do not wish to do it. Take the 
case of a peasant industry like rice- growing. In many cases the tiny 
venture is amply staffed by the labour of the man and his family. Are 
you going to compel him to employ labour he does not want? You 
would kill the industry. He would be quite unable to carry out the 
multitudinous provisions common to all immigration schemes. And the 
case of the hinterland industries is but little better. An Immigration 
Ordinance similar to the one in use for coolies would be quite unworka- 
ble on distant balata and wood-cutting grants. And even if a class of 
immigrants for bush work was obtained, and the regulations, framed in 
the interest of the new-comers, greatly simplified, as they could be under 
such circumstances, the fact that they had to use labour calling for such 
regulations, however simple, would be regarded as a drawback by those 
engaged in such industries and might, and probably would. check enter- 
prise—a most undesirable thing to do. What are the alternatives? If 
you make it optional, the new industries would do as they do now and 
you would simply perpetuate the present system. If in recognition of 
the fact that the labour supply of this colony is to a great extent an arti- 
ficial creation, you imposed a tax of so much per head on each individual 
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