THE WEST INDIES: 



THEIR COMMON INTEREST AND IMPERIAL AIM.* 



By E. R. Davson. 



There are few subjects so interesting to meditate upon as those of 

 political progress and Imperial development, and in this very fact there 

 lies a danger. The dreamer of Locksley Hall speaks of the time when 



" . . . . The battle flag is furled 

 In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world." 



And since then many speakers and writers, basing their views on the 

 cord of sentiment alone, have conjured up federal visions and dreamed 

 Imperial dreams, which melt before the cold light of practical analysis. 

 An Empire bound by sentiment alone is bound by a very fragile cord. 

 With it there must be the fellow- bond of material welfare, and therefore 

 I make no excuse in asking you to-night to consider the various points 

 which I shall put before you from the material and practical point of 

 view rather than from that of sentiment. 



Hope for the Future. 

 I shall not touch on the West Indies of the past, on the times when 

 they loomed large in the history of England, on the later times when 

 they seemed to fade into a somewhat neglected obscurity ; on the times 

 when fortunes were made with incredible facility or the later times when 

 they were apparently lost with even greater ease. I woula start with the 

 West Indies of the present day, hardened by the adversity of the past 

 and perhaps a little sour by disappointment but nevertheless still retaining 

 hope for the future and a belief in their ultimate dest ny. And this 

 belief is founded on two reasons, firstly, because never in their history 

 have they had a greater variety of products and a greater prospect of 

 finding an ontlet for them in the markets of the world, and secondly, 

 because they look for much benefit from the opening of the Panama 

 Canal. 



Coincident with this feeling of hope as to the future, there is a 

 gradually awakening consciousness in the West Indies that that union 

 in certain respects is strength. I put the beginning of this down 

 to the founding of the West Indian Imperial Department of Agriculture 

 with its threads running through the islands and with its Triennial Con- 

 ferences at which delegates have met from all the West Indies, and have 

 discovered possibly to their surprise, that they have had interests and 

 aims in common. Then one notes the growing feeling that, on specific 



* Address by Mr. Davson at a General Meeting of the Royal Agricultural and 

 Commercial Society of British Guiana on the 10th February, 1914, His Excellency 

 the Governor, Sir Walter Egerton, K.C.M.G., presiding. 



