Opening up the Country. 31 



working-men (cosmopolitan in their sympathy for 

 genuine free trade), has brought within measurable 

 distance the abolition of the bounty system ; and it is 

 hardly too much to say that with improved extraction 

 and evaporation and less building labour, Uemerara 

 planters bid fair to show a steady return upon their in- 

 vestments, whilst many of the Continental Usines are as 

 shaky as the Panama Canal. It appears scarcely 

 credible, and yet the fa6l remains, that cane sugar 

 for direct consumption at 17/ and 18/ pays better to- 

 day than it did ten years ago at 23/ to 25/. 



In distilling we have much leeway to make up ; our 

 returns are not generally satisfactory ; and so long as 

 France and Germany compete in giving high bounties 

 on spirits, it will possibly pay us better meanwhile to 

 sell our molasses and improve our knowledge for future 

 application. 



Our next great export is that of greenheart timber,* 

 and here it is not the want of trees, but the want of a 

 clear waterway that hinders the industry. If the Govern- 

 ment will introduce regulations to render the import 

 and storage of dynamite and other explosives more 

 easy, the rapids which now impede the passage of rafts 

 could be removed; and not only ihe timber trade, but 

 gold mining also, would receive a fresh impulse. 



Rice already receives substantial protection to the 

 extent of 25c. per 100 lbs., and shows symptoms of 

 becoming an established industry here. There is no 

 possible reason why eventually this colony should not 



* A word of recognition should here be given to the fa<5t that gold, 

 not timber, is, at present, our next great export, after sugar and the 

 allied products, molasses and rum.— Ed. 



