The Banana Trade. 223 



of this success, is almost an unknown quantity in the 

 West Indies. " Ready Money" is the key to the situa- 

 tion, and whether the profits be large or small " Ready 

 Money" means quick returns, and quick returns means 

 trade. Thus vast sums of money are kept constantly 

 in circulation and a man's capital is turned over and 

 over during each year, and although at every turn the 

 a6lual profit may be small, his annual income may be 

 comparatively large ; at any rate the late impecu- 

 nious sugar planters and peasantry of the distridls 

 named, if not now all millionaires, are living in com- 

 fortable and independent circumstances. The innu- 

 merable neat little cottages and new houses dotted 

 ail over the hills, surrounded by small and large tracts 

 of land in bananas, the many wharves and storehouses, 

 new villages and enlarged and busy centres of trade 

 conne6led by a network of telephone and telegraph 

 wires, even in the remotest parts of the hills, present a 

 more impressive piflure of prosperity than either words 

 or statistics can convey. It is not many years ago, even 

 as late as 1880, that little or nothing was known of the 

 interior of the Island, and the few mule-tracks that did 

 duty as roads across the country were seldom used by 

 white people except on an occasional journey. The 

 negroes lived in a semi-wild state, often going about in a 

 naked condition and running and hiding at the approach 

 of a white man. But all this is changed now, for with the 

 continued increase of the area under bananas, many 

 new roads and extensive repairs to old ones were de- 

 manded and insisted upon ; and the local authorities 

 being unable to cope with the urgent needs of the new 

 industry petitioned the Government, which in 1891, 



Fb2 



