Our PEASANT PorULATION. 285 
and economical lines, the amount paid in wages across 
the pay tables of the sugar estates of the Colony during 
the year averaged $4,932,200. The crop for the present 
year promises to be a good one, but, even if it reaches 
110,000 tons, the amount paid for wages shows a fearful 
falling off. One of my planter friends assures me that 
his wages account for this year will not exceed $21 a ton. 
Suppose that the wages. paid throughout the Colony 
average $25 a ton, which I believe is rather high, then 
the amount paid for wages will be only $2,750,000, as 
compared with $4,932,200 twelve years ago, showing a 
deficit of $2,182,200. This deficit would take nearly 
the whole of the gold exported during the year to fill. 
The gold industry came into existence just at the end of 
the period I have quoted. Praétically it began in 1884, 
before which date the amount exported was so trifling 
as not to merit consideration. I suppose it may be con- 
sidered that nearly every penny of the value of the gold 
exported has found its way into the pockets of our 
peasantry, for, for one of the employers who have made 
money, there must be ten who have lost. 
But there is another side to the question of the deficit 
in the amount of wages from sugar that finds its way 
into the pockets of our peasantry which makes the matter 
worse still. The present wages, small as they are com- 
pared with what they used to be, are paid almost exclu- 
sively to the indentured and resident labourers; very 
little indeed goes into the pockets of those who do not 
live on the sugar estates. There are at the present 
moment about 18,000 indentured immigrants, and if these | 
earned an average of $1 a week, it would take $936,000, } 
leaving one $1, 814,000 for other labourers, of which aie 
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