Our PEASANT POPULATION. 291 
makes an enormous profit out of the depreciation of value 
of the rupee. He has only to send out a little more than 
half a sovereign to pay the tenrupees. To paraphrase Mr. 
STEAD, it is impossible for the black man with the yellow 
money to compete with the brown man with the white 
money. This argument, just as powerful against growing 
rice as it is against growing fibre, may or may not be true; 
experience alone can tell. Fibre grows quickly, there is 
not very long to wait for the result of one’s labour, and if 
we are not content to export the fibre in its raw state but 
make bags, we establish new industries of spinning and 
weaving, in faét all that we should have to import for our 
bags would be the needles that sew them. 
Another industry which may grow up in the future is 
the fruit trade. Here the trouble is our distance from the 
market ; how can our fruit compete with that from Jamaica 
and the Canary Islands when it must be two or three 
days longer in transit? But we might export canned 
fruits or jams. The specimens of jams exhibited at the 
Horticultural Shows are not very encouraging, and I 
expeét they cost much more than they would fetch in the 
market, but no one would dream of making jam for com- 
mercial purposes in a copper stew pan over a charcoal 
fire in a coal pot. Perhaps if guavas were grown by 
the hundred acres, and jelly were made carefully whole- 
sale in a “copper wall,” or perhaps even in “ vacuo,” it 
might be turned out so cheap that it could compete with 
European jams in the markets of Europe and the 
States. Some say that our jams would never suit the 
taste of the people. All I can say is that I remember well 
when the acme of luxury was supposed to be turtle soup, 
roast venison, pine apples and guava jelly. I have seen 
PP 
