136 REVIEWS, TRANSLATIONS, AND SELECTED ARTICLES. 



manufactures, mining, and commerce are advancing, and her cities, 

 harbours, and railroads are extending as they are at present found to 

 be, that she is still on the pathway of prosperity, even although the 

 Census has truly proclaimed that the progress of her population has 

 only exhibited an increase of scarcely 6 per cent., during the last 

 ten years of her history. 



BRITISH WEST INDIA COLONIES IN 1859. 



Abstract of the Official Reports by the Governors. 



(From the " Standard " Newspaper ; Oct. 1861.) 



" Jamaica. — In 1859 (which is the last year of the official returns 

 throughout the whole report, ) the total revenue of this island was 

 £279,935, and the expenditure £262,142. If we take the three pre- 

 ceding years we observe some fluctuations, which are trifling, aad 

 accounted for by purely local circumstances — as buildings and roaiis, 

 and repayments of floating loans ; but these we omit to specify, 

 considering it more acceptable to our readers to devote our space to 

 information rather of an Imperial than of a strictly local character. 

 There is an island debt of £852,000, but it is in process of annual 

 liquidation. There is no return of the population, but a census is 

 ordered to be taken in 1861 ; but it is inferred from an ecclesiastical 

 enumeration that the number of souls may be about 360,000. Tating 

 an average of the years 1857, 1858, and 1859, the value of the four 

 great staples — sugar, rum, coffee, and pimento, with logwood and 

 dyewoods — was £1,056,890 ; and of the minor articles, ^46,609i It 

 is the strongly expressed opinion of Governor Darling, that, on an 

 average of seasons, the export of sugar will rarely exceed 30,000 tons, 

 unless immigrant contract labour be more largely employed ; and 

 this leads to the subject of negro industry. The Governor sees ao 

 prospect ' of an augmentation of the effective strength of tiat 

 portion of the native population who work for hire on the larger 

 plantations,' because he doubts whether sufficient wages can be gi^en 

 for sugar cultivation to stimulate the negro, who is fonder of his ^dse 

 than of money. His wants are few, and he is indifferent to hoarang. 

 The available statistics of agriculture are however scanty, and juite 

 insufficient to convey a correct and comprehensive view of indifetrial 



