426 THE FIBRES OF TRINIDAD. 



The fewer wants a man has, the less exertion will he require to satisfy 

 them ; in other words, the less will he work. This is a natural law, always 

 the most powerful, but its action may be disturbed or modified by a variety 

 of circumstances. 



Besides our natural wants, civilisation produces a variety of artificial 

 wants. In a country where food and shelter are obtainable with the 

 greatest ease, the work, what work there is, is done to obtain the where- 

 withal to satisfy artificial wants. 



It may be an exaggeration to say that in Trinidad a given area of land 

 would feed twenty-five to thirty times as many persons as in England. Yet 

 the real amount approaches these figures, and if we consider that food is 

 about the only positive want of man in these parts, the amount of work to 

 be expected decreases not in an arithmetical, but in a geometrical ratio. 



From this it will appear, that for a given amount of industrial power, a 

 much denser population is required here than at home. Unfortunately, 

 Trinidad has but a scanty population, amounting only to 47 - 78 per square 

 mile. Land is abundant and cheap, and from various self-evident causes, 

 people will rather work on their own account than on that of others, even 

 though such dependent labour were more profitable. Trinidad is essentially 

 different from Barbados, where a large population crowds a very limited 

 area. 



A combination of causes lessens in Trinidad, and most of the other 

 West Indies, the available amount of labour. As for the assertions, that 

 some races of men will not, or cannot, work, it is mere idle talk. No race 

 of men will work if they can live comfortably without work ; and with 

 the exception of the lymphatic branch of the Caucasian, the " white man," 

 who is, perhaps, not fitted for field work under a vertical sun, all races 

 work here as anywhere else, whenever necessity compels them. 



As far as new branches of agriculture are concerned, a difficulty exists, 

 which is, however, not local nor serious. It will be at first not very easy to 

 withdraw the independent labourer and foreman from the routine of his 

 accustomed work, particularly as he has a decided predilection for sugar, 

 our chief product. Immigration under contract, which, as is well known, 

 works in other respects to universal satisfaction, will remove this difficrdty 

 effectually. With regard to the assertion, that sugar, " after all, pays best," 

 even in an average of years, I fear that no positive figures can be given in 

 .support of the statement. One circumstance unfavourable to sugar is, that 

 short crops are not unfrequent, and large ones have sometimes not been 

 brought in on account of the rains setting in too early. Many other 

 cultivations would not be subject to these chances, and a greater variety of 

 crops would establish our agricultural interest on a broader and firmer 

 basis. 



