345 
PART 
ECONOMIC CONDITION OF THE WEST INDIA 
COLONIES. 
10. Your Majesty's possessions with which we have to deal in 
the present eren are all peus within the tropics, and extend 
from British Guiana in th uth-east to Jamaica in the north- 
west, through 1 20 “degrees of Togi de dhia 15 of latitude. Tbe 
stating that a journey from British Guiana to Jamaica by the mail 
route occupies eight days, allowing for the present detention of 
two pres at Barbados 
11. The Colonies may, a a whole, be described as eminently 
suited, pA by climate and i, for the growth of special tropical 
products, such as sugar-cane, cocoa, coffee, logwood, nutmegs, and 
various descriptions of fruit, of which the most important are 
bananas, oranges, cocoa-nuts, and -pine-apples. 
2. In some of the Islands cattle and horses can be profitably 
reared, but the raising of stock is never likely to be of more than 
local importance. There are extensive savannahs in the interior of 
British Guiana, which are said to be well suited for this purpose, 
but they cannot be utilised until means of access from the coast 
are provided. 
13. There is no prospect of manufacturing industries being 
established on any Seco rni cale. Nor is there any mine 
wealth of importance kno to exist, with the exception of 
asphalt, which is obtsbaed: teeta the well-known Pitch Lake of 
Trinidad, and the gold which has been re ge in considerable 
quantities from British Guiana in recent 
. Owing to the nature of the soil and ET such articles of 
human food as are yielded by cultivation in the tropics can, as a 
rule, be readily produced in large er and there is conse- 
quently no noe of any permanent deficiency of the bare 
necessaries of existence for the labouring classes. For this class 
0: 
food which can only be produced in temperate climates, and for 
manufactured poi including clothes, and, generally, for the 
purchase of import of any kind, ote ensi s West Indian 
ns are de Hed ndent on being able find a profitable 
foreign market for the special tropical "reducta which we have 
mentioned in paragrap . It is, moreover, onl of 
such an export trade that the population can be maintained ia 
such a condition of qe as will permit of sufficient revenue 
being raised to meet the cost of a civilised Government. 
15. The only Qualification of this general statement regarding 
the importance to the British Mes Indies of the e oe ort trade in 
agricultural products which we find it necessary to make has 
reference to British Guiana, whats the production of Mcd gold 
is already of considerable importance, and where operations are 
being carried on for the extraction of gold from quartz reefs. The: 
