355 
the steamer running from Barbados to St. Lucia should proceed 
to Dominica, Montserrat, Antigua, Nevis, and St. Kitts, and return 
within the week, after completing the circuit. 
The maintenance of frequent communication between 
Tobago and Trinidad is also desirable, and the present service 
between these islands could be improved by arranging that the 
steamer connecting Barbados and the Windward linge ioe s 
Trinidad should call at Tobago, thus giving also direct means 
transit between Barbados and Tobago, an object which appeared 
desirable to some of the persons who gave evidence before us in 
the latter Island. 
6. The complete double service suggested could be carried 
out by two steamers of moderate size, each running from Trinidad 
to Antigua one week and from Antigua to Trinidad the next, so 
as to give through communication between all the Islands by 
à weekly service each way. 
147. The subsidy required need not be of very large amount. 
AGRICULTURAL BANKS AND STATE LOANS. 
148. During our stay in the West Indies, the want of what was 
called *cheap money" was frequently A dien brought to 
our notice, and it was urged that private persons engaged in 
agriculture should be enabled, by the eroe “of the State, to 
obtain loans of money at a low rate of interest. 
149. Owing to the small size and the isolation of many of the 
Colonies, banking facilities are no doubt limited, and there is a 
want of competition ; but the main cause of the inability of agri- 
culturists to obtain loans, as well as of the high rates of interest 
which are sometimes charged, appears to us to be the risk of loss 
which is inseparable from business of di "epus especially in the 
present distressed state of the sugar indust 
150. We do not doubt that in some e. and under very 
careful management, advances of money by the State, or on a State 
guarantee, would be beneficial to mW eee but any system 
of State loans, or a State guarantee, is so liable to be mismanaged, 
and so likely to end in the loss of the money car, that we 
hesitate to recommend = general Son 
91. The owner of sugar estate who found himself in 
them on very onerous an would no doubt be glad to obtain a 
loan from the State at a moderate rate of interest, but we think it 
would be unwise, in the present state of the sugar industry, to 
engage the public resources in what would be a very risky 
speculation. 
152. The class of small cultivators who would be likely to take 
advantage of such advances are, as the evidence given in Grenada 
and elsewhere indicates, both open- Jing d and improvident : 
they would readily take loans at a low rate of intact ; and they 
would doubtless repay € money when the time came if they 
were in a position to do but we greatly doubt whether they 
would, as a body, make iiy special provision beforehand to enable 
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