590 
Even allowing for the fact that some persons may hold two or 
more plots of land, it is clear that the island sessi UNE a 
very large and increasing number of peasant proprie 
4. The Crown Land Regulations offer facilities for p settle- 
ment of the sahouring population on the land, and as sugar estates 
are abandoned some of them will probably fall into gio hands of 
sey der the me a ues made with the Jamaica Railway 
Company land was to be made over to the company on the 
eine that 70,356 acres have already been actually selected and 
conveyed to the West India Improvement Company, and 6,444 
acres which will shortly fall into the hands of the Government 
will also be conveyed to them. No use appears to have been 
made of this land so far, and the Government has intimated to 
the company the risk which they incur by allowing squatters to 
settle upon their properties, as 12 years’ undisturbed possession 
quis give them a valid title. It is to be hoped that these lands of 
me npany may soon be made available for purchase and 
settlem 
496. "eed of the evidence which we received does not give à 
people, and there was a tendency on the part of some witnesses 
to dwell a good deal on Tem praes Xa of the Jamaica 
peasantry, but there is «ule doubt that the bulk of them are in a 
position which compares not unfavourably with that of the 
peasantry of most cras in the world, and the facts stated in 
the following paragraph show that the EROR of the labouring 
Moves can hardly have doberious ed. 
In the last 10 years the number of sa vings bank accounts 
of iie amount of 5/. and under has nearly PEEN The census 
returns of 1891 show that in the ten years, 1881 to 1891, there had 
been an increase of 30 per cent. in the number of persons able to 
read and write. The acreage of provision grounds has increased 
more than 30 per cent. in ten years. There are 70,000 holdings of 
less than 5 acres. The area in coffee, usually in small lots, 
increased in ten years from 17,000 to 23,000 acres. More than 
6,000 ale caper mills are owned by the peasantry. The number 
of enrolled scholars was 100,400 in 1896, as against 49,000 in 1881, 
while the actual average daily attendance at schools had increased 
from 26,600 to 59,600. These facts indicate considerable advance, 
though no doubt in certain districts ao people are poor. Distress 
was, perhaps, more apparent at the time of our visit than is 
usually the case, for there was a severe drought, the logwood 
industry, which had been flourishing, had fallen off, and employ- 
ment on railway works ha 
498. On the whole there appears to us no ground for 
despondency as to the future of Jamaica, either in view of the 
possible failure of the sugar industry or on general considerations, 
but it is most desirable that the settlement of the people on the 
land should be encou 
501, The results, in any case, of a ode off in sugar produc- 
tion will not be so serious as in other West Indian Colonies, and 
