400 
under present conditions of competition. In many places 
in the West Indies, sugar is not manufactured according to 
the best and latest processes, bat even the estates which 
have introduced the best machinery suffer from the 
depression, d we have little doubt that the latest machinery 
would be much more generally employed but for the 
goner and apparently well founded conviction that even 
ith the assistance of such machinery the business could 
dus be profitably carried on. In places where large factories 
equipped with the best ma dae; cannot be established 
owing to local causes it is doubtful if the sugar industry 
could, under any circumstances, be restored to a condition 
of permanent prosperity, except, possibly, in localities whie 
€ very special advantages in soil, climate, and labour 
Supply 
d. The depression in the — is causing sugar estates to be 
abandoned, and will cause more estates to be abandoned, 
and such abandonment i is causing and will cause distress 
among the labouring population, “including a large number 
nd 
of East Indian immigrants, and will seriously affect, for a 
— time, the general prosperity of the sugar- 
produc g Colonies, and will render it a oeihio for some, 
and ae ps the greater number of them, to provide, 
without external aid, for their own government and 
administration. 
e. If the production of sugar is discontinued or very largely 
reduced, there is no industry or industries that could com- 
pletely replace it in such islands as Barbados, Antigua, and 
St. Kitts, and be profitably carried on and supply employ- 
ment for the labouring population. In Jamaica, in Trini- 
dad, in British Guiana, in St. Lucia, in St. Vincent, and to 
some extent in Montserrat and Nevis, the sugar industry 
may in time be replaced by other industries, but only after 
the lapse of a considerable period and at the cost of much 
displacement of labour and i eepA mp sumer Rg: M 
Colonies where sugar can be com pletely or very largely, 
replaced by other industries, the Colonies in question will 
ye in a much sounder position, both politenity and econo- 
iiicatly, when they have ceased to depend wholly, or to à 
un a extent, upon the continued prosperity of a single 
ost "ilis Ges, ver ry Mam affect the condition of the 
inbouriniy classes for the worse, and would largely reduce 
the revenue of the Colonies. In some places the loss of 
revenue could be met to a limited extent by economies, but 
this could not be done universally nor in a material degree 
in most of the Colonies. Some of the Colonies could not 
provide the necessary cost of administration, including the 
relief of distressed and hodeiek p ersons, or of the sup- 
port and repatriation (when pies ae of the East Indian 
immigrants, without subventions from the mother country. 
