October, 1910.] 



351 



Miscellaneous. 



the English Government, and which 

 only came to an end about 70 years ago. 



Under Portuguess rule, the great caste 

 of the cinnamon peelers came into exis- 

 tence, and in consideration of their 

 location in villages, and the protection 

 of their lands, they were bound to go 

 into the forest to collect and deliver a 

 certain quantity of cinnamon. The 

 Dutch continued this system, and also 

 encouraged the growth of the spice in 

 the lowlands near the ports of Colombo 

 and Negombo, the cinnamon grown near 

 the latter being considered the finest of 

 all, But it required so many troops for 

 its protection that it is doubtful if the 

 gain was worth the cost, and towards 

 the end of their time the Dutch were 

 obliged to form enclosed plantations 

 within range of their guns, "and here, 

 so jealous and despotic was their policy, 

 that the peeling of cinnamon, the selling 

 or exporting of a single stick, except by 

 the servants of the government, or even 

 the wilful injury of a cinnamon plant, 

 were crimes punishable with death." 

 Both under the Portuguese and under 

 the Dutch, the surplus of cinna- 

 mon beyond that required by traders 

 from abroad was annually burned, 

 lest any accumulation might occasion 

 the price to be lowered, or the collectors 

 to relax their toil in searching the forests 

 for the spice. 



The monopoly was continued under 

 the English Government, and we may 

 quote Tennent. " The trade was at its 

 height when Nees wrote a disquisition 

 on it in 1823 ; but opinion was already 

 arraying itself against the rigidly ex- 

 clusive system under which it was con- 

 ducted. This was looked upon as the 

 more unjustifiable, owing to the popular 

 belief that the monopoly was one creat- 

 ed by nature ; and that prohibitions be- 

 came vexatious where competition was 

 impossible. Accordingly in 1832 the 

 odious monopoly was abandoned ; the 

 Government ceased to be the sole expor- 

 ters of cinnamon, and thenceforward the 

 merchants of Colombo and Galle were 

 permitted to take a share in the trade on 

 paying to the crown an export duty 

 of three shillings a pouud, which was 

 afterwards reduced to one .... and in 

 1840. . . the crown divested itself alto- 

 gether of its property in the planta- 

 tions," 



These monopolies had but little to do 

 with real agriculture, and it is to the 

 American tropics that we must turn for 

 the next phase in development. The 

 European nations had settled in most 

 of the islands of the West Indies. 

 Presently it was discovered that sugar 

 would succeed there, but there was little 



or no labour available to cultivate any 

 but small holdings of the type which 

 had hitherto prevailed in the tropics, 

 where each family tilled its own bit of 

 ground. Capital, however, was forth- 

 coming from Europe, and labour was 

 at once provided by the introduction of 

 slaves from Africa. All the conditions 

 for agricultural success were thus ful- 

 filled—land, capital, transport, and 

 labour. The industry became a con- 

 spicuous success, a large amount of land 

 was taken up by it, and for a long time 

 it greatly enriched the islands. 



We must now proceed to trace the 

 downfall of this great industry. The 

 first heavy blow to it was the liberation 

 of the slaves in 1832. Labour became 

 more difficult to obtain, more casual, and 

 more expensive, and this destroyed the 

 profitableness of the industry just at 

 the time when sugar in other countries 

 began to progress, so that the West 

 Indies were not able to follow suit, but 

 remained on the comparatively low 

 plane at which they had arrived in 1832. 

 Instead of the large estates and large 

 factories to be seen in other countries, 

 such as Cuba, Java, or Hawaii, the 

 British West Indies have remained in 

 the condition of small estates each with 

 its own factory, and thus have been 

 inefficient and expensive in the manu- 

 facture of sugar, and further handi- 

 capped in the competition with the 

 more progressive countries. In recent 

 years cotton cultivation, cacao, and 

 other products have to a large extent 

 come in among the West Indians, and 

 the large sugar estates have been broken 

 up to some extent among peasant 

 proprietors. 



At about the time of the emancipation 

 of the slaves, a great change was coming 

 over agriculture in the east, mainly as 

 the result of work done by Sir Edward 

 Barnes, then Governor of Ceylon. He for 

 the first time tried planting in the east 

 under European management, and 

 opened an estate at Peradeniya, which is 

 now a Government Experiment Station. 



In the east slave labour was not allow- 

 able under British rule, though it was 

 common enough under that of the 

 natives. But coolies, i.e., men upon 

 daily pay, could be obtained without 

 much difficulty in the crowded parts of 

 India, and it was by means of cooly 

 labour that this estate, and afterwards 

 the many hundreds of other estates that 

 wore opened all over tropical Asia, was 

 developed. It is well to point out in so 

 many words, however, that this means 

 capital, and also that no cultivation of 

 this sort could go on successfully with- 

 out means of transport, which had 



