MULTIPLICATION OF SMALL PROPRIETORS. 115 



landholders will consent to sell small fragments of their 

 estates to the poorer classes who are willing to work the 

 land with their own hands. 



The island proprietors cannot command the capital nor 

 the skill necessary to cultivate their large estates profitably 

 now, whatever they might have done in more prosperous 

 times, and before they became so poor and involved. They 

 are realizing this more and more distinctly every day. The 

 market value of course must go on declining as long as the 

 present proportions of the estates are preserved, until the 

 lower prices tempt labor and small capitalists from abroad, 

 or until the land comes within the reach of the poorer classes 

 of the colored population. That point has been nearly 

 reached. There has been as yet but little movement to- 

 ward the island from abroad, because its actual condition 

 and resources are not correctly understood in other coun- 

 tries, especially among the class most likely to avail them- 

 selves of a new field of enterprise on a foreign soil. But 

 the colored residents have already discovered their advan- 

 tage, and are availing themselves, in considerable numbers, 

 of the cheapness of real estate, to become proprietors. 



I was surprised to find how general was the desire 

 among the negroes to become possessed of a little land, 

 and upon what sound principles that desire was based. In 

 the first place, a freehold of four or five acres gives them a 

 vote, to which they attach great value, and in the next 



