VERTEUIL — TRINIDAD AGRICULTURE. 
213 
The two great staples of the colony, sugar and cacao, must 
go hand in hand, as indeed they have done up to this time, and 
the cacao planters have shewn by their generous acceptance ot a 
larger proportion of immigration expenses that they do not 
merely sympathize with the sugar planters in their di cu les, 
but have been ready to lend effective help, according to their 
resources. It is a natural consequence that if in an agricultural 
country the chief staple goes to ruin, the other agricultural 
industries will have to assume the burdens it bore, and it 
sympathy were cast aside, self protection demands a closer union 
between the agricultural and commercial interests of the co ony 
when peril threatens any of them. 
It has been said by some, rather with a light heart that the 
collapse of the sugar industry, and its extinction in a e\v years 
would not affect this island to any great extent 1 his can 
hardly be the opinion of those knowing our conditions who have 
given a thought to that possibility, and who have before them 
the condition of the Leeward Islands, St. Vincent, 't. ucia 
and Tobago. It is no easy matter to build up other industries 
in the place of sugar, which to-day represents invested capital to 
the amount of two-and-a-lialf million pounds sterling, an w ic , 
even now in a day of extreme depression, pays out m wages to 
the labouring classes about £350,000 yearly, with £lo , m 
in salaries to managers, overseers, engineers, and in purchase or 
supplies locally. Strict economy has been obligatory to prolon 
existence in the hopes of better times, or until soine combination 
can be effected which will fill up the gap created by the decay or 
the main industry. 
Up to the end of the Seventies sugar was indeed the > main- 
stay of Trinidad. Prices ruled at £18 per ton for m'lscovadoes 
which are this year worth under £7, and molasses fetched 1- to 
16 cents a gallon, whereas now 3 cents is the extreme v a ue. 
It is suggested that had we then possessed brctones 
which no,, produce the best class of sugars, ;' ur I ,t f 10 ' ° i 
be stronger" to-day. Yet British Guiana which had to 
advance of us by many years in the line of progr^s, with many 
advantages over us, is to-day no better off an w ’ 
dear enough that even with all improvements id 
and a full yield of cane in the field, however a e o West 
battle on ^ — nmlnmne countnes, n eso 
yield ot cane in the neiu, now West 
on equal terms with other producing c 
Indian sugar cannot compete first against >ou >> a t ^ e 
European beet producing countries winch posse's j anc j 
advantages of science, but proximity to markets, ch - p 
