VERTEUIL — TRINIDAD AGRICULTURE. 
215 
is inferior, or requires energy to cultivate it, whom do we find 
upon it but the Indian trained on a sugar estate, or the negro 
laborer who in his younger days knew no other work but what 
his cutlass and his spade secured him on the cane plantations 1 
Have not the Barbadians the justly earned reputation of being 
splendid growers of ground provisions, and raisers of poultry and 
small stock, but yet they had no training for that branch of 
industry, merely what they got in the cane fields 1 The cacao 
plantations of Grenada have likewise been established by those 
same laborers who learnt field work in the cane fields of their 
own island, and in those of Trinidad. Have fresh Africans been 
introduced in Jamaica to start and keep up the fruit trade which 
has obtained for that island along with Trinidad the honour of 
being considered strong enough to tide over the sugar crises 
without extraneous help ? I think it is rather that same class 
which received its first training on the sugar plantations, and left 
them when they became independent., and the industry ceased to 
be remunerative. Our experience here is that training on a 
sugar estate is the best to secure discipline not only amongst 
labourers, but for the young men whose calling is outside of 
Government or Merchants’ offices. 
That sugar is still necessary to the progress of the Colony 
the great majority of those who consider impartially the position 
must admit, and a supreme effort in favour of maintaining it 
deserves the co-operation of all. Is it too much to expect the 
Imperial Government to join us ? The commercial principles of 
the Mother Country are a bar, it is said, to the imposition of 
countervailing duties on bounty fed sugar imported in British 
markets. Yet would the advocates of the free breakfast table 
accept that bounties on wheat be given by the United States, 
Prussia, Argentina, which would give cheaper bread to the poor, 
but annihilate the cereal production of Great Britain ? I cannot 
say, but I do know that the importation of live stock is virtually 
prohibited from foreign countries under the pretence of preserving 
British herds and flocks from disease, though it is well known 
that the various breeds of cattle, sheep and pigs of the European 
continent are as free from disease as those of the British Isles. 
Must we also see in the duty of 4d. per gallon or 33 per cent, ad 
valorem on ordinary qualities, imposed on colonial rum, a measure 
to protect the British public from the injurious effects of that 
spirit, and to preserve to it the beneficial influence of scotch and 
Irish Whiskies ? 
However, whether we receive aid from the Home Govern 
rnent, or are left to ourselves, we must still struggle and we must 
therefore consider what means we have at our disposal to face the 
