v^-^^ 
^^n^^'" 
Notes on Labour and the Necessity of Immi- 
gration for Sugar Estates. 
N British Guiana of late years, it has been the 
custom to speak and write of its main industry, 
sugar-growing, as moribund ; and to advise 
that the Colony be rehabilitated by devoting its energies to 
alternative pursuits such as rice, coffee and cocoa growing, 
and other so-called minor industries. Faith in sugar 
produ6lion seemed almost entirely lost, and even gold 
after the failure of the Kanimapoo and Barima Mining 
Companies, found few to preach, as formerly, that only 
in this dire6lion lay salvation for the Colony. So long and 
so insidiously had the do6lrine been inculcated by a cer- 
tain se6lion of the Press and otherwise, that the sugar 
planters were utterly selfish and opposed to the general 
progress of the country, that with the bulk of the com- 
munity it has come to be accepted as an article of belief 
that admits not of doubt. 
The outcome of such ideas as these, has been that the 
revised EIe6lorate have in the majority of cases returned 
to the Court of Policy and Combined Court, men pledged 
to support the views of this class, in opposition to what 
they deem the interest merely of the sugar planters. 
The a6lual course of events during the last few years, 
has, it is evident from some of the votes in the last 
meeting of the Combined Court, gone some way to 
modify the opinion of the representatives. In the face 
of a rapidly declining revenue, it may have seemed 
doubtful policy to hamper still further the industry which 
at any rate for the present is its chief support. Few 
