326 TlMEHRI. 
Second, the cure is the importation of more coolies. 
The country is large enough to support an enormous 
population. Estates must also be kept up to the mark 
in every kind of labour-saving machinery, and also in 
every kind of fuel-saving apparatus, the methods of ex- 
traction must be of the best, both as regards the extrac- 
tion of the juice from the cane and also the produce 
from the juice, of both sugar and rum. Nothing must be 
thrown away and wasted. These, coupled with care, 
economy, watchfulness, and above all with good seasons, 
will enable the Demerara cane grower to compete with 
the beet, even though the latter be ' bounty fed.' 
The best labour, 'the stalwart negro/ will very likely 
leave sugar for the more exciting and better paid gold 
digging ; very well, planters will have to do the best 
they can with the dregs of the labour, and after all 
the dregs are very good dregs. The coolies are by no 
means to be despised, and they show no desire to go in 
for a bush life. 
There is a rival to King Sugar, but the old monarch is 
not dead yet, nor his reign over. Many things might 
secure him on his throne as firm as ever; a diminution of 
the beet crop is always possible, whether from weather 
or war. The abandonment of bounties is not only 
possible but exceedingly likely. Let us wish every 
prosperity to gold, there is plenty of room for that and 
sugar in this country, yes, and tobacco as well, and every- 
thing else that can be profitably produced. These will 
never seriously injure the great staple of the colony, 
Sugar. 
