Encouragement of the Lesser Industries, i 19 
Do this and they will be contented. Drain their land for 
them, give them back-dams and kokers, and assist them 
in every way, and they will be satisfied to remain in their 
adopted country." This is all very well, but unfortunately 
the insignificant item force which enters into the little 
plan cannot be understood by Ah-Sim and Ramsammy ; 
and as a consequence the compulsory plan must fail. 
There is no doubt but that every effort ought to be made 
to try and induce our free immigrant population to re- 
main in the colony ; and, seeing that the cost of their 
introduction devolves almost entirely on the planters, 
this effort ought to be directed toward keeping them in 
the villages and unoccupied lands contiguous to sugar-es- 
tates, instead of scattering them up the rivers and in 
places where they cannot be reached. Thousands of 
dollars have been spent in subsidies to steamers to open 
up, it is said, the country, and so to scatter the already 
too sparse labouring population. Money is being spent 
on places where the number of square miles perhaps 
hardly equals the number of inhabitants ; and meantime 
well populated districts contiguous to sugar-estates are 
utterly neglected. This policy must be utterly con- 
demned. Even liberals in the full acceptation of the 
term are sufficiently conservative to endeavour to keep 
that for which they have paid, resisting all effort by 
others to alienate their property. Yet the effect toward 
the planters, who are the backbone of the constitution, 
of the present plan is to remove the dearly bought labour 
from the coast land and spread it far and wide up the 
rivers, simply as an experiment — an experiment which 
may prove disastrous in the end. 
