r 
i 
11 
I am happy to say that in Trinidad a fair beginning has been 
made. Mr. C. Fabien and Mr. Joseph Penco, to whom all credit 
should be given, together \tith Mr. Anderson, who was many years 
in Cuba, have sent to, and sold in England, several hundred boxes 
of really good cigars, and they are still extending their cultivation 
of the parent weed on their estates at Conupia. But individual effort 
is not sufficient. Skilled knowledge is necessary, and Colonial 
* 9 
Legislatures should vote, say £1,000 a year for five years at least, 
so as to be able to procure for the Islands mentioned several 
specialists from Cuba, who would establish the industry and at 
the same time train young Creoles to succeed them at the end 
of their term of service. 
* 
Seeing that the profit of Tobacco per acre should be somewhere 
about £25, is it not astonishing that capitalists who have proper¬ 
ties in the West Indies have not ventured, with Sugar at 10s. and 
11s., to try, even on a limited scale, this new departure? 
I have referred to San Domingo and Manilla. 
The principal Cigar factory in the latter Island employs 10,000 
female hands. The total population is about 300,000. The 
chief Exports are Hemp, Sugar, Cigars and Coffee . Mark this, 
three out of these four Exports we grotesquely call Minor 
Industries. Industries that, so long as Sugar is the “staple,” it 
is not worth while cultivating ! The average number of Cigars 
exported annually from Manilla is 92,620,000. If they were 
only worth Id. each, this number would represent upwards of 
£385,916. The value of the Hemp sent to England alone in 
1881 was £671,514, and these, forsooth, are Minor Industries !! 
Truly should we, residents in these West India Islands, which 
are capable of producing anything and everything, blush at our 
apathy, inertness, and ignorance. We, descendants of Englishmen, 
who boast of our superior system of colonization, and those of 
us who trace our descent from French and Spanish ancestors, 
should hide our diminished heads when we compare our progress 
with that of the chief of the Philippine Islands. 
4 
