page 15

Chapter I.

The West Indies.

In Professor Leone Levi's work ("History of British Commerce"), on comparing the returns for the year 1850 with those for 1877, the following results are given. The total general trade of the West India Islands had increased in value during that interval by 177 per cent., but their trade with the United Kingdom had diminished in value by 9 per cent.; in the former year the United Kingdom did 68 per cent, of the trade and only 34 per cent, of it in the latter year. The total trade of British Guiana had increased during the 28 years by 227 per cent, and the trade of the United Kingdom with the colony had increased by 55 per cent, during the same period; but the percentage of this colony's trade with the United Kingdom had fallen from 78 per cent, of the whole in 1850 to 37 per cent, of the whole in 1877.

Taking all the West India colonies, the total exports for the six years ending 1871 were about 45 millions sterling, of which the United Kingdom received 31¼ millions. For the six years ending 1877 there were over 49½ millions exports, of which the United Kingdom received under 34½ millions. For the six years ending 1883 the exports exceeded 55½ millions, of which the United Kingdom received 34¼ millions.

The imports into the West India colonies for the six years ending 1871 were about 38 millions sterling, of which the United Kingdom sent 17½ millions. For the six years ending 1877 they were about 45 millions, of which the United Kingdom sent a little over 2o½ millions. For the six years ending 1883 they were nearly 51¼ millions, of which the United Kingdom sent under 21 millions.

It thus appears that between the years 1871 and 1877 the exports of these colonies had increased by 41½ millions sterling, of which the United Kingdom received 3? millions; and between the latter year and 1883 there had been a further increase in the value of exports to the amount of 6 millions sterling, of which the United Kingdom received none. In imports the increase had been 7 millions between the years 1871 and 1877, of which the United Kingdom sent 3 millions; page 16 and between the latter year and 1883 there had been a further increase in imports to the extent of 6¼ millions sterling, but the United Kingdom sent only about ? million of this increase.

During the 12 years ending 1883, about £6,632,210 in bullion and specie (included in above figures), was imported into the Island of Trinidad, and of this all but £1,383,258 was re-exported.^* The imports of bullion and specie into the other West India colonies for the above period are inconsiderable.

The average value of the exports from the West India colonies to the United Kingdom has not varied to any considerable extent during the last 18 years, although the quantity has been greater. For the 10 years ending 1875 it averaged £5,340,000 a year, the average for the 5 years ending 1880 was about £5,917,000 a year, and for the 3 years ending 1883 £5,068,719 a year. The fall in the price of sugar partly accounts for the falling off in the value of produce imported into the United Kingdom from these colonies during late years.

The imports from the United Kingdom into the West India colonies (including bullion and specie, and foreign and colonial produce and manufactures) averaged £3,135,000 a year for the ten years ending 1875, £3,445,000 a year for the five years ending 1880, and £3,786,000 a year for the three years ending 1883.

The above import values of goods and specie include freight and some charges.

In the above shipments from the United Kingdom, an average of about £325,000 a year, for the whole period, will be for colonial and foreign produce and manufactures, the balance being British goods and specie.

According to Board of Trade returns, the imports into the United Kingdom from the West India possessions averaged £5,935,000 a year for the three years 1881-83, and the exports thereto from the United Kingdom for the same period averaged £3,500,000 a year. This is about 17 per cent, more for West India imports than is given by the colonial returns, page 17 and 81/6 per cent, less for exports to the West Indies than is shown by the colonial returns. On both sides the imports are more highly valued than at the ports whence they were sent. It will be seen farther on that the differences between the colonial and Board of Trade returns in the West Indies are only about a quarter of the differences that are shown to exist in some other colonies.

In the five years ending 1877 the United States sent 47 millions dollars of goods to the British West India colonies, and in the five years ending 1882 exactly another 47 millions of dollars' worth (a total for the ten years of £19,584,000 at 4s. 2d. a dollar) mostly in flour and other provisions. In the five years ending 1877 the United States received 33 millions dollars' in produce from the British West India colonies, and in the five years ending 1882 the amount was 39½ millions of dollars worth (a total of £15,104,000 for the ten years). During the ten years ending 1882 the United States sent to these colonies 21½ millions dollars (about, £4,479,000) more merchandise than they took in produce and other commodities. This balance was probably paid in cash or bills. In some places, as at Barbados, Americans sell their provisions for cash, and they pay cash for the produce they purchase; but for convenience of comparison it will be necessary, in colonial dealings with other countries, as well as with Great Britain, to give comparative statements, in order to demonstrate the position they hold towards one another as consumers of each other's produce and merchandise; for in the end trade depends on these results, whatever may have been the medium employed in the exchange of commodities.

During the same ten years these colonies exported £57,300,000 to the United Kingdom, and took 34½ millions in merchandise and specie; they consequently exported to the United Kingdom £22,800,000 more in produce and other commodities than they took in merchandise and in money; so that these colonies took £14,916,000 more from the United Kingdom than from the United States, and exported £42,200,000 more to the United Kingdom than to the United States in the ten years (1873-82). The total trade with the United States for the ten years was £34,688,000, and with the United Kingdom £91,800,000.

During the same ten years (1873-82) the British West Indies imported from Cuba and the Spanish West India page 18 possessions about £796,000 in merchandise, and the Spanish possessions took in return only £145,000, so that some other means of paying the balance of £65,000 a year must have been provided by the British colonies.

From British North America, the four chief colonies—Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad, and British Guiana—during the four years ending 1881, took £1,350,000 in merchandise (chiefly provisions), and sent only £1,115,000 in produce and other forms of payment. In the two years 1882-83 they took £801,000, and sent £1,176,000. British North America has, therefore, been importing more produce, recently, from the British West Indies. Jamaica, British Guiana, and Trinidad imported to the value of £1,300,000 from India in the three years 1881-83, and as there were only £1,344 exports in return, the amount due was probably paid through London. These are the three colonies that chiefly import Indian coolies.

Trinidad does a large trade with Venezuela, importing in the ten years 1874-83, £5,099,000, and exporting £2,629,000. It would appear that some Venezuela exports find their way to European markets viâ Trinidad. This is also the only West India colony that deals considerably with France. It sent £2,076,000 of produce to that country in the five years 1879-83, receiving in return only £695,000. The balance (£1,381,000) being probably paid in cash, in bills, and through London. The produce sent to France was mostly cocoa.

The British West India colonies do a certain trade amongst themselves, but only to a limited extent; some ports in Barbados and other places are used as depots, whence American and other stores are distributed among minor colonies.

On the whole it may be seen that the West India colonies, in their dealings with other countries (except France), usually take from them considerably more than they export to them, and that in their dealings with the United Kingdom it is the reverse; they give her more than they take. The British markets evidently continue to be the best for the sale of produce, and London being the centre of commercial transactions to most countries, accounts between foreign countries and other colonies are best settled there.

The value of apparel, cotton, linen, and woollen goods, the produce and manufacture of the United Kingdom, imported into the West India colonies in the five years 1879-83, page 19 amounted to £6,205,000, the total of United Kingdom produce and manufactures of all kinds being £15,181,000 in the five years.

It is as well to draw attention to the fact that the foreign West India colonies, that is to say, the Danish, Dutch, French and Spanish West Indies, and Haiti and San Domingo (total population of all about 3,500,000) import between them, from the United Kingdom, merchandise of the yearly value, taking an average of five years, 1879-83, of nearly £3,750,000, all of which, with the exception of about £600.000 a year in rice, for the possessions of Spain—principally from India and Burmah—were nearly exclusively British goods. This is over £368,000 a year more than the British West Indies took during the same period. The total average yearly exports to England from these foreign West Indies, for the same period, was £2,189,000. They took, in the five years, £18,722,000 in merchandise from the United Kingdom, and sent exports valued at £10,945,000. It thus appears that these countries take from the United Kingdom about £1,555,000 a year more in imports than they send her in exports. It has been seen that the United Kingdom trade with the British West Indies lies quite the other way. During the same period of five years they took only £16,909,000 imports (including specie and foreign and colonial produce and manufactures) from the United Kingdom, sending her £31,860,000 of their exports.

The total tonnage entered and cleared from all the ports of the British West Indies in the four years, 1880—83, was 12,006,047 tons for steamers, and 7,838,915 tons for sailing vessels, 15,115,795 of the whole tonnage being British. Most steamers call at every port of importance on a voyage, and many sailing vessels call at more than one port.

The following are the chief tariffs on articles imported into the West Indies. The highest are paid by the people of Jamaica. They pay 8s. for every 196 lb. of flour, or one halfpenny per lb. duty! It is not to be wondered at that the labouring population consume of this luxury only about four ounces a week per head. Most of the other West Indian colonies charge about one farthing per lb. duty, and consume a trifle more of the article. Flour foods are perishable commodities in tropical climates; they soon deteriorate in value, and are easily crowded with weevils. Money, also, commands a much higher interest in these places than in the United page 20 Kingdom (the lowest rate charged for good paper is 6 per cent, at the chief ports). A tradesman, who has to pay the duties on flour always in cash, while the flour itself is often paid for in produce or in bills, will expect a return equal to double the amount advanced, in order to cover a possible loss by waste and deterioration. A flour duty (especially a high one) is the worst form of tax that could be imposed in the tropics; it increases the amount of the risk of the importer to such an extent that he has to charge much more in proportion for the article than is represented by the extra cost to him, and it helps to induce him to import only such quantities as he is certain to find a ready market for. The average duty on wheaten flour in the West Indies is equal to about 26 per cent, on its first cost (flour at 16s. a barrel of 196 lb., at port of shipment or on board) at present prices of low grade flour. For the reason given above this will make it cost 39 per cent, more to the purchaser than would be the case if it were free of duty. In Jamaica, where the duty on flour is about 50 per cent, on its first cost, the effects will proportionately be more severe, and the difference to the retail purchaser will be formidable indeed. The ordinary labourer cannot afford flour food as a usual diet, if at all, on these conditions. The average cost of a pound of bread made of a low-grade flour, and more or less adulterated with the flour of manioc and other inferior and lower-priced substances, is 3d. in the West Indies. The duty on flour is only 10 per cent, ad valorem at Honduras, and about 22 percent. (3s. 6d. a barrel of 196 lb.) at Trinidad.

Corn meal is moderately used, and by the labouring population only. In Jamaica it pays a quarter the amount of duty charged on flour entering that colony; in the other colonies it pays about half the duty flour pays, the average is 16 per cent, on first cost. In Barbados and British Guiana the duties are less—about 7 per cent, to 8 per cent, on first cost. Flour is permitted to enter the little island of Montserrat free.

Rice is more generally consumed in the coolie colonies of Trinidad and British Guiana, but it is also moderately used in the other colonies. The low-priced Rangoon qualities are usually imported. Jamaica duty figures highest at 3s. per 100 lb., equal to about 41 per cent, on first cost, at 8s. per cwt. on board. Trinidad charges about 27 per cent., and page 21 British Guiana about 13 per cent.; Barbados charges only per cent.; the other colonies charge from 10 per cent, to 20 per cent, duty on first cost (on board).

The duties on biscuits, grain, peas, beans, and farinaceous substances not specially referred to, are all somewhat in the same proportion to value as those above given. These are all staple articles of food, and, it is not too much to say, the more they are employed by the people, the better for all classes. A superior diet, for which a man will have to labour regularly, will improve his physical powers and increase his self-respect, and add stability to industry. It will be seen, however, that some of the tariffs are almost, if not quite, prohibitory, and others are so high as to be unjust. For those who study Blue Books, it may be well to mention that the returns they embody are often on these subjects incorrect and delusive. An article in one colony will be valued at 24s., and at another colony not fifty miles distant the same class of article will be valued, at the same time, at 38s.; at one place a thing will be valued at 5s., and thirty miles off they will place it at 12s. Some of these figures must be incorrect. The articles so valued are often imported by the same vessel and shipped from the same port at the same time. In dealing with prices, the cost on board or at the port of shipment should be taken, which, of course, is liable to vary, and does vary, but it varies equally for all. The prices in local markets of limited extent may vary largely on the spot, for local reasons, within a few months or weeks, and it would be misleading to endeavour to follow them. Besides, the prices may be put down from the two or three parcels of a high class imported for special use, and not from the average quality with which the public get supplied. It is probable, also, that in some instances not only freight and charges are added, but even prospective profits. This would naturally cause a specific duty to look less. In dealing with ad valorem duties the merchant will be certain to be strict, and not to overvalue his goods to the customs authorities. Ad valorem duties are charged on the prices of articles at port of shipment, or nearly so. Goods paying specific duties should be valued similarly.

Fish, dry-and wet-salted, is an article of diet a good deal too much employed, perhaps, by the people, for the quality is often of the worst. Here the Blue Books are evidently misleading, for the invoice prices of the same article vary sometimes page 22 100 per cent, in ports almost within sight of one another. It is remarkable, also, that where the duties are highest there the prices are put very high, and when the duties are comparatively low the prices are less in proportion. Now this cannot be the case in business; the greater duty will enhance the price after, not before, its payment. In Barbados these duties are comparatively low, in the other colonies they are far too high, notably in Jamaica, where the customs charges are 3s. 6d. per 100 lb. of dry fish, equal to 18½ per cent., and is 2d. to 2S. 3d. per 100 lb. wet fish, equal to 20 per cent, to 30 per cent, ad valorem. The other colonies vary from 1s. to 2S. for same weight. Trinidad allows these articles to enter free.

Salt meat is charged 8s., 10s., 12s. 6d. up to 15s. on a barrel of 200 lb. The first cost Value will vary between 40s. and 60s., according to the nature and quality. The duty on this article therefore varies from 13? per cent, to 37½ per cent. ad valorem, according to the port it enters at. Trinidad charges no duty on salt meat.

The duties charged on articles of secondary importance for food are usually so high that they must have the effect of restricting their importation and lessening the revenue that might be derived from them; these duties, on the whole, are sometimes higher even than those imposed by the deliberately restrictive tariffs of the neighbouring colonies of foreign powers, and are equal to those imposed by protectionist countries, who desire the articles to be shut out from their markets. Jamaica charges 2d. per lb. on cheese, butter, bacon, sausages, and hams. These articles are mainly imported from the United States, and the duty will average from 18 per cent, or 20 per cent, on butter and ham, to 40 per cent, on cheese and sausages, and 33 per cent, on bacon, on the first cost. The effect of such a heavy charge will fall on the consumer, who will have to pay about double this duty by the time the article leaves the retailer's hands. The charges in the other West India colonies on these articles average about half those of Jamaica.

There are duties on lard, soap, candles, salt, and other household articles too many to enumerate; but the amount imposed is sufficient to seriously enhance the cost of all of them to the people. There is a duty on coffee, which is probably protective, as the people may often grow their own page 23 supplies. The duty on raw sugar varies from 100 per cent, or more on its present value in some colonies through almost every stage of duty; but on the whole it acts, as probably it was intended to act, as a prohibition to importation. The case of refined sugar is different; this is a British manufacture, and the sugar-growing colonies, who are anxious that the United Kingdom should buy their raw sugar, put a prohibitive duty on its return in a refined condition. The average duty is from ¾d. to 1½d. per lb., which will have the effect of restricting the supply, and more than doubling the cost to the consumer. Sugar imported into the Bahamas for preserving and packing fruits is exempted from duty. The duty on tea is comparatively moderate in the West Indies, except in Jamaica, Bahamas, and Honduras, where they charge 1s. per lb.; but it is an article not extensively used by the people.

Rum and gin are the only spirituous liquors much employed by the people. The duties on these vary in every colony. It may be said to be tolerably high in some of them, considering the intrinsic value of the article, in many it is evidently too low. It is 10s. a gallon at Jamaica, 8s. 4d. at British Guiana, 6s. to 8s. at Trinidad, 3s. to 6s. at Barbados, 3s. to 7s. at the Windward Islands, and from 1s. 6d. to 5s. in the Leeward Islands, 3s. to 9s. at Bahamas, and 9s. at Honduras. If these duties are imposed on any determined principle, the variations in amount of duty charged will show that they have not been made clear. The duties on beer average from 6d. to 1s. per doz. quarts, and in wood from 2d. to 1s. the gallon. The duty on wines differ in each colony. Some charge 15 per cent., others 20 per cent., others 25 per cent, ad valorem, and others 1s. to 6s., or 2S. to 8s., or 4s. to 8s. per dozen bottles specific duty, according to quality and strength; the duty on wine in the wood varies from 15 per cent, to 25 per cent, ad valorem, and from 1s., 2s. 6d., or 4s. per gallon specific duty.

Tobacco may be regarded as a necessary, at least the people so regard it. The amount of duty charged varies much, and it is difficult to find a sufficient reason for this; unmanufactured tobacco pays 6d. per lb. at Jamaica and Barbados, it pays is. 0½d. to 1s. 5½d. at British Guiana, and 9d. at Trinidad. At Honduras, St. Christopher, and Nevis, it is 2½d. per lb., 1½d. at Bahamas, and 3d. to 1s. elsewhere. 3d. per lb. would not be an unfair duty; it would be equal to about 40 per cent, on the first cost value on board. The unmanu page 24 factured leaf is the form of tobacco used by the people, and a duty of from 80 to 140 per cent, on its value seems too much; manufactured tobacco pays at Barbados, Trinidad, Jamaica, and the Windward Islands about 35 per cent, on its value; at British Guiana 50 per cent., and in the Leeward Islands from about 14 per cent to 20 per cent. The duty on cigars is about 40 per cent, on their value at Jamaica, it sometimes rises to 30 per cent, in other colonies, it is sometimes only 20 per cent, or less. In some of these colonies the people can grow their own tobacco, and the duty on the unmanufactured article will be protective, as an excise would be impracticable. Perhaps the majority of the tariffs were so intended. A lesser, and uniform, duty on common leaf tobacco would probably be more remunerative than the present tariffs.

The duties on articles of ordinary merchandise, yarns, woven fabrics, leather goods, haberdashery, millinery, earthenware, glass and iron ware, are sometimes as high as, and approximate closely to, similar tariffs in those foreign ports where they are imposed expressly for protection purposes There are considerable variations, for apparently no reasons, between the tariffs of the several colonies, which must be very bewildering to merchants and shippers. The Bahama Islands demand 20 per cent., St. Lucia 10 per cent, and 20 per cent., Dominica, St. Vincent, and Grenada 10 per cent., Tobago, Montserrat and Virgin Islands per cent., Antigua 6 per cent., British Guiana 5 per cent., St. Kitts and Nevis 8 per cent, and 10 per cent., Barbados and Trinidad ask only 4 per cent., which is about the duty that ought to prevail.

Some of the islands have special additions to all customs' duties, for the purpose of meeting special losses from hurricanes, bad crops, or depression in trade; Dominica makes a surcharge of 20 per cent., Jamaica one of 10 per cent., and Antigua 12½ per cent.

There is no charge on coal entering Jamaica, Trinidad, Bahamas, or St. Lucia, but all the other colonies make a charge; at St. Vincent it is 10 per cent., Grenada and Virgin Island 7½ per cent., St. Kitts and Nevis 8 per cent, on cost price. Barbados demands 2s. 6d., Antigua 2s. 1d., Dominica 4s. 2d., Montserrat 2s., and British Guiana 1s. 6d. per ton. Salt is allowed to enter Barbados and British Guiana free; there is a protective tariff at the Bahamas of 20 per cent., and at Turk's Island of 10 per cent, ad valorem; in the other page 25 colonies the duty at entry varies between 5 per cent, and 10 per cent, ad valorem. The duties on mineral and other oils are unusually heavy, but vary much. St. Christopher and Nevis charge only 8 per cent., Barbados demands 2½d. a gallon or about 35 per cent, on petroleum, and 4 per cent, only on other oils. Jamaica charges 9d. a gallon, the Bahamas and British Guiana 7½d. a gallon (about 100 per cent.), Trinidad charges 6d. a gallon on cocoanut oil, and 1s. a gallon on other oils, which will be 150 per cent, on petroleum. The evenings are not long in the tropics, but the duty on this article of universal use by the people should not be so enormous in proportion to its value.

It is to be observed that—except at Barbados, where the duty is 4 per cent., and Grenada, which charges 5 per cent.—machinery, and some metals and metal work, and all articles employed by planters in cultivation and in the manufacture of sugar, rum, and other produce, are free of duty; also all manures. Of course, it is said these exemptions are for the purpose of encouraging planting enterprise. It is good that it should be encouraged, but the poor man pays on everything, whether imported for his trade or not. It is satisfactory to have to note that fresh meat, poultry, turtle, fresh fish, green fruit, and vegetables are usually free of duty.

On the whole, it will be seen that taxation is so adjusted that it falls almost entirely on the labouring population, and the system of tariffs are not only altogether opposed to free trade principles in the abstract, but must act injuriously on the welfare of the population under any theory of taxation.

The West India colonies, with the exception of Barbados, British Guiana, and Honduras, levy export duties. In Jamaica it is 5s. 9d. on a hogshead of sugar, 4s. 6d. on a puncheon of rum, 6s. on a tierce of coffee, and 1s. a ton on dye woods. Trinidad charges 6s. on a hogshead of sugar, and 4s. 4d. on 100 gallons of rum; molasses, cocoa, coffee, petroleum, and asphalt are also taxed on exportation. Antigua charges 5s. on a hogshead of sugar. St. Christopher and Nevis make export charges on sugar, rum, molasses, arrowroot, cotton, and charcoal. St. Vincent charges sugar, rum, molasses, arrowroot, cotton, and cocoa. Grenada, in addition to the above, adds spices. Dominica and Montserrat tax everything they export. The Bahamas tax guano and cave-earth 2s. a ton, and 1½ per page 26 cent, ad valorem on everything exported that has not already paid an import duty. The Virgin Islands tax the cattle and provisions they export to the neighbouring port of St. Thomas, and 71 per cent on wrecked goods.

Export duties are almost universally condemned as a system for providing revenue, even when the exporting countries can claim a monopoly of the article exported. There may be local circumstances, nevertheless, which would make such a form of tax one of the least objectionable in some colonics. Where the only alternatives are duties on imports (places where no other form of tax can be levied) it may be desirable to apply both.

In the West India colonies there are taxes on dogs, horses, cattle, mules, vehicles. It is usual to require licences for many things besides the selling of spirits, tobacco, and stamps; but every colony has a system and tariff of its own on all these matters. Antigua demands 10s. a year for permission to sell bread. Dominica thinks the butcher and blacksmith the right men to pay, and charges them 20s. each. St. Lucia demands 60s. a year from the petroleum dealer, and Grenada 50s. a year from the retailer of charcoal. Boatmen, porters, hawkers, and others are usually licensed by the year by paying certain sums.

There is a poll-tax at St. Lucia, Tobago and Grenada, Dominica, Montserrat, and Virgin Islands, where each male inhabitant up to a certain age is to give so many days' work in each year or pay a stated fine. This is a tax usually in connection with the repair of roads. Roads are of equal use to everybody, and it is of the first necessity that they should be kept up. Some other form of assessment would be fairer to all, and more legitimate. The present tax is unequal; the man who earns 20s. a day pays the same fine as the man who earns 6d. There are taxes on houses and lands, but the latter tax is extremely light. Cane pays 2 dollars an acre in British Guiana, and when empoldered, but not under cane, 2 cents an acre; in the other colonies it varies from 6d. to 1s. 6d. an acre for cane, and 1½d. to 6d. an acre for other land. But in some colonies there is no land-tax of any kind. With respect to houses the taxation varies greatly, but is nowhere heavy.

The Jamaica tax on stock, 1s. a head, seems to act injuriously on the rearing of cattle, for which some parts of the island are suitable, and the import duty of 10s. each on horses page 27 and cattle would be better suppressed. There seems no reason why the rearer of cattle should be specially taxed more than the raisers of any other form of produce.

A tax may be bad, but its removal may nevertheless be impracticable all at once. A principle demonstrably right when once departed from cannot always be restored without some straining. If the principles of free trade had been really kept in view by the authorities responsible for the tariffs in Crown colonies, say for the last ten or fifteen years, and if they had really wished to see the system that had been adopted by the people of the United Kingdom adopted also in the colonies under Crown government, as far as circumstances made it practicable, there would be little now left to complain of, because it is certain the present system would have been gradually re-modelled. On the contrary, it is evident that high, and even restrictive, and, therefore, impolitic, tariffs on imports have tended to increase, and the policy of free trade has not been supported in the colonies in places where it easily might have been followed with advantage to themselves and to the trade of the United Kingdom.

In the present condition of these colonies it is easy to put the finger on taxes whose removal would be a vast benefit. It is not so easy to suggest others to replace those removed. But it can be demonstrated that the revenue, as a whole, is unnecessarily large. In every country the revenue must be somewhat in proportion to that amount which the people can afford to pay. If the present taxes are demonstrably too heavy, and are draining the vitality of the people, they should be reduced. The expenses of administration must be made to fit in with the necessities of the position.

Those who advocate protective duties in the United Kingdom, because of their almost universal application on the continent of Europe, overlook the intense misery, low position, inadequate wages, and dangerous discontent of the populations who have to labour and suffer and submit to the tremendous tariffs of France, Italy, Germany, and Russia. It is easy also to point to Canada, to the United States, and to the Australian colonies, where free trade does not exist, for it matters very little at present to the people who inhabit these countries what freaks are played with their enormous natural resources. The absurdity of comparisions of this nature are best shown by figures. Were the United Kingdom to pay Government taxes page 28 at the same rate per head as the people of Australasia, the revenue to be raised would be about 240 millions sterling a year. Notwithstanding this taxation—voluntarily imposed and but slightly felt, which would crush the life out of any European state in two or three years—when these Australian governments want to borrow money every one is desirous to lend, and the loans reach a premium which the most powerful monarchies in Europe (so sadly in want of money) could never hope to obtain for their best guaranteed stock. None of the Crown colonies are any way near the pre-eminent position of actual and prospective wealth attained by these rich and really powerful communities; for, in fact, the people of most Crown colonies are less able to bear burdens than the poorest and most backward nations in Europe. It is curious to note how little accumulated wealth exists in any of these Crown colonies. The trumpery sums paraded in the savings' banks are almost all the accumulated savings possessed by the industrious classes, in the face of comparatively enormous exports extending over years. But the fact is that the trade and wealth of a country must be measured by what it receives and retains as well as by what it gives. If the people had some money over after buying food, almost always heavily taxed, they would spend more in British and other manufactures, in household furniture and other commodities. The larger amount of wages distributed of late years in some of these Crown colonies, among a larger number of labourers for raising a larger quantity of produce, has most of it gone to buy enormously taxed food. There was little surplus over for a larger purchase of British or any other goods.

High duties on imports, in order that all other forms of taxation may be avoided, and the introduction of a low class labour to compete with native labour where such exists, and beat it down to their conditions, may suit planters and absentees and those who look to the raising of produce for export as the end and aim of all colonial policy, but it does not and cannot advantage the colony as a whole, and it is, at the same time, undoubtedly detrimental to the interests of British manufacturers and British working men, the best and most natural markets for whose goods are thereby restricted. A free trade policy would lessen the cost of food and, by leaving a balance over after the primary necessaries of life had been supplied, lead to a larger consumption of, and page 29 consequently to a larger demand for, British merchandise. The United Kingdom cannot expect to do a larger or more profitable trade with a pauper community. The tropical Crown colonies will never manufacture certain goods; the better off the people become the more they will take of such goods from the United Kingdom.

The consequences of this fiscal system of high tariffs in the West India colonies has resulted in a demand for what may be called their commercial annexation to the United States. The United States show no unwillingness to annex all the trade and commerce of these colonies, but is adverse to assuming the responsibilities and probable annoyances of a political union. The upshot of the question is that the British Government has been requested to make a treaty with the United States by which their merchandise may enter the West Indies free, but British and other merchandise to continue to be taxed, and for this favour West India produce is to enter United States ports on the same terms as the produce of countries with which similar compacts have been made. The West India colonies have been so badly treated by all parties, and their condition, in consequence, has been often so desperate, that no reasonable man can feel surprised at a demand which under ordinary circumstances and conditions would seem preposterous. It is to be hoped the recent rise in the value of sugar will give breathing-time, and another chance to the responsible authorities to place matters on a sound footing, without it being necessary to have recourse to such desperate means.

It is clear that the remedy in the condition of the West India colonies expected to be brought about by this treaty with the United States would, under any circumstances, be only temporary, and would certainly before very long prove entirely delusive. Reasons for this view are not wanting. The sugar produced within the States themselves is every year increasing in quantity very considerably, and, ultimately, will not only suffice for the wants of the States but there may be a surplus for exportation. The United States have entered already into conventions with most of the sugar-producing countries in Central America, and, before long, they will have concluded similar arrangements with Haiti and San Domingo, and the Spanish West Indies, and others. Under these circumstances British West India sugar will certainly find page 30 a worse market at New York than at London, the best market of the world. But meanwhile an irrevocable arrangement will have been made with the United States which will place British goods for ever at a disadvantage in the oldest colonies of the United Kingdom, colonies for which, in days now seemingly forgotten, she fought hard and spent treasure in millions.

A recent United States Consular Report from Jamaica recommends this reciprocity treaty between the United States and the West Indies. The consul was dissatisfied with the course of trade, for although the island took from the United States, in 1883, imports valued at £423,412, only about, £10,000 consisted of dry goods and clothing, the remainder being food stuffs; while, during the same year, out of a total of imports amounting to £941,758 from the United Kingdom, £490,000 was the value of dry goods and clothing. A reciprocity treaty would, the consul thinks, reverse the course of trade. It is not quite so certain that it would do so to the complete satisfaction of the consul unless, indeed, the West Indies put a high duty on British imports and permitted free access to United States merchandise. This is, indeed, what was one time aimed at, if not proposed, for the only and declared object of the United States was to shut out United Kingdom dry goods in favour of their own; they would have little or nothing to gain otherwise by the treaty. Had the treaty been concluded on the lines ultimately agreed upon by the United States and supported by the West India committee—the mouthpiece of the absentee interest—the United Kingdom would have been, to a considerable extent, at all events, placed at a disadvantage as regards her general commercial policy, and markets worth some three millions a year for her goods would have been weakened. The West India committee of London is apparently not interested in the production of British manufactures, but their own clients will be the chief sufferers hereafter should the necessities of the position make a treaty necessary, giving the United States a preference over foreign countries and even over Great Britain herself in her own colonies.

There is a danger, not apparently foreseen by those who will mostly suffer from it, in endeavouring to force trade from its natural channels and outlets by conventions such as those proposed between the United States and the West Indies. The page 31 West Indies receive from certain other foreign countries about £1,000,000 a year in the aggregate above the amount they export to these countries direct, and this has to be paid for. The paths of commerce are devious and complicated, and the best and most profitable methods, when nothing interferes, are sure to be found and developed; at present, the United Kingdom is the large receptacle of produce, and the balances due to other countries are easily paid through her. Even the United States take from the West Indies nearly £500,000 a year less than they send. If the West Indies receive no more British goods, can the London market continue to absorb their produce ? Will the course of trade that sets in with the United States be such as to enable the valuable foreign commerce of these colonies, which is not balanced by remittances of produce to them, to be carried on as effectively as it is now ? Will the United States be able to absorb the five or six millions sterling of produce now annually shipped to the United Kingdom for home consumption and distribution, if they send no equivalent in return, or only the equivalent the United Kingdom now sends?

No reference to the West India colonies would be satisfactory to the great interests involved without dwelling somewhat on the land laws. It is satisfactory to note the advance of opinion on this question; these laws have now been unequivocally condemned by every competent authority, and even those most interested in their maintenance are ashamed any longer to stand by them in the face of the universal condemnation. Unfortunately, it is, nevertheless, urgently necessary to keep the question before the public, for every one knows how long an acknowledged abuse may exist in a dependency without any serious efforts being made for its final removal. The consignee's lien may have no longer its acknowledged champions, but there are yet powerful interests not above profiting by the injustice allowed by the law, and these interests will hinder, by methods known to interested partisans, the promised reform. The "consignee's lien," in these days, when the only hope for the West Indies and their inhabitants is in commercial freedom, is particularly iniquitous, unjust, and impolitic; due to it, property has no stability, industry in land has no certain rights, and enterprise and capital have no secure outlet in these colonies. A decision of the High Court of Justice, at Barbados, a year or two back, defeated the attempt to introduce priority for the consignee's lien into that island.

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The theory has for a long time been abandoned with respect to the West Indies that they should be ruled and governed for the benefit of an absentee planting interest, but in practice they are nearly as much so now as in any previous period. Politically, the people may have all that can be desired; education, also, has made sound beginnings, and the administration in all its parts and details is honourable and impartial; the ordinary civil and criminal laws are equal for all classes and colours, and they are administered with an impartiality and intelligence found nowhere outside of British rule. Yet the people are poor and degraded because the industries by which they live are weighed down and overborne by special systems which, to say the least, are opposed to every fundamental principle of right and justice known to Englishmen. So certain is it that the economical systems in force in any country are those which have most effect on a people's welfare. When a country is ruled by the most highly educated and intelligent classes, it is a grand thing to see the general welfare alone cared for and ably administered; but it is a sorry and degrading sight to see these privileges misused for personal ends. The inhabitants of the West Indies, by whose efforts alone the absentee merchants can claim to be wealthy, are unjustly over-burdened by a policy by which the interests of the merchants alone profit. In the West Indies, with a few exceptions, the economical systems and mortgage laws are framed entirely in the interests of this class, and so sweepingly and specially, that the natural owners and cultivators of the land have been ousted from it, ruined, and discouraged. This absentee class, through its agents, has by the very use and enjoyment of these special privileges, extending over many years, accumulated enormous power in the various islands, and it can now use this power and influence, and the power and influence its position and wealth gives it at home, to hinder the enactment of those just measures the position of these colonies so urgently need. The "Consignee's Lien," the badge of the commercial servitude of the "West Indies, replaced that other servitude of slavery, and therefore the freedom that was given to the inhabitants by the righteousness of the British people was much of it surreptitiously snatched from them by a cunningly devised law, which left them the forms of independence, but took from them the fruits of their toil. How much of the sugar now shipped to London would find other markets if the page 33 nominal owners had power to dispose of it can never be known, for London is a good market for every one. No law could be devised by the ingenuity of man which could so effectually hand over the agricultural interests of a whole people to a single monopoly as the "Consignee's Lien."

The late Royal Commission made proposals of a rose-water character, which, if adopted, would only consolidate for a further period the stern evils under which the West India people labour. How can it benefit a poor, ill-fed labourer that food should be made unprocurable by him owing to a 20 per cent, tax on its value instead of being unprocurable at a 35 per cent. tax? Can it benefit him to any extent worth naming if a governor gets £1,000 a year less pay, or a colonial secretary has henceforth to do work some one else is now doing? And these paltry savings are only to result, as was recommended, in a further inroad of coolies for the benefit of absentee planters, and destroy and lower still more completely the value of his labour, and take from him the last chances of providing for his starving children. Are the English people really aware of the condition of the West Indies ? Is it not true that among all those islands noted for the value of their exported produce not one could exist without imported food? And how is it there is a growing desire among the people, even of those islands renowned of old for their loyalty, to be severed from the British Empire, and to take refuge and shelter under the flag of the United States, if things are as they should be ? Is it not the unendurable ills they are made to bear that forces them ? And now that the evil is accomplished, and the ruin can no longer be altogether averted, what is proposed even in England ? A convention with the United States. What is this convention to be? Anything that can really benefit the people should be done even at a national loss. Every country in the end, the same as every individual, will have to pay the penalty of injustice and wrong; and if the people of the United Kingdom lose much or all of the trade of these islands, they will then be able to appreciate the advantages of having abandoned the concerns of a whole people to be dealt with by a selfish monopoly. There is another remedy, not to the evil—for much ruin, misery, starvation, disease, and death will ensue whatever be done—but to ward off further and yet greater evils, perhaps insurrection and bloodshed, for it must not be expected the people will starve quietly—and that page 34 remedy is to sweep away unconditionally all these food duties, and to reduce the cost of administration. A fewer number of high judicial and other officials, and a lesser number of governors, should suffice in these days of steam and telegraphs.

It is almost unnecessary to advocate any further the rights of the labouring population of these dependencies of the Crown to have their labour utilised in the cultivation of the land they have to live in. The importation of coolies has recently developed pressing dangers which will tend more to put a stop to the traffic than the plainest statements of rights and duties. It is almost certain that those colonies which have already more than enough people for all the labour that can possibly be wanted in them will not be flooded with contracted for pauper coolie labour from India, on the untrue ground that the native-born labourer is idle, incompetent, and unreliable. If men are really free, they have a right to have some voice in the question of their wages. The importation of foreign workmen into England when the building trades were on strike was not popular with people of any class; not even with those who deemed that the workmen were wrong in their demands.

The population of the West India colonies, at the close of 1883, was about 1,537,250. In the coolie colonies of Trinidad and British Guiana, the males outnumbered the females by 22 per cent., in the remaining colonies the females exceeded the males by 18 percent. Taking all the colonies, each inhabitant paid 13s. 7d. customs duties, chiefly on food stuffs, in 1883. The labouring classes pay as much of these taxes as any one else, if not more. A man and wife and three children would pay 67s. 11d. in customs charges in the year, even on the insufficient diet they could procure. If a family do not eat the flour and other food actually taxed, but only the roots procurable in the market, they pay the taxes nevertheless, because the prices of these articles accommodate themselves to the prices of the flour and other taxed foods and rice, there not being over a tenth enough of such root crops for the people's consumption anywhere, sometimes not one-twentieth.

Wages will be as follows, on an average, for an able-bodied man:—200 days at 20 cents, (10d.), 50 days at 28 cents, (1s. 2d.), 50 days at 32 cents, (1s. 4d.), total for 300 days in the year, £14 11s. 8d. Let it be assumed the man has a wife and three children; the woman, by the custom of the country, will page 35 work at field labour, and will earn a third as much as the man, or £4 17s. 2½d; the three children, on an average, and before they work on their own account, will earn half as much as the woman, or £2 8s. 7d. Total for the family £21 17s. 5½d. in the year. This would be a strictly fortunate and hard-working family; it assumes no one will be sick, or incapable of work, and that they will all be able to find remunerative work for 300 days in the year. Taking the whole of the West India colonies, the taxation per head in 1883 was a little over £1 6s. 6d. For the family of five this will be £6 12s. 6d., or over 30 per cent, of their total possible earnings; in Great Britain the proportion is 11.88 (but if the average earnings of agricultural labourers only were considered, it would, perhaps, be more); in the United States it is 9.21; in Brazil and South America it is 19.25; in all Europe it is 15.3 percent. The family, after paying these taxes, will have £15 4s. 11½d. to live on for the year. The following details are founded on the latest information from reliable sources. Provisions may be purchased at the prices quoted below in the largest ports, where they are cheapest:—Sweet potatoes, 60 to 100 lb. for 4s. 2d.; yams, 50 to 60 lb. for 4s. 2d.; eddoes, 40 lb. for 4s. 2d.; rice (inferior quality), 3 pints for 5d.; corn meal 2½ lb. for 5d.; wheaten flour (low grade), 2 lb. for 5d.; butter, 1 lb. for 2s.; salt pork and beef, 1 lb. for 9d.; mutton (very rare), 1 lb. for 1s.; beef (poor quality), 1 lb., 6d.; fish, 1 lb., 3d. to 6d. Food has been scarce recently, and is likely to become more so; the above prices will be much increased (30 to 50 per cent.) in country districts and minor ports, and in some places all of the above provisions will not be obtainable at any price. This industrious and comparatively well-to-do family of five, after paying taxes, will have 10d. per day to live on. Deductions will have to be made for clothing, 5s. per head a year, 25s.; house (and taxes for same, not included in Government taxes), 30s. per year; 5s. a year for cooking materials, furniture, and fuel. This will leave about 8d. a day for food for the five persons. Let them buy and eat the lowest-priced articles procurable, and they must pass a life of semi-starvation, and without common decencies, and this for people who have to work hard every working day in the year, and are all able to do so.