in the future. And not only did the Imperial Government thus show its practical sympathy with a suffering community, but the people of the United Kingdom and the Colonies also gave tangible proof of their kinship and goodwill by donations, of which the share apportioned to St. Vincent reached the sum of £20,586. This open-handed generosity not only did good by the expenditure within the Colony which it made possible, but brought home to the hearts of the sufferers that they were not being left to face the ordeal unaided, and that friendly eyes in all parts of the Empire were watching their efforts to emerge from the ruin inflicted by the cyclone.

That these efforts have not been in vain is evidenced by the condition of affairs in the Colony to-day, for, although fraught with difficulties, as the future of St. Vincent must necessarily be for some time to come, there can be no doubt that the energies of the Colonists are at work on a higher level than before the storm, when all was doubt and misgiving. Apart from the Government scheme of land settlement, there is far more land made available to the peasants for cultivation, and as a consequence food is plentiful. The outlook for the arrowroot crop is cloudy, but it still exists, and still pays, even if not so much as it would if properly treated by the proprietors. If its presence as a paying staple can be preserved, a few more years should see it supplemented by other products, to the permanent advantage of the Colony.

Trinidad and Tobago [Cd. 354].-The Trinidad Report for 1899, by Mr. H. Clarence Bourne, Acting Colonial Secretary, is a dilatory production, bearing date August 17th, 1900. The revenue was £681,339, and expenditure £748,151. The value of the imports was two and a half million sterling (including bullion and specie), and exports £2,572,891. On the subject of Crown Lands the Report says:

The unrealised assets in the possession of the Crown are of great value. Trinidad has never been surveyed, but its area is about 1,750 square miles. According to the most recent estimate, 454,000 acres only are in private hands, while 666,000 are still Crown property. Of this 346,000 is cultivable, much is covered by valuable timber, and part is known to contain coal; but it has remained undeveloped, and has hitherto produced no revenue worth regarding. Reserves must be permanently retained for the protection of water supply and other purposes, but the greater part of the Crown lands will, of course, be most profitably utilised by being sold in due course and brought under cultivation, every acre sold bringing an addition to the exports and

imports as certainly as it brings an increase to the revenue from land tax.

If the soil of an agricultural country is its capital, half the capital of Trinidad still remains idle, though it has been a British Colony for a hundred years. Progress is no doubt being made. During the last twenty years the annual alienations have averaged 6,800 acres; and last year, under the stimulus of high cocoa prices and railway extension, they amounted to 14,600 acres; but if this Colony were being run by a company on commercial lines the interest of the shareholders would demand the construction of a complete system of roads, and capital expenditure would be incurred for the purpose. At present prices it pays to ship cocoa even when it costs 5s. to place each bag on the railway, but it is doubtful how long this will last. The number of miles of so-called roads in Trinidad is 658, but of these 180 only are metalled (some fertile districts are twenty miles from a metalled road), and in bad weather parts even of the main road are impassable.

Trade Relations with Canada are the subject of the following:-The trade with British North America is at present intrinsically small. Its average annual value for the past three years has been £85,000. There is, however, a probability of great expansion in this direction in the near future. If the terms on which Canada offers free trade to this Colony prove practicable, sugar will not be the only Trinidad commodity to find its market in British North America. This trade will be promoted by the improved steamship service between Canada and certain West Indian Colonies, including Trinidad and Tobago, for which the Canadian Government has recently contracted with Messrs. Pickford and Black, and towards which Her Majesty's Government are contributing a subsidy of £13,500 a year. The service to Trinidad is fortnightly, and the first vessel of the new line reached Port-of-Spain in July of the present year. The sugar crop was a good one-the prospects for the ensuing year remarkably good. The cocoa crop exceeded 29 million pounds-nearly five millions in excess of that of the previous year, this being partly due to extended cultivation. The cultivation of other products was increasing. An item likely to be of great importance both in Tobago and Trinidad was rubber, many cocoa planters now putting in the rubber plant. In Tobago 70,000 trees have been planted. Under the head of "General Observations" there are the subjoined passages:

The appendices to this Report contain many details relating to the trade of the Colony to which no allusion has been made. The indications of prosperity given by statistics are borne out by the general appearance and habits of the people. The Savannah, or Park of Port-ofSpain, is bounded for a mile and a quarter by a continuous line of comfortable villas; and the huts which a few years ago disfigured the neighbourhood have been entirely displaced. The houses of Portof-Spain are lighted by electric light, and connected with one another by telephone. When the police band plays in front of Government House some forty carriages are to be seen drawn up in front of the gardens. The homes of the workingclasses have also improved, and in the country villages, as well as in the suburbs of the capital, small but substantial wooden houses are constantly springing up. The shops of Port-of-Spain are comparable with those of large European towns, some of them having eighty or a hundred hands serving behind the counter. Last, but not least, the rate of interest on mortgages on good agricultural property, which was 8 per cent. a few years ago, had come down last year to 6

or even 5.

Labour and Immigration. - Underpopulation is, as in other undeveloped countries, an element which explains some of the facts which distinguish Trinidad from other West Indian Islands. The demand for labour is in excess of the supply. The native labourer naturally prefers the irregular cultivation of his own garden to hired service; and even unskilled workmen can earn their living as artisans. Hence the low level of technical skill, and hence also the necessity of importing East Indian labour. Wages, though not high from an English, or still less from an American point of view, are higher than in the neighbouring Colonies. An agricultural labourer gets 10d. to 1s. 8d. a day, a porter 2s. 6d., a carpenter or mason 2s. 6d. to 5s. These rates are more than sufficient to supply the employé's wants, and he seldom cares to work more than three or four days a week; while the employer often finds that the work done is not cheap at the price. Labour may therefore be fairly said to be dear; and dear labour results in dear building, high rent, and high wages for domestic service. It also makes itself felt in the cost of public works and of the public departments which employ large numbers of servants. East Indians are every year imported by the Government, and two-thirds of the cost is borne by the planters. Last year the number introduced was 1,684, but this number does not satisfy the demands of the planters. On their arrival the immigrants are quartered on an island in the Gulf of Paria under the care of the Protector of Immigrants, and thence they are drafted

to the estates to which they are apprenticed. For five years they are worked hard, and receive low pay; but their health is jealously guarded by the Protector. At the termination of their apprenticeship they can earn wages which were beyond their reach in India. They save, and become peasant proprietors. The agricultural contract system may be mentioned as illustrating one means by which the labourer may supplement his wages. The proprietor of an estate to be planted in cocoa hands over two or three acres of uncleared land to the contractor, who has to clear and plant it with trees supplied to him; the contractor occupies the land for five years without paying rent. He keeps the land clean, and grows vegetables between the young trees, and towards the end of the contract he is able to sell cocoa. On its termination the proprietor pays him a shilling for every tree of a certain growth.

Though facilities are given to immigrants to return to India, few avail themselves of the opportunity. In 1899, 720 Indians sailed for their native country, and they took £10,000 with them. In the same year nearly £3,000 was remitted by Indians in Trinidad to their friends in India, and at the end of the year 5,500 Indian depositors had £91,500 standing to their credit at the Savings Bank. The Indian population has indicated its appreciation of its present lot in a striking way. While the Creoles of English, French and African blood were at the early part of this year subscribing £1,000 to military relief funds, the Indians remitted £750 to the Indian Famine Fund.

The Imperial Spirit. The sense of community with other members of the British Empire has developed considerably during the past year or two. The public as well as the Legislative Council had cheerfully contributed to the relief of the distress caused in the neighbouring islands by hurricanes before the needs of the Mother Country appealed to her loyalty, and elicited a prompt response in both men and money. This Colony is now likely to be brought into close commercial union with Canada. If this desirable end is attained it will be satisfactory to reflect that the alliance is no artificial one. Canada has long taken an interest in Trinidad, and the Canadian Mission, which now conducts nearly fifty schools for East Indians in the Colony, has spent in it from first to last about half a million dollars.

Some 500 tourists visited Trinidad in 1899. To speak at present of the Colony as a winter resort would be premature. Those visitors, however, who have spent the month of February in Trinidad are apt to return. In the first quarter of the year the climate is delightful. There is little rain, and the thermometer falls below 70° at night. There is a good hotel

on the Savannah, and though there are no inns in the country the hospitality of planters makes their absence less felt than might be expected. At Port-ofSpain there are cricket, golf and polo, and though the Colony affords no sport, in the recognised sense of the word, it is of extraordinary interest to the naturalist. Of art or antiquity there is nothing. The most venerable buildings are the ruined boiler-houses where fortunes were once made in sugar. But Trinidad was once Spanish, and it has a Pilgrimage Chapel, while Tobago is Robinson Crusoe's Island. The hills of Trinidad and the rocky coasts of both islands are marvellously beautiful, and it may be doubted whether another place as accessible from England could be found where tropical vegetation flourishes in all its virgin luxuriance.

Canadian Steamship Service [Cd. 86].On July 20th Messrs. Pickford and Black, of Halifax, entered into a contract with the Canadian Government providing for a fourteen days' steamship service each way between Halifax and Trinidad, and British Guiana, calling on all voyages at ten island ports. The steamers are to be British, of not less than 1,000 tons register, with an average speed of ten knots, and each accommodating 40 first-class passengers. They are to carry mails to and from each of the ports specified in the contract. The subsidy is expressed in Clause 16:

And Her Majesty, for herself and her heirs and successors, hereby covenants to and with the Contractors, their executors, administrators, and assigns, that the said Contractors, well and faithfully performing all and every the covenants, agreements and stipulations hereinbefore and hereinafter set forth and contained, will

well and truly pay, or cause to be paid, to the Contractors, their heirs, administrators, or assigns, during the continuance of this Contract an annual subsidy of the sum of Sixty-five thousand and seven hundred dollars from and out of the consolidated fund or other proper moneys of the Dominion of Canada, and the further sum of Sixty-five thousand and seven hundred dollars out of moneys provided by Her Majesty's Government (should the same be furnished to the Government of the Dominion of Canada for such purposes, but not otherwise), payable as follows:-On the last day of each month during the continuance of this Contract, the sum of Five thousand four hundred and seventy-five dollars ($5,475), and a further sum of the same amount, provided the same be provided by Her Majesty's Government for the purpose as above mentioned, provided, however, that no such payments shall be made until it is shown to the satisfaction of the Minister that all trips called for by the Contract up to that time have been well and properly performed.

The payment is subject to the amount being provided by a Vote of the Parliament of Canada, the Contract terminating should no Vote be passed.

Turks and Caicos Islands [Cd. 354].— Commissioner E. J. Cameron's Report for 1899-which was not sent from Grand Turk until June 2nd, 1900-shows a total revenue for the year of £8,032, and expenditure £7,644. The value of the imports was £25,707, and exports £31,909, the bulk of the trade, from geographical causes, being with the United States. The year was uneventful.