REMARKS.
It is now beyond a doubt, that the crop of the Island again this year will not only be considerably below an average crop, but will also be far below what it was expected to be in the commencement of the year; in consequence thereof many Estates are again bare of means to continue cultivation, as all the returns of the crop made goes to cover bureau-advances received last year. Applications have therefore been made to the Presidency to endeavour that the Colonial treasury be placed in a position to assist planters needing advances for carrying on their cultivation.
Under existing circumstances in order to avoid that the exeptions made from all qvarters to keep up Sugar cultivation in the Island should be abortive, and in order to prevent that the change, now about to be carried out at a very heavy cost in the manufacture of the staple production of the Island should become unavailing, by estates going out of cultivation or coming to a temporary stoppage from the impossibility of procuring mean to go on, it is necesary that the Public again this year comes to the assistance of the parties.
The Presidency has therefore, with the approval of the Government, framed the above Money Bill for a grant of an amount to meet advances to planters for the month of June to August this year. The Presidency will take care that these advances be contiued within the smallest possible limits, and in viev of the pecuniary state of the Colonial Treasury the advances will only be given for the amounts requisite for paying the money wages to labourers; it is expected that provisions will be supplied by merchants on bureau-right in the crop coordinate with the Colonial Treasury.
The President introduced the Bill. He thought he could take it for granted that not only the advisibility but also the necessity of the measure which he now had the honour to submit to the Council is so generally admitted, that it might be superfluous for him to incroach on the patience of the Council by entering largely on the merits of the ease. On the other hand, it would, perhaps, not be showing due sense of the important of a matter of this kind, if we were tacitly to submit this measure to the Council, because he entertained the conviction that the Council would be unanimously in favour of it. This duty of making some additional remarks, besides those appended to the Bill, on this subject, is increased by the circumstance, that the monies to be applied for bureau are not the property of the Treasury, but have to be obtained by borrowing, and in eudeavoring to get this assistance, we have again solely to depend on the good will of the Government and legislative Assemblies in the Mother Country. There is, besides, one circumstance to which, although not willing to enter into too many details, he would draw attention, because it not only serves to explain why we have here to have so frequently recourse to measures of this kind, but also holds out encouragement for the future of the Island. What he here alludes to is the nature of the staple production of the Island and the manner in which it is dealt with to obtain a return from it. The Island is so subject to dry weather that the only article that can he grown here with success, is the Sugar Cane; it would be useless to think of substituting any other tropical production, which in itself might have the same or even greater value; for, the climatic relations here would not allow it; neither tobacco, vanilla, nor cocoa, would pay, simply because they would not thrive here in the dry weather; and to speak of a whole community of upwards of 23,000 souls in their present state of civilization drawing their subsistence from the planting of yams, potatoes, etc., would be simply absurd. The cane is the only plant capable of standing hard weather, and it has also this advantage, that under ordinary circumstances and with proper care it is able to supply all the requirements for keeping the population in a state of well being and comfort. But it has one drawback, viz. that while mostly all other products may be exported advantageously without being fabricated, the cane in its natural state has no practical use, but has to undergo extensive and complicated treatment, requiring heavy expenses for buildings, machinery, etc. The system here followed in rubricating the product has always been, that the person producing the cane, had to procure the necessary machinery, originally is quite a primitive manner, then in the form of cattle mills, after that wind mills, and finally the more expensive steam mills. The consequence of this is, that the produce is worked up on only 76 Estates; while in 1815 the number was still 150. When, then, the number of Estates at work is so small, and when the whole population is dependent on them, it becomes a matter of concern that no estatt should go out of cutivation. If any one were to suppose, that the bureau advances given for several years from the Colonial 'Treasury are given for the individual benefit of the owner, it would be a mistake; advances are given to the estate, for the purpose of preventing its abandonment, as, evidently, every one that goes out of cultivation, entails a loss to the Island. In some cases a neighbouring proprietor may purchase at a low price, with a view of working the most fertile and best situated part of the island with his own Estate, but most frequently the buildings are allowed to decay and the island turned out for pasturage. Further, the matter of the Central Factory is now approaching its solution; when it is caried out, the probability of estates being of necessity placed out of cultivation, or being cultivated under neighbouring estates, will be less; - When everybody can cultivate canes and can sell them to the Factory, it would be very unwise, not to exert every possible means to keep up Estates, until the Factory can commence its operations. Thus it would be difficult to see, how the gradual decay and ruin of the island could in the long run be prevented, if the system of convening the cane into sugar &x. were always to remain as hitherto, and it might then have been a matter of doubt whether it were proper to continue the system of keeping up Estates by repented loans with no other prospect of improvement but that of better weather. But for several years the attention of the whole island has been directed towards a radical change in the treatment of the cane, and with this change in view it would have been unpardonable on the part of Government not to strain every nerve for preventing any Estate from being abandoned. He felt sure that the advantage of manufacturing [x] common establishment, to which every producer, large or small, could deliver his canes in their raw state and get its eqnivalent in ready money, would not be confined to getting a larger quantity and an improved quality of sugar out of the same quantity of canes, but that the effects on the distribution and consequently on the extent, of cultivated land would after a few years prove as beneficial to the general prosperity. After years of anxious expectation we are now daily approaching the realisation of that important enterprise, it least on the part of the island, and when it succeeds here, the rest will follow. He could not take upon himself to say, that the Company would in a direct manner render the bureau system superfluous by making itself advances to the planters, to be liquidated by the canes delivered, but be considered it probable, as soon as it shows itself, that the enterprise is really a profitable one, for of course in that case the greater the quantity of cases delivered the greater the profit to the shareholders, and thence a strong motive for the Central Factory to encourage the cane-growers. He woold now beg leave to state, that ever since 1869-70 to the present time there have been made bureau advances from the Colonial Treasury, the amount of wltioli up to May 187t was s. $463,000. During the first three wars of his period the advances were repaid in full with interest, but with 1872-73 came the first of the destructive years we have gone through, and the result is, that of the advances up to May 1876 there remains about $70,000 unpaid, of which $27,770 are lost and between $8000, and 9000 are looked upon as more or less doubtful, the remainder being secured in Estates. Thus, if we add the doubtful claims to what is actually lost, we arrive at the sum of $38,000 as the cost at which the system has been carried on for those five years. If honorable Members will look at the list of Estates which have been supported during these years of trouble, they will acknowledge, that he is very moderate indeed, when he asserts, that more than one half of the number, and among them some of the best Estates of the island would have been thrown out of cultivation, and although we have got, as it is, poverty enough from these bad years, the loss of $38,000 is not worth notice, if we compare with it the various effects of the whole island, which would have ensued, if 16 or 17 Estates had been abandoned. Situated as we have been, it would not even have been a remedy, to turn the Estates into the Dialing Couris, for the Dealing Masters would have had the same difficulty in procuring the means for the Administration expenses, whereas the properties are now in a position to take advantage of the change in the weather which in the order of nature must come, and of the Central Factory which will be ready for receiving the canes now growing.
After some remarks from several Members, it was proposed by 1st Member for Christiansted (Lemming ) to refer the Money Bill to a Committee of 3 Members, which was adopted with 9 votes against 6.
(St. Croix Avis 9. juni 1877).
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