, 1885-02-28
P R, OC E E D N GS
g@OaGo1
FOR ST. CROIX.
Continuation of Meeting Of 18th Feb

LILO lShN
on estates would cause great abuse and
distn, hance. When the same honorable
Member remarked that sales are now gong
on on almost every estate, that IS perfectly
correct: but it must be remembered that
that business is illegal the object OF the
proposal now is, at least to Il certain de-
gree. to make that practice legal, at the
same time putting restrictions which are
not known nOW. AS regards the control
with the buying of articles from authorized
traders in town, he did not believe thar 1T
would be so difficult TO exercise proper
control or to supervise that part OF the
matter; through the CuStOmhouSeS 1t can
easily be seen and proved if The parties
are importing for their own use only or on
a larger scale. He was inclined to believe
that if the proposals Of the Majority be
carried out, there might be less objections
against the measures.
1st Crown Member (Quin) said III listen
ing to the remarks from 2nd Member for
Frederiksted (Brown) it had struck him
that the honorable Member is not correct
in his anticipations. The hon0urabie
Member thinks that if the rights Of trad
ers as at present constituted should not be
protected, there would spring up in the
country large shops; but he (Quin) did
wv nm - "OUi W ~ otNt ~ 49,
this his opinion on personal experience III
an Island where free trade is the rule, and
where there are no rights in that respect
held by the towns he alluded to Antigua,
where no permission or license is required
for opening shops, from which anything
may be sold except liquors, and where
shops may be established any place
throughout the Island. Still, he could
not remember one single instance where a
planter was doing trading business. The
history Of the small traders in Antigua is
very interesting. When he first came to
that island, the labourerS had their little
shops on estates som time after POrtu-
gueSe were imported into tile island as
agricultural labOurerS; those men did, by
means Of their small savings, establish
small retail shops round about, and gradu-
ally they drove out the native traders
from that business, and to such an extent
that these native traders established a
kind of Joint Stock Association, to stop
the Portuguese traders but here they
failed, and ultimately the Portuguese drove
the others entirely out of the field The
brighter and more well to do Portuguese
even removed their shops to the town. and
there they began to supply the Others in
the country. This business has grown to
NV Ui NANNhO ttlAU L OIIuStNOC wv HOltiO
CT the richest men in Antigua there is
especially one of them, who came to the
island without one cent, but who is now
owner OF one of the largest stores, Of sever
al ships, and is Agent of a Line of Steam
ers. Now he (QUin) had simply mentioned
this to show what could be the course
under the proposed new legislature on this
head. If we had free trade, he would not
say that the trading business would be
lone by planters, but by the brighter
and sharper people on the estates who get
permission from the proprietors; and he
doubted very much if that kind of bust
ness would interfere with the traders in
town; If it did, it would only be to turn
the retailers into q sort of wholesale tad
erS but he did not think that the country
business would be taken up by planters.
The Government secretary said: When
the honorable 3rd Member for Christian
sted WasSard in the course of his first
remarks had observed, that Government
III framing this Draft has deviated from
the proposals of the Majority of the Com
mission, or the opinions advanced by the
said Majority, he (the Secretary must say
that 1t could not exactly, from what was
stated III the Commissions Report, be seen
that the Majority meant that the trade it
recommends to be established should only
be a legalizlng of the actually existing
state OF things. In the Report it is said:
'The Commission recommends that per-