The Portland daily press., 1895-08-09
THIcKiY-PEoPLED BARBADOS.
The Islanders Sufferings Because of the
Depressed Sugar Trade.
(Corr. N. Y. Observer. J

(Corr. n. Y. Observer
There is no part of the British empire,
and indeed no country in the world,
which is more thickly peopled than Bar
BADGES, and of course the vast majority
of the people are blacks. 1t is estimated
that nine-tenth of the 200, 900 inhabi-
tants are of this race, and they swarm in
the streets and over the roads and seem
to crowd the country with their cabins.
There are more than thousand people to
everyisquare mile.of the island, and when
I add that less than one-ffteenth of the
land is uncultivated, and out of this
small area much must lie deducted for
houses and other buildings, for public
and private parks and for burial places,
the crowded condition of the black popu-
lation will be apparent. They multiply.
too, with rapidity, and they stay where
they are born Hence the question of
support is an ever present problem.
the starvation if there can ever be any
such point in tropical country where
nature does SO much for man and re.
quires so little. was told again and
again that day laborers worked for a
shilling day, and that even at that rate
there were many who could not get en-
ployment. With the terrible depression of
sugar, which is the main agricultural
product of the island, the outlook for the
laborer is very gloomy.
The West Indian sugar trade is passing
through serious crisis. In Barbados
the crop now reaping is very far below
the average, in some cases less than half.
Many estates are in the hands of the
official assignee in chancery, and the
humber is increasing daily. The colony
is over populated, money is scarce, the
number of unemployed alarmingly great,
and the wages small Agricultural
laborers can now be engaged for 20 cents
a day, women get only II. Thousands of
both sexes are unable to find employment
at even these rates. The government Of
Barbados has taken steps to assist emf.
grafton. 1t has sent commissioners to
inspect several Of the neighboring colonies
to give form to a scheme of colonization.
In ST. Lucia and Trinidad many estates
have been abandoned; at Antigua, Dom
mica, ST. kits, st. Vincent and gener-
ally through the Greater and Lesser An
titles the same state of affairs exists. On
several islands public meetings have been
held and resolutions have been adopted
for transmission to the secretary of state
for colonies dire citing his attention to the
impending ruin of the sugar industry in
the British West Indies. The secretary
has been asked to approach France and
Germany with a view to ending their
system of bounties to the growers of beet
sugar, and failing in this, to have duty
imposed on all sugars imported into Eng
land from the bounty countries.
AS natural result of such hard times
fears were expressed of riot and crime,
should this state Of things be long con.
tinued. II such danger exists am
bound to say that there were no visible
sings of coming storm. The streets
were full Of busy crowds, the markets
were heaped with all sorts of food and
fruits, the shops displayed goods from
every part Of the globe and were
thronged with buyers, and the gardens
and fields were alive with Industrious
and cheerful men and women. There
were no anti-rent and labor demonstra-
tions with banners and notices, no1
gatherings of sullen and discontented
workmen. The negro lives by. the day,
and is easily satisfied; and he has none OF
that chronic dissatisfaction with the ex
isting order of things which breeds &C
much wickedness and misery among
what we call the masses in our con.
tinental and highly civilized commu-
mites,