The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1899-02-23
AMERICANS IN JAMAICA.
They Are Succeeding While the Brit
ish Planters Are Having
Hard Times.

and has been tolerably we'll governed
during all that time, its English citi-
zens are becoming more and more dis
couraged concerning the business out
look. They talk glibly enough of the
splendid natural resources of their
island, but in the same breath will tell
you that there are no longer any in
ducements to emigration or openings
for younger sons. and declare that ruin
stares them in the face unless imme-
date reciprocity places Jamaica on an
equal footing with the neighboring is
lands.
Most of the queens subjects in Ja-
maica still persist in raising sugar, to
the exclusion of everything else, al
though nowadays there is little profit
in it. The sugar plantations are bar
onial in extent, and time was when their
cultivation was SO easy and profitable
that the owners thereof could remain
abroad, leaving overseers in charge.
But year after year during the last
decade the overseers have reported
smaller and smaller profits, always hop
ing for better returns next time, and
each succeeding year has regularly
proved little worse than the last. Alb
sent proprietors and hired supervision,
bounties, hostile tariffs, ard, above all,
the production Of beet sugar. have con-
spired to bring about this natural re-
suit; and now that Cuba and Porto
Rico, with their unrivaled possibilities,
have passed into energetic American
hands, Jamaica's mismanaged estates
may move along to the bow-wows more
rapidly than ever. Already the plant
ers are appealing to the government for
help, and talking of graEts-in-aid and
countervail;ng duties; but the truth
is that the government feels the pinch
as much as any private individual.
While the Englishmen are moodily
forecasting ruin, and blaming the
home government. America and Colo
NAL Secretary Chamberlain, for what
is clearly their own fault, and the hap
py-go-lucky blacks, like other natives
Of the tropics. are idly contented with
what nature provides few Ameri-
cans are quietly laying the foundations
for solid fortunes here. Some of them
have invested good deal Of capita! in
island enterprises. They have bought
a number Of abandoned or rundown
plantations for tithe of their original
value, besides inaugurating new indus
tries and starting afresh several lag
ging old ones, with their accustomed
vim. A few years ago an American
syndicate purchased the government
railway, 66 miles long, which runs from
Port Royal 10 nowhere in particular,
and the new owners Immediately in
vested $s,O00.O0 in extensions, which.
when completed, will open up the rich
est lands of Jamaica, as well as some
of the most enhancing tropical scenery
in the whole wide world.
One American of my acquaintance de-
voted himself to the raising of oranges
about five years ago, and last season
shipped $4,000 boxes of them from ia
maica to New York, and cleared dol
lar box on the lot. Though oranges
grow wild on this island and have never
before been cultivated for commerce,
there are few localities which produce
finer ones and none where the climate
is better adapted to their raising. An
other of my countrymen is making a
fortune in plantains, another in sweet
potatoes and another in bamboo. The
last named, of spontaneous growth,
fourishes wonderfully in Jamaica, and
there is almost no limit to the uses to
which it may be put, from building Of
houses to the making of carts and
furniture. After many experiments
and almost as many failures, our
Yankee friend discovered that bamboo
fiber had certain elastic and incom-
pressible properties, which make it
without rival for some purposes. So
he built big factory away up on the
Black river. in the interior OF the is
land, and settled down into the con-
verting of bamboo fiber into what is
known as packing" for the wheels
Of railway carriages. 1t is said to be
the very best article now used for that
purpose, holding oil like sponge.
never hardening and never wearing out,
and the demand for il is great both in
Europe and America.
| The Yankees show more originality
/ than the sons of Britain in their ways
of money-getting. and are always on
the lookout for new avenues Of enter.
prise. The few who went into sugar
raising and its side issues, rum and
molasses, do not retire from the field
in disgust, or sit down and growl. as the
/ Englishmen do when the market il
glutted and sugar depressed, but make
shift with other crops till times i'm
prove. They get along good deal bet
ter, too, with the negroes, who ar,
the only laborers to be had here. Will,
The Englishmen are forever in trouble
with the blacks, believing them TO b.
incorrigibly lazy. the American rail
road builders and planters. who emplo,
hundreds of negro iaborers, declare tha
lthey work well enough if fair wage
are promptly paid. Under Englisl
management man receives shilling
day and female house servant thre
i