Colonial Secretary has been a splendid thing for Jamaica and for Great Britain. The regular shipment of something like 30,000 bunches a fortnight by the Imperial Direct Line steamers, in addition to others, constitutes a trade which is constantly increasing. This, to say nothing of the millions of bunches annually shipped to the United States, has caused the laying out of great tracts of land for banana cultivation, and promises to become a far more important source of labour and profit in the near future. But, as before stated, bananas are not sufficient to restore the past prosperous condition of the West Indies, and the necessity of returning to the production of sugar, and to the development of cocoa, coffee, and fruits that will preserve is obvious. It is in cotton, however, that we hope to see Jamaica come to the front. The trials that have been made, and the reports that have been drawn up by Sir Daniel Morris, Commissioner for Agriculture in the West Indies, are most encouraging. Honey is a valuable as well as an important product, and the steps that have been taken to insure the exportation only of qualities that will do the Jamaican apiarists credit cannot but have a beneficial effect. Some success has attended the establishment of the new preserves factory, and there is no doubt that, with a greater measure of success, the industry of fruit-preserving would play no small part in the restoration of the fallen fortunes of Jamaica. There is also a prospect for cattle and horse breeding, though not to the same extent as in other directions named.
With education, increased energy, cooperation, and intelligent enterprise, the West Indies will flourish, and there is no doubt that the crowds of tourists now invading Jamaica will influence the people there for good, besides inducing many of the visitors to invest capital in the islands for development purposes. Land values are improving, and even since the inauguration of Mr. Chamberlain's scheme there has been a great advance in the price demanded for old sugar estates and other untenanted properties, of which the island had numbers.
