LIGHTENING THE BURDEN

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 254, 25 October 1919, Page 23

LIGHTENING THE BURDEN

PROPOSED DrTEKNATJOMAI. REAL ESTATE DEAL. SEL .T__yG THE WEST ETDIES TO THE UXTTED STATES. Having come out of the war with big debt 5 - contracted largely in America. great Britain has struck upon The idea 0 f selling some of her excess real estate - a means of lightening her burdens, *lrs a writer in the New York "Tribune-" . _ . The United States acquired a reputation as a speculator in tropi«l fruit _-_s when it paid 25,0C0,G00d0l to Dennark two years ago for the V:rgm Islands off the east coast of I orto Rico. Sow the idea is for the British to sell lone of their choice locations in the ~c_ n to this same investor—who hapto be a creditor—and thus, perhaps, lighten the burdens both of debt and imperial responsibility with the came missile. ! To this end 'The Eondon National' y eß -s'" save that the suggestion that the British West Indies be ceded to the Tnrted States in part payment of Great Britain's war debt is' being seriously considered on both sides of the Atlantic Perhaps the first time serious thought tras civen to the transfer of the British Vr-pft" Indies colonies to the Stars and Stripes was soon after the outbreak ot the war. when the English realised the harden they were to her. In 1917 there •xere rumours in diplomatic quarters in Washington that the sale of tho British islands" to the United States was actually being considered. But nothing ever came of the rumours.

■ The British West Indies comprise the treater number of the string of pearllike islands that are strewn in a graceful line from Florida to South America, like a necklace thrown around that corner of the ocean known as the Caribbean, ill told, there are some four thousand of these bits of land, though not many more than a hundred are populated, and most of the islands are only great reefs thrown up from a volcanic sea in some bygone day.

The British Indies have a total area of 12.100 square miles. They have a population of nearly 3.000,000, for the most part negroes, but with a scattering of a few thousand whites and a curious mixture of other peoples from all the world —Hindus. Javanese. Chinese. Siamese, Christians, -tlahammedans, Buddhists an, Confucianists. Some of the islands are sparsely settled, while others are more densely populated than any other region on earth except China.

Bermuda —the name might awaken memories of onions in the minds of some —isn't strictly one of the Indies. tart is often classed with them to keep from getting lost, for its 300 islands, jutting out of the sea nearly 000 miles off the Carolinas. are famous for their climate, which attracts many visitors from Broadway, only forty-eight hours away.

The Bahamas—3.ooo of them—are also well-knoTS- to the winter resort tourists. They stretch off to the southeast from Florida, for :he most part _nm_ab:ted. All the island interest centres in the ivinter trade. There is no other livelihood for the 20.000 residents, and there is neither fertility nor rains nor Beat in this semi-tropira.l re<rion"to produce tie wealth and beauty that make the more southerly Indies famous. F-urors ix history. Beyond Porto Rico lie more of 'England's possessions. Many of them are very small. St. Kitts and Nevis, ot course, are historically famous in their association The latter was the birthplace of Alexander Hamilton, and tiiere, too. Lord Nelson was married. Barbuda is the game of the region, for although the original colonists are gone, the deer and fowl tliev brought j to its shores have multiplied. Montserrat might be vailed distinguished for its red-headed. freckledface negroes with Irish names, who have even kept the brogue of the original Irish settlers. Dominica is one of the Teal beauty spots. Its only drawback & the rain, that falls every d.iy. sometimes from a clear blue sky. and gives Dominica the name of one of the wettest spots on earth. On this island live the few Tetnaininj pure-blooled. yellow Oaribs, the war-like people who fought the European settlers through 300 years before being almost exterminated.

St. Lucia is important on the map hecause it is a coaling station for all the Caribbean. The inhabitants know no other employment than carrying fuel to the many ships that seek harbour Iner f- The island, rich in agricultuaii possibilities, lies idle beneath a tropic sun, for coaling pays well, the hours of labour are short, and in the days between jobs the people bask lazily. THE LAST OF THE CARIBBEES. Barbados, where live an average of 1,200 people to the square mile, is the only distinctly English land among all tne Indies. "To most of the islands C-reit Britain is little more than a stepmother, as discoverers from other rmrntries reached them first. But Bar- --' ••« i- and. always has been English. >'• r-at Britain had sentimental at-tai-i.uienis to any of her Indian possesf:on . : hey would tie her closest'to Bar-

b5.!..-; >t. Vincent and Grenada compete the string of British Islands in the Car'bbee group. '*~ o more lie beyond. Trinidad and Tobago, parts of South America that slipped into the sea and British posses?lon - They arc rich and wonderful. In Trinidad are limitless .supplies ot asphalt and oil. Tobago is a laud of milk and honey. the favourite spot where Defoe set down Robinson Crusoe.

Jamaica is the largest of the British Indies. It lies south of Cuba, out of the main run of British colonies, but nevertheless is the largest, most prosperous and most important of 'esiem all. Its r.nlroads, metropolitan cities and azneultiiral development make it one of the chief islands of the Antilles.

If Great Britain's price fur all these islands vrere to be fixed at the rate per acre paid for the Danish West Indies it would amount to far more than the American purse could afford — about 2pOO ? 000,COOdol. But in the course of the war the United States loaned nearly twice that =nm to Oreat Britain, and. perhaps, could consider a real estate; consideration in return for part.