Overcrowded Barbadoes.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 8546, 15 June 1896, Page 3

Overcrowded Barbadoes.

Barbadoes, one of the West Indian islsnds, is probably the most densely populated of any naturally bounded area in the world. The island contains only 106,470 acres,(a good deal less than the area of oat crop in Canterbury this year) —and bears a population of nearly 200.000. The division containing the chief town averages 3700 lives per square mile, and the rest of the island about 1500 per mile. Of the total area about 100,000 acres are devoted to the growth of the sugar cane, and this industry alFords an insufficient living to the dense population. The last official report upon the statistics of the Island, says:— “ The fight for life is getting sharper, and when hard times come, and their shadow is at our doors, the difficulties will become accentuated. No doubt, in theory, the weak will disappear before the strong; but experience shows that, unless some outlet be found for the surplus able-bodied of the population, the proportion of weak will gradually rise till they are not replaced by the strong. To ignore the ultimate result of this state of affairs in the physical life of our people is impossible: and therefore a solution of the difficulty must be found, and in this case, the only practical one,one to which nature will respond, is emigration... It will be well if the lower classes of the population here would recognise the vital importance to themselves of finding new room for the expansion of their vigour. No notion of obtaining this by going away for a lew months, leaving their families to look after themselves, and returning for a spell to spend their earnings in this island, will help them now, nor by subdividing lands and creating petty peasant holdings. This might benefit a few, an infinitesimal proportion, but under the conditions of this island, which (as far as human intelligence and experience go) can only produce one article of general consumption in the world at the present time, viz. sugar, the great bulk of the population can only live by earning money as labourers, and they could not live by the produce of their holdings, notif every estate proprietor was dispossessed and the island cut up and divided amongst them. Their only chance depends on a regular demand for employment, and, when the supply exceeds the demand, and the lowest limit oflife-aup-porting-wage has been reached, emigration in its proper sense, and not as a mere temporary quest after labour, is the true and only solution. As a diffusing centre of energy and vigorous intelligence, Barbadoes is unsurpassed amongst its neighbours, and the further afield it can send its surplus workers and form fresh colonies of Barbadians, the higher it will raise its name, and thus, in fact, as well as in theory, maintain its title of the England of the West Indies,”