DECAY OF A FRENCH COLONY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5457, 8 January 1896, Page 4

DECAY OF A FRENCH COLONY.

France is having her Newfoundland in Guadeloupe, which is threatened with a financial crisis unparalleled in that island. The Paris correspondent of the Daily News says :— Guadaloivjte is one of the West Indies, and is Stance's oldest colonial possession, but unlike Newfoundland there seems little hope that she will recover from her ruin, the cause of which is the extinction of cane sttgar by /French beetroot. Exchange with France, at par a few years ago, went up recently to 9 per cent. The Govei^ior has just raised it to 19 per cent for postal Orders to. France, with another 1 per cent commission. As the. Bank of .Guadeloupe /"has not suspended payment, the depreciation of its notes, issued in accordance with French regulations, is rper-* plexing. The Colonial Office here is perhaps to blame; ..as it has /shown iibself ignorant and incompetent. The, following instance will' show tow little is known at' headquarters about' the French. West Indian possessions,. ,...& few, months ago, when the crisis at Guadaloupe was looming, the Colonial Secretary of the late Cabinet sent the Governor a list of questions asking what were the staple productions of tne island, what lands could be given to French settlers, and the number of land concessions that might be granted in this way. Guadaloupe. was a flourishing French possession long before there was a Colonial Ministry. It is populated about half as thickly again as France, and there is as little j room for French settlers as in the suburbs of Paris.