Handbook of Jamaica, 1898. Compiled by T. L. Roxburgh and
Joseph C. Ford. (E. Stanford.)—Jamaica, with an area of 4,207 square miles, had in 1891 a population of 639,491, or 152 per mile. This shows an increase of 50,887 in ten years ; there is a further estimated increase up to March, 1897, of more than 60,000. The number of the whites is almost stationary, but there is a small increase in the coloured, and a large increase in the black. The revenue was £591,864, the expenditure £664,222 (includ- ing £34,458 for Sinking Fund). The Public Debt was £1,787,479 18s. 7d. But the greater part of this is for works that should be remunerative. The latest returns of cultivation give
30,036 acres for sugar-canes and 25,559 for coffee, as against 35,303 and 17,462 respectively ten years before. Tobacco has increased from 113 to 261, and cacao from 776 to 1,632. Bananas, first returned in 1891 at 9,959, have increased to 19,227, and cocoanuts in the same time from 7,816 to 10,040. The value was more than half a million, and almost all went to the United States.
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