17 SEPTEMBER 1898, Page 3

Our West Indian Islands, always unlucky, have been visited by

a terrible hurricane, which occurred last Sunday. In St. Vincent the whole island has been swept bare of crops as well as buildings, and twenty thousand people are destitute and homeless. Barbadoes has suffered almost as badly, and there were sixty-one deaths and thirty-one injured, and thousands of houses were destroyed. Doubtless private charity here and throughout the Empire will be success- fully invoked to help the inhabitants, but so tremendous a calamity calls also for Government aid. The Imperial Parliament might quite fairly be asked to come to the assist- ance of the local Governments where their own resources are insufficient,—as we fear they will be in most cases.