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THE FIBRES OF JAMAICA.
[The following paper is from the pen of a gentleman practically and intelligently ac- quainted with the West. Indies. The subject it treats of is one of great import- ance, not only to those colonies but to the manufactures of this country ; for it involves the question of a new source of supply of fibrous materials for cordage, matting, paper, Sic., the old supplies of which have been so seriously impeded by the war. of the practicability of using the West Indian fibrous plants for cord or paper there is no doubt : the thing has been done. The practicability of a market supply is another question. Dr. Boyle seems to doubt the likelihood. Mr. Her- ring, whose work on Eapermaking v c notice elsewhere, speaks more positively on the point. The subject. however, is worth discussion and trial. But the trial must be made in the West Indies and by the West Indians or their friends. All that the English ropemakers and papermakers will do as a body, is to buys suitable material when offered to them at a sufficiently low price.] .ffarerstock Hill, August 22, 1866. In 1840, one of the Stipendiary Magistrates of Jamaica noticed a Negro, who wanted to make a line, going to a plsintain tree, and tearing off a layer, dividing and twisting it, so as to make a cord. This led him to consider the loss sustained by the colonists for want of a Dimple machine for separating the useless parts of this and other fibrous plants from that which is needed, to a large extent, for cordage, saileloths, linen, and paper. It was found that ate very small cost such a machine might be constructed, and furnished to every Negro family ; who might by this means, after the day's work in the field, convert the wasting plantain, Pinguin or wild-pine and Spanish-dagger plants into marketable commodities, and thus provide this merino of defraying the cost of their children's education, and at the same time train them in habits of self-dependence and industry. Lord Metcalfe, then the Governor, and the Honourable Samuel Jackson Dallas, the Chief Magistrate of the parish, and afterwards the Speaker of the House of Assembly, took a great interest in the subject; and specimens of the fibre were sent by the former to Lord John Rassell, who forwarded them to the Board of Trade—they, to the Lords of the Admiralty—they, to the rope-walks at Deptford ; the manager of which reported as his opinion, that the fibres sent were not so strong as Russian hemp. Meanwhile the Stipendiary Magistrate had removed from the island, and Lord Metcalfe came to England, and went afterwards to Canada ; and until recently, the subject seems to have been so far lost sight of as not to beveled to any important result. The war with Russia, however, the increased demand for materials for paper, and the able statements and lectures of Dr. Boyle and others, have served to draw public attention to the subject, and have naturally led to the inquiry, whether the wasting fibres, and the leisure evenings of labouring families, by whom plantains, &c. are grown almost universally for the sake of the nutritious food they supply, may not be converted into the means of as- sisting, with other appliances, to restore prosperity to Jamaica and the other West India Colonies ? To secure this result, however, attention is required from proprietors, managers, merchants, shipowners magistrates, and not least missionaries and schoolmasters ; all of whom, ii? they could be brought to see it, have a great interest, pecuniary as well as otherwise, in this in- quiry. What if two thousand tons of fibre, suited for manufactures of various kinds, and a thousand tons of material adapted for paper, could be supplied to the English market every week, by merely rescuing from waste materials and labouring power now ay. ess ? and if by this means thirty or forty thou- sand pounds sterling per week could be divided between those various classes of persons, would not that be one means of helping the Free-labour Colonies in the West Indies, and prevent that rise in price, as well as scarcity, which must eventually result from the destruction of Russian soldiers, whose places will have to be filled up from that class of agricultural labourers by whom the Russian hemp and flax have hitherto been supplied to our manufacturers ? The weight of a plantain tree will sometimes be seventy or eighty pounds, of which ninety per cent will be water. To carry it any great distance to an extensive factory would cost more than its value. The Negro houses are, however, generallynear to their provision-grounds ; and in every considerable plantain-walk a shed made of bamboos and palm-leaf might easily be erected in which the separation of the fibre from the water and pulpy matter might easily be effected, and the further operations carried on in the Negro houses or school-rooms ; or the schoolmaster or overseer of the nearest estate might purchase it at so much per pound in the rough, and get it boiled, cleansed, and fitted for market. A merchant in each considerable town would again purchase it from him, get it pressed into the smallest compass; and when he had collected a suffident quantity, ship it to a merchant in London, Liverpool, or Bristol, who would find out for it the most profitable market.
The result cannot be secured by large' and costly machinery set up in populous towns, because there the material is not to be found, but in pro- vision-grounds scattered all over the country. It is true that by establishing extensive plantations, the material, without limit, may be obtained ; but this would take time, as the plantain does not ripen after it is first planted in less than ten or twelve months. The great thing, moreover, to be effected in order to make the Colonies permanently prosperous, is, to dain the exist- ing population in habits of industry, as well as to give them a taste for in- tellectual and moral improvement. Costly emigration at the public expense is now out of the question. It is proposed in a short paper or two in the Spectator to arouse the public attention to this subject, and to show that such an effect may be produced by very simple and practicable means. Of these papers this may be con- sidered as No. I.
A FlirEND TO THE WEST INDIA COLONISTS.
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