6 JUNE 1857, Page 12

WEST INDIA FIBRES.

The result of personal observation and inquiries made in Jamaica by a competent and trustworthy person is this.

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I. Not only the plantain-tree, but also the carritor, the pine-leaf, the pinguin, the yucca or Spanish needle, grow most luxuriantly in most parts of the island, and are now wasting to the extent of hundreds of thousands of tons; and the same in all the other West India islands, including Porto Rico, Hayti, and also Central America. 2. Excepting as an experiment by small machines in an industrial school at the Botanic Gardens, St. Andrews, Jamaica, no efective measures have yet been taken to prepare these fibres for a profitable market; nor is there in Janufica any other machinery in use by which they can be prepared so as to meet the demands of English manufacturers, either of cordage, linen, or paper. 3. In the Industrial School referred to; 'fibres have been cleaned, and i:Opesand lines made, fulliequal to those now in use all over the world as Manilla. (Specimens of both may be seen at 5 Waterloo "Place, Pall mar:)•-. Sirgar is just now so profitable, and the coffee grown on the higher Mountains also, that those proprietors and managers of estates who have their works in good order, or have capital or credit to put them in order look with a jealous eye on any attempts to introduce a new and easier • Cultivation, fearing that the price of labour may thereby be enhanced. . 5. There is at present no protection afforded by the Government Or Legislature of Jamaica to any inventor -or introducer ofsuitable'machinery..,,The 'moment a good machine is seen in Jamaica, it will be ea Ad the Party who has incurred the expense of obtaining a pa rinlEngland, '(which is not applicable under present regulations to thetelOnies,) and of sending it out, will no doubt confer a great service atlfhe 'colony, but he will be subject to unlimited competition. The new frtrartior and House of-Assembly mayeprobablfsupport an act of the iiNitaltituie to afford him due protection,but the Cost of such an act will beat least1001:andthe'Assembly does not meet till the month of October. The Chartered Fibre Company did obtain an act of the Legislature to protect a machine they patented in England ; but the fees on it not having been'paid, it did not pass into law. B. London, 41h June 1857.