§ *SIR CHARLES DILKE (Gloucester, Forest of Dean)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) whether Sir Charles Bruce has informed the Legislative Council of St. Vincent that a rapidly increasing exodus of the able-bodied labouring class has been taking place from the colony, and that every effort should be made to keep the people and to attract those who have gone to return to the island; and added that it was in the power of a single proprietor to abandon the cultivation of one-fourth of the occupied area of the colony, and to deprive probably one-fourth of the population of their means of existence; (2) whether, in spite of His Excellency's expression of belief that no proprietor would avail himself of the power placed in his hands without some provision for the labouring population by whose aid his estates have been maintained, something of the kind has now happened; (3) what revision of the Crown Lands Regulations has taken place; and (4) what steps are being taken to secure the late Governor's objects of the creation of a 668 peasant proprietary by the purchase or lease of allotments, and the payment of wages in money?
§ MR. J. CHAMBERLAINThe answer to the first part of the right hon. Member's Question is in the affirmative. A report having been received last August of the intention of a large estate owner in the island to discontinue the cultivation of his estates for 1898, the late Governor made inquiry as to his intentions in the matter, but, up to the present date, so far as I am aware, no reply to that inquiry has been received. Both of the matters referred to in the latter part of the Question are under the consideration of the local Government, and the attention of the new Governor has been specially drawn to the correspondence with his predecessor regarding them.