Jamaica at the Royal Jubilee Exhibition, Liverpool, 1887 / by C. Washington Eves.

  • Eves, C. Washington (Charles Washington)
Date:
[1887]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Jamaica at the Royal Jubilee Exhibition, Liverpool, 1887 / by C. Washington Eves. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Charles Kingsley saw in what he called the petite culture of Trinidad a great future for that Colony. He thought the oppor- tunities it presented for a happy, healthy life by English immigrants were too great to be despised. If this he true of Trinidad, how much more true it is of Jamaica, with its grassy uplands and its mountain air. In Jamaica an Englishman finds the best of his own climate without any of its hardness and peculiar discomforts. Kingston, no doubt, may be capable of improvement. It offers little attraction and accommodation for the traveller seeking health or pleasure; but with a good hotel upon the higher ground, a stream of visitors might be attracted. I am glad to notice that such practical men as Mr. Genoure, of Boston Estate, are advocating the building of hotels. Cuba obtains a very large number of visitors, especially from the United States, and why should not Jamaica? If Jamaica turtle can be eaten and Jamaica cigars smoked (a suggestion might be made as to a desirable improvement in the latter), existence could be cheerfully borne, especially with the social enjoyment offered by the traditional hospitality of the Colonists. Do not let us talk too much about depression and ruin. Many things in the past are no doubt bad, and ought to be buried and forgotten. The immediate future is what we have to look to, and that future, to a very large extent, is in the hands of our own people. To a very large extent, indeed, but not entirely. The mother country is bound to do a great deal. Imperial expenditure on Colonial defences is a welcome step in advance; but could there not be a business connection, as well as one of sentiment and one con- nected with war’s alarms ? The Imperial penny postage, advocated so strenuously by Mr. Henniker Heaton, M.P., would be a grand undertaking by the British Government, supposing there was a good prospect of its being eventually self-supporting, and involving no cost to the Colonies, except possibly to Canada and Australia or other countries who might be reasonably called upon, from the point of view of their own interests, to bear a portion of the immediate expense.