“The more the better of course, but a thousand pounds at least. A good man with a thousand pounds would suit us better than a waster with ten thousand. We don’t want any remittance men. Good, solid, hard-working, level-headed business men are the sort for us. People who will send for their wives and settle on their plantations, without wanting to race over to England every year.” “My coloured friend suggested that the tendency on part of the planters to go to England every year was a bad thing for the island.” “And there he was right, of course. We want absolute settlers--men who will adopt the country and call it their home, and count it as their children’s homeland too. We want a solid population of solid white men--not a migratory people who look for fortunes in ten years and then a suburban home near London. I guarantee that any man of the right sort who comes here in the right spirit will never regret his coming.” “And when he comes, what must he do first of all?” “Hire himself out as a book-keeper or overseer on some plantation for a year or so, until he has got the hang of the country. After that he can decide matters for himself. There are plenty of openings and plenty of land. With the new settlers we can work out our own commercial salvation. Without them we shall find it difficult. Labour difficulties will disappear as soon as we find more good masters. Even to-day efficient and sensible planters have very little bother with their workmen. A black man is very much what his white employer makes him. The servant of a discontented, slovenly master is discontented and slovenly also. A good master makes a good servant. Yes, put all that nonsense about a free Jamaica, and the Government of Jamaica by Jamaicans, out of your head. It won’t come off. We are going to grow; we are going to be prosperous. And we have no time to discuss absurd impossibilities, or to have sympathy with the impossible ambitions of scheming gentlemen of the coloured class. The black men have, and always will have, their proper place in the island, and they will have a proper part to play in the commerce and government of the island. And that is all. Jamaica is a British Colony governed by white men, and so it will remain for ever.” [Illustration: A ROADSIDE MARKET, JAMAICA] THE RAILWAY IN JAMAICA CHAPTER XVII THE RAILWAY IN JAMAICA