us, by the creation of conditions which will induce an
improvement in the status of the laboring population."

The _Daily Chronicle_ of that date comments thus on the question:

"The Sugar Committee has pointed out clearly the precise measures
that are certain to produce better remuneration for the laborer,
and this, as we have been insisting from the start, is the very
essence of the scheme. According to the recommendations forwarded
to the Government and turned down by the Privy Council--some of
whose members have evidently made up their minds that something
akin to the feudal system must, in the interest of a few, be
forever maintained in Jamaica--the Government would go into the
business for the protection of the community against the avidity
of the private capitalist; in other words, to insure a fair
distribution in this island, of the profits derived from the
rehabilitated industry. Under this arrangement the Government
factories would be in a position to set the pace in the matter of
payment of wages to the laborer. Think of what this would mean! A
higher standard of living, better health, more happiness--the
very things which the peasant is being forced to go abroad to
obtain. But the mandamus will have none of this socialism; it is
too broad, too comprehensive, too human for minds unaccustomed to
look beyond self. So they have rejected the Sugar Committee's
proposals, compelling Mr. Farquharson and his friends to appeal
to the Secretary of State for the Colonies. His Excellency the
Governor and his advisors have thus shown their utter inability
to understand the economic needs of the island. Deliberately--we
do not say with malice aforethought--have they decided to
perpetuate conditions which in the past have served to
disintegrate the population of this colony, and will in the
future continue to do this with even more harmful effects than
hitherto unless some well-considered attempt is made to produce
more wealth from our soil for the benefit, not of a few
capitalists, but of the nine hundred thousand inhabitants of
Jamaica."

One might not wholly endorse this criticism, but it should be
represented that the inaction of the government, whether due to
inability or indifference or to whatever cause, has been the prime
preventing cause of an earlier solution