er is better feeding. He also suggests that decent
dwelling places should be put up on the estates and plantations
for the people, and that a small lot of land should be allowed
each family for the cultivation of ground provisions. All this
and more is being done for the Jamaican in Panama. But when we
hear of living places here, it is always 'barracks' that are
spoken of,--a long range of wretched structures where comfort and
privacy are out of the question, and where, as a rule, only
single men can live. But men are not going to work and live as
bachelors to oblige other people. We do not want laborers merely,
we want decent families of men and women and children, and if the
economic situation in this country cannot provide us with these,
so much the worse for the situation and for the whole country.
The fact is that the Jamaica peasant, if he has been decently fed
and is free from disease, is a good worker. Our Government,
therefore, if it is to justify any claim to being intelligent,
progressive and far seeing must take up the question of disease
with a degree of thoroughness never shown before; while the
employer of labor must provide decent living places for his
workers and pay a sufficient wage to enable them to eat enough
nutritious food and become better workers and improved human
beings. Unless something of the sort is done, Jamaica will
continue to lose her best able bodied population. There can be no
restriction of emigration here unless the Government fixes that
minimum at an amount not less than two shillings a day (48 cents)
and then the Government would have to see that the worker got his
money, and also obtained sufficient work to do. Nothing is to be
expected from any scheme of local indenture: the laborer who
indentured himself to work for a year at one shilling and
sixpence a day, (36 cents) even with a bonus of less than a
shilling a week thrown in at the end of a year would be an
exceptional person, a man with no intention of keeping the
contract and what would you do if he did not keep the contract?
No; these schemes are merely moonshine: we might as well dismiss
them from our minds at once. The only way in which the Government
can directly help the laborer is for the Government to start
industries and pay a decent daily