JAMAICAN TRADE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 261, 28 June 1932, Page 6

JAMAICAN TRADE

DECREASE IN EXPORT VALUES DUE TO FALLING SUGAR AND BANANA PRICES. A PICTURESQUE COUNTRY. VANCOUVER, May 10. The status of Jamaica's trade, in relation to the United States and Canada, has changed since the signing of the reciprocity treaty with Canada four years ago. Of the total irnport trade of Jamaica of £25,000,000 in the years 1926 to 1929, Canada secured more than £5,000,000, and ranked third among the countries from which the island secured its imports, the United States being first and the United Kingdom second. Latterly, Canada has displaced the United Kingdom from second place, and made up some of the leeway between Canada and the United States. The decrease in Jamaica's trade, particularly in exports, during the past two years, is due chiefly to the fall in commodity prices everywhere, and to the reduction in purchasing power caused by the decline in prices of Jamaica sugar and bananas. Canada's principal exports to Jamaica are flour, fish, potatoes, motor vehicles, milk, rubber manufactures, cheese, and lumber: the chief imports are bananas, grape fruit, oranges, cocoanuts, and sugar. In 1931, there were imported from Jamaica 3,119,195 hunches of bananas, 1.500,0001b of grape fruit, 15,580 cases of oranges, 3,309,000 cocoanuts, and 955,515 bags of sugar. Kingston to-day has a population of about 90,000 inhabitants. The total population of the island, which is 144 miles long and 49 miles wide at its widest point, is about 860,000, of whom 650,000 are negroes, 165,000 native Jamaicans, 17,000 East Indians, and 16,000 whites. The density of population, 203 to the square mile, is very high. Most of the city buildings are not more than two storeys in height, partly because of earthquakes •and the rebuilding of much of the city since the last serious earthquake in 1906. Clean City and Healthy Race. The city is notably clean — an example in civic care to the cities of the United States and Canada. The health authorities have long since won the fight against the mosquitoes. "The fine figure and erect carriage of the native are constant surprises to the traveller," writes Mr. Kennedy Crone, editor of the Canadian Geographical Journal. "Many of the humblest negro wom'en, bare-legged, in scanty cotton dress, tramping to town with bundles of sugarcane, basketry, or other native products, balanced on their heads, while their husbands ride the family donkey, are perfect specimens of womanhood, with a dignity and presence duchesses might envy. "The negroes spealc good English, mixed with patois, which is more pronounced in the rural districts. Only four generations removed from slav>ery or savagery, they are remarkable for their absorption of ways and views of Christianity and the display of kindly traits. They have nearly a thousand places of worship — Church of England, Baptist, Wesleyan, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic. There is less crime than in most civilised countries."