St. Vincent Scandal.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 292, 6 December 1902, Page 4

St. Vincent Scandal.

Mail advices from St. Vincent (says a Home paper) state that dissatisfaction is being expressed on all sides with regard to the manner in which the volcanic relief fund ' has been and is being administered ’in the island. It is five months . since the eruption of the Soufriere in S?. Vincent, and it is only within the last few days that the first list of donors has been published. The . money and foodstuffs so generously : provided by the people of Great ■ Britain, Canada, the United States, Jamaica, and other countries were 1 much more than the actual neces- ' sities of the case demanded, but it is maintained that owing to gross maladministration a great deal of poverty, sickness, and suffering still remain unrelieved. Indigo nation has been aroused in America . by the fact that large quantities of the food and clothing contributed by the United States Government have been sold under value by the St. Vincent Government to merchants of Trinidad and Barbados, , Quantities of articles were shipped 5 away by the St. Vincent Govern- ’ ment to these islands, and being \ bought there by merchants, were ■ reimported and in some cases sold to the sufferers they were originally 5 intended for. It is maintained ' that the St. Vincent authorities , have devoted their attention exclusively to the lowest and idlest negio | labourers and peasants, while people j of higher class who have suffered - much more by the eruptions have ■ derived no benefit from the money : and supplies sent to St. Vincent in : such generous profusion. The dis- ; tribution of rations has been stopped and a paltry sum of one shilling per week is being doled out to some 1 people, while houses have been erected for the homeless which are alleged to be unfit for human habittation. Altogether the relief scheme seems to be in a hopeless state of muddle. Although the Government has still nearly £40,000 of relief money in hand, it apparently does not know what to do with it, The curse of red-tape lies over the whole business. Mr Chamberlain, to whom complaints have been made, has, as already announced, directed Mr A. M. Ashmore, the Government Secretary of British Guiana, to go to St. Vincent to inquire into the matter. The accounts just published of the expenditure up to August Ist show that out of £12,000 spent, only £2OOO has been distributed in the way of compensation for losses.