Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1921.djvu/390

 338 THE BRITISH EMPIRE : — WEST INDIES : — BAHAMAS

>■ Robinson (E. C), In an Unknown Land. London, 1909.

Townsend >(C. W.), -Along the Labiador Coast. Boston, 1907.— A Labrador Spring. Boston, 1910.— Capt. Cartwright and his Labrador Journal. Boston, 1911.

Uebe (R.), Labrador. Eine phvsiographische und kulturgeograuhische Skizze. Halle, 1909.

Wallace (D.), The Lure of the Labrador Wild. London, 1905.— The Long Labrador Trail. London, 1907.

St. Christopher, St. Lucia, St. Vincent, Sombrero, Tobago, Trinidad, Virgin Islands. See "West Indies.

WEST INDIES.

The British West Indian possessions fall into six groups, which are noticed separately. The groups are— (1) Bahamas, (2) Barbados, (3) Jamaica with Turks Islands, (4) Leeward Islands, (5) Trinidad with Tobago, (6) Windward Islands.

Currency, weights and measures throughout the islands are those of Great Britain, though in several of them various American coins are current.

BAHAMAS.

Governor and Commander-in-Chief. — Major Sir H. E. S. Cordeaux, K.C.M.G. (2,0007.), assisted by an Executive Council of 9, a Legislative Council of 9, and a representative Assembly of 29 members, electors re- quiring to have a small property qualification.

A group of twenty inhabited and many uninhabited islands and rocks oil the S.E. coast of Florida.

Area, 4,404 square miles. Principal islands — New Providence, (pop., census 1911, 13,554, containing capital Nassau), Abaco (4,463), Harbour Island (1,031), Grand Bahama (1,824), St. Salvador (5,072), Long Island (4,150), Mayaguana (358), Eleuthera (6,533), Exuma (3,465), Watling's Island (617), Acklin's Island (1,733), Crooked Island (1,541), Great Inagua (1,343), Andros Island (7,545). Total population in 1911 (census), 55,944 (24,975 males, 30,969 females). Estimated population, January 1, 1918, 59,928. Births in 1917, 2,134 (38-1 per 1,000); deaths, 1,130 (20*0 per 1,000). There were in 1919 48 Government schools with 7,530 pupils, average attendance, 4,829; and 16 aided schools with 1,035 enrolled pupils and average attendance of 688 pupils; Government grant, 6,0007. In 1918 there were 23 Church of England schools with 1,089 enrolled pupils; 11 private schools with 199 enrolled pupils; 4 Roman Catholic, with 408 enrolled pupils. There were in 1918 4 private secondary schools connected with religious bodies, 240 pupils. In 1917, 1,944 persons were convicted summarily, and 20 in superior courts. Police force, January, 1918, was 68. Sponge and turtle fisheries are carried on ; and shells, pearls, and ambergris are also obtained.

Revenue, 1919-20, 204,2967. ; 1918-19, 81,0497. ; 1917-18, 86,767. Expenditure, 1919-20, 108,9387. ; 1918-19, 98,2377. ; 1917-18, 105,2547. ; In 1919-20 the customs revenue was 165,5037. Public Debt, 1919-20, 65,9627.

Fruit culture is on the increase, pineapples, oranges, and tomatoes being exported. The total land granted in the colony amounts (1917) to 367,413 acres, leaving 2, 482,246 acres ungranted. Pineapple canning factories, and sisal factories, are prosperous. Sponge and sisal are the mainstay of tin Colony.