ation for his trouble.

A plantation of ten or fifteen thousand cocoa-nut trees is a more
valuable property than many people imagine. As soon as they come into
bearing, which they do in five years from seed, they are worth
three-quarters of a dollar each per annum net profit, after paying the
labourers: thus, fifteen thousand of them will yield their proprietor
10,250 dollars per annum, (_i. e._ at the moderate calculation of 4s. 2d.
to the dollar, 2135l. 8s. 4d. sterling,) a sum that would cover all the
outlay incurred during the five nonproductive years, and be a secure
revenue to the owner of the estate for ever, provided that he is careful
in replacing the old trees, as fast as they die, with new plants.

My reasons for doubting the success of coffee-plantations in Singapore
are, that there is not sufficient depth of soil for the tree, and that,
if there were, labour is too high to enable the planters to compete with
those of Java. As regards sugar, Singapore being a sugar-importing
colony, its own produce pays, on being imported into England, 8s. per
hundred-weight more duty than the produce of non-importing British
colonies.[6] The high price of labour is also against the sugar-planter.
An able-bodied labourer costs, in Singapore, four dollars per month,
while the same man can be had in the mountains of Java for three
guilders in money, and the value of two in rice. Thus, the Singapore
planter pays more than double the rate of wages for his labour; and, as
his lands are not so rich as his neighbour's, he stands, I fear, but a
poor chance in the competition with him.

[Footnote 6: Since my arrival in England, an Act has been
passed, removing, in some measure, this bar to the prosperity
of the Singapore sugar-planter;--I allude to the recent
reduction in the duty on all sugars, excepting slave-grown. The
Singaporeans are naturally anxious to be allowed to send their
sugars to the English market on the same terms as their
brethren of Prince of Wales' Island have lately been permitted
to do. This they can hardly expect, however, while they
continue to be such large importers of Siam and other foreign
sugars as they are and always have been. To require them to
give up this foreign trade, would do them far more injury than
the granting of their planters' petition would benefit them.]

To the eastward of the town of Singapore, extends a considerable plain,
on which the