They import bags and sacks, boots and shoes, flour, corn meal, coal, drugs and medicines, vegetables, hardware, machinery, clothes, textiles, oils, wines and liquors, tobacco, cigars and cigarettes.
Georgetown is the only town to visit, and is best reached by either one of the several steamers sailing from Trinidad or Barbados.
Dutch Guiana, sometimes called Surinam, is 46,060 square miles in area, with a population of 87,500, mostly Indians, negroes and Javanese, who are brought out to work the canefields. The proportion of white is small and they are mostly merchants and government employes.
This country is susceptible of agricultural development, its products and requirements being the same as British Guiana. Paramaribo, with 40,000 inhabitants, is the capital and only town that will repay a visit. This colony is not very progressive, and its trade is decreasing. In 1912 its exports were $3,500,000, mostly sugar, with some cocoa, coffee, balata, gold, bananas and rum, of which Holland took $1,500,000 worth and the United States $900,000.
It imported goods to the value of $3,000,000, Holland supplying $1,700,000 and the United States $700,000.
There are opportunities here but for some reason the colony has been neglected, the capital, Paramaribo, having no modern conveniences, not even a water supply, although it is ideally located for sewerage and aqueducts.
Dutch money is in use, although American and English is accepted. Merchants maintain accounts in New York or Europe for their requirements. Credits are good. English is spoken by all business men.
The Royal Dutch West Indies Mail direct from New York has two sailings a month for this colony. It is also accessible from Trinidad, Curaçao, and Barbados.
French Guiana has 49,000 square miles of territory, with a population of about 13,500, some 8,500 of which are convicts, as this is a penal settlement. Capt. Dreyfus was confined here on Devil’s Island. This is the least developed and less promising of these colonies. There is little agriculture and less cattle raising. Whatever trade there is is controlled by France.
In 1912 the exports were: