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There is a lesson to be learnt from the Huist t’Dieren experiment

Oct 05, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
I respond to the observations of Mr Kingsley Williams in his follow up letter, “Ravi Dev may be underestimating the value of the return passage”, (KN 11-2-17) where he cited the settlement of Huist t’Dieren, the first which the government had established in 1881 to encourage Indian indentureds to exchange their contracted return passage to India.
Huist t’Dieren perfectly illustrates why so few Indian indentureds acquired land via this mechanism, even though the passage Mr Kingsley’s Timerhi Journal, Vol. 1, 1882, page 108, suggests otherwise: “Some notice should be paid to the considerable exhibit of rice by the free East Indian immigrants, recently and very wisely placed at Huis t’Dieren, where they received a grant of land in lieu of their passage back to India due to them at the expiration of their of indenture.”
The fact was Huist t’Darien had several sand reefs across its front lands that demanded extensive drainage and irrigation canals in addition to a koker, to made rice cultivation feasible. While these were promised, the former was never done satisfactorily even though 350 2-acre cultivation plots and 270 ¼ acre residential lots were laid out. The koker washed away several times because of the sandy soil. By November 1882, when the government rescinded the “land-for-return passage” scheme, even though 5-700 persons had initially shown interest, only 69 cultivation plots and 49 residential lots had been applied for and granted.
The government amazingly then placed the plots and lots for sale at $50 each. Only 67 were bought but these were generally not paid up fully and occupied. By 1891, the Annua1 Report of the Lands Department concluded the settlement of Huist t’Dieren a failure. There is a lesson from the Huist t’Dieren experiment for us in the present, and which had obviously understood by the “illiterate coolies”: even land given “free” is of no value on our coast if it is not continuously drained and irrigated to make agriculture sustainable. A most expensive proposition!
Ravi Dev

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