Morris Cargill

THE SUGAR industry stands on the verge of disaster. That opening sentence may sound overly alarmist, but I have purposely written it to stir-up the assorted Neros such as the Minister of Agriculture and the Sugar Industry Research Institute who have been fiddling while Rome burns.

It is fairly clear that something is gravely amiss with the varieties of sugarcane that we are now cultivating on estates as far apart as Richmond in St. Ann, Barnett in Montego Bay, Lloyds and Bellmont in St. Catherine, Tulloch in Bog Walk or old Harbour Estate. The root systems of much of the cane can be seen to be drying up, with the cane plant itself withering. I have been doing some investigations into the matter. I am no plant pathologist, but anyone who examines the roots of the cane plants on these estates must be blind if he does not see the full evidence of the root disease, probably some root fungus.

It has been said that the appearance of disease has been a result of drought or lack of fertiliser. But on those fields I am talking about, there has been no drought or lack of fertiliser. On these fields the common grass is green and prospers, while the cane next to it, which is also a grass, is withering. Senator Hamaty, a knowledgeable man has already written a letter to the Prime Minister about his problem and many others have been sounding alarm. We should by now know the grave effects of root disease. Panama Disease wiped out the Gros Michel and would have put an end to our banana industry had the Lacatan and other resistant varieties not been found.

At the moment our assorted authorities are busy denying that there is anything very much wrong with our sugar cane. They had better wake up and abandon their complacency. It is quite clear that a new cane variety, resistant to this root disease, will have to be found, and soon too.

Trial by jury

For generations trial by jury has been one of the sacred cows of our legal system. At one time, long ago, it was certainly a blessing, for it protected ordinary people from the biased and often cruel judgements of older establishments. But things are now very different from those older and simpler days. Most legal actions today especially those concerning highly complex commercial and criminal matters are quite beyond the grasp of the ordinary jury.

Most trial lawyers have a great fondness for juries, because they can be most easily bamboozled by emotional or populist appeals. One might also add with regret that it is not uncommon, especially in Jamaica for a jury to be bribed into acquitting some wealthy criminal. From time to time we have heard our judges expressing extreme disapproval of the decisions of certain juries and just very recently we have had another example of that, in the case of the acquittal of a man on trial for rape. This acquittal was quite clearly considered outrageous by the stinging comments it elicited from the Chief Justice.

Judges today are highly trained people, remarkably free of bias and well equipped to deal with complicated matters. I can see no justification whatever for continuing the jury system in Jamaica, and I think our legal profession would be wise to conclude that this holy cow has long since died of old age.

Our weird world

I suppose that as one grows older, one tends to think that there is something rather amiss about new things and new habits. But I can't help feeling that it is not only age or being out of fashion which causes me to think some of the developments in our electronic age can only be described as decadent and depraved.

It started with a thing called Telephone Sex, which simply meant that you were able to call certain people with whom you could talk dirty. I am sure that Alexander Graham Bell never anticipated that his great invention would be so used.

But since the invention of Telephone Sex, considerable progress in other directions has been made. I am told that there is now something called Internet Sex, by which one may enjoy the privileges of talking dirty to anyone in the world. There have been cases where husbands or wives have discovered that their spouses have been indulging in gross exercises of Internet Sex. This is obviously going to set a number of legal problems. A far as I know Internet adultery is not a ground for divorce. It would obviously have to become so and I suppose the day will come when an aggrieved party will be allowed to cite a computer as a co-respondent in a divorce. With the development of the techniques of virtual reality, I suppose it will ultimately become possible to become virtually pregnant or even to acquire a disease known as Virtual AIDS.

Perhaps it is time for our scientists to begin to develop a system known as Virtual Morality. Already the science of electronics seems to be developing a system known as Virtual Depravity.