SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT. 339 



cient in suitable material for road-making". On that plea, some 

 persons are of opinion that it would be better to lay tramways 

 rather than construct new roads and have them properly macadam- 

 ised at an enormous cost. They contend that such tramroads 

 would ultimately prove cheaper, inasmuch as they might be 

 made to yield revenue, instead of being, as at present, a perma- 

 nent cause of expenditure. That might be so, but the first 

 outlay will always act as a serious obstacle to their establish- 

 ment. 



The staff of road engineers now in the colony is, I think, equal 

 to all requirements. Far from me the pretention of suggesting 

 what duties should be imposed upon them, or how they ought to 

 proceed ; but this I do not hesitate to say, too much of latitude 

 is left to the inferior officers, and the principals are not seen on 

 the highways as often as they should. The island has been 

 formed into two principal divisions for administrative purposes — 

 the northern and the southern. An engineer should be appointed 

 to each division, and made responsible to the Director of Public 

 Works, as head of the department. He should regularly visit 

 and inspect the roads in his division, prepare estimates for their 

 repair and the construction of bridges. He would determine 

 whether any new roads were required, trace them, and superin- 

 tend their formation. No bridge should be built in his division, 

 except under his personal superintendence ; he should regularly 

 send reports, showing the conditions of the roads within his 

 district, with such suggestions as he would consider useful. A 

 code of rules and instructions should be prepared for the manage- 

 ment of the public ways, which all inferior officers should be 

 compelled to obey. 



We have no fair chance of progressing unless we establish 

 roads throughout the country ; but we particularly need popula- 

 tion, and to us immigration has become a matter of vital im- 

 portance. The introduction of immigrants, immediately after 

 emancipation, saved the colony from immediate ruin; and we 

 must look up to immigration, and the introduction of field- 

 labourers, if we are determined not to retrograde. But as the 

 people so introduced gradually retire from field labour, either by 

 leaving the island to return home, or by adopting other occupa- 

 tions, or by becoming land-owners, we must make provision for a 

 continuous influx of immigrants, lest the cultivation of our 



