38 Timehri. 



You 'will already have learned that there is no division of opinio 

 among our people as to the Colony's requirements, whatever difficulties 

 we may frankly realise as existing in the way of their fulfilment. These 

 requirements may be summarized in the words population (including 

 colonization and sanitary progress) railway development, harbour im- 

 provement, irrigation, equipment for sugar manufacture, exploitation of 

 forest products, mines and stock. Its forward strides, checked for a time 

 by the great war, the colony while devoted heart and soul to the earnest 

 prosecution of the war, will welcome any measures which your Govern- 

 ment will frame to meet the situation at its close. The Society will be 

 of assistance to your Excellency in the accumulation of all necessary 

 data and in the creation of an informed public opinion on any non- 

 political issue. We are at present engaged in considering on the one hand 

 what further assistance we can render to the Empire in the current 

 year, and on the other hand in preparing for a great Agricultural and 

 Horticultural Exhibition for 1918. 



In its various activities we look to you confidently for advice, 

 assistance and a guiding hand. We trust we shall often have an oppor- 

 tunity of welcoming you in our midst and we desire to express our 

 heartiest good wishes for the success of your administration, a success 

 meaning so much for this great undeveloped Continental asset of the 

 Crown, our only possession on the South American Continent, which 

 presents a splendid field for capital and enterprise if honestly and intelli- 

 gently expended. The Society is convinced that as the colony has had a 

 lingering dawn it will all the more certainly have a brilliant day. 



We congratulate you on having by industry and ability reached, 

 while still in the fulness of intellectual and physical vigour, the highest 

 rank in the Colonial Civil Service. We believe that your ripe experience 

 will enable you to crown that record here. 



We assure Your Excellency of our loyalty as a Society, for His 

 Majesty Our Gracious Patron has no more devoted subjects than the 

 people of this colony, which treasures recollections of his early visit. 



Chamber of Commerce Address. 

 Mr. A. P. G. Austin, on behalf of the Georgetown Chamber of 

 Commerce, read the following address : 



Georgetown, Demerara, 



24th May, 1917. 

 To His Excellency, 



Sir Wilfred Collet, K.C.M.G., 

 We, the members of the Chamber of Commerce of the City of 

 Georgetown, desire to extend to your Excellency a hearty welcome to 

 the colony on assuming the high office of Governor. 



Under the dark shadow of the great and terrible war this colony 

 has assumed a measure <>f prosperity unknown to it for many years. 



