17G Timehri. 



the subject on Mr. Harcourt's attention. I knew he realised its impor- 

 tance, and it would have been fitting that he, one of whose distant ances- 

 tors received a grant of the country from James I. and twice attempted 

 to take possession of his property, should be the Minister to finally 

 render the development of its rich interior possible. 



The Financial Problems. 



The question of financing its construction, however, bristles with 

 difficulties. In the colony there is much divergence of opinion. The 

 planters of the coast fear the loss of their labour, and urge that the scheme 

 must be accompanied by a costly supplementary one for the introduction 

 of many thousands of settlers. Another section is against construction 

 by Government, refusing to see that it is a project impossible for private 

 enterprise as there is no prospect of paying even working expenses for 

 at least ten years. These people are misled by concession hunters, 

 inexperienced and over-sanguine, to take a charitable view of their 

 promises, who offer to construct the line on easy terms without having 

 the remotest chance of finding capitalists to finance their proposals. The 

 line, if built, must be built with Government money. The colony cannot 

 afford to carry out the work. 



Here seems to me a project eminently wortlvy of the attention of the 

 Empire Resources Development Committee, not, however, with a view to 

 further development at the expense and for the benefit of the Mother 

 Country, except indirectly. Where would Britain be without her oversea 

 possessions and, taking the tropical colonies alone, it would be instruc- 

 tive to calculate how many millions are annually poured into the Imperial 

 Exchequer as income-tax, now swollen further by excess profits duty, on 

 receipts by her citizens from their oversea properties, and, on their 

 decease, by death duties thereon. Is it too much that in return the 

 Mother Country should advance, as in the case of the Uganda railway, 

 the means of giving the people, both of the colony and of the United 

 Kingdom, a chance of proving their ability to take advantage of the 

 opportunities so ottered ? 



Mr. Chamberlain"s Work for West Africa. 



Until Mr. Chamberlain ruled at the Colonial Office our West African 

 colonies were in a much worse state of stagnation than British Guiana. 

 Under his guiding hand, and with financial help from the Treasury, rail- 

 ways began to be pushed up from the coast in each of our West African 

 possessions, with the result that nowhere is there more rapid progress to 

 be seen than in those possessions. Without the progress so ensured we 

 should now be without urgently needed vegetable fats, without our chief 

 source of cocoa supply, and without the troops that have borne the brunt 

 of the fighting in subduing Togoland, the Kameruns, and German East 

 Africa. 



Cattle Trade Possibilities. 



Within ten years of the completion of a railway to the savannahs in 

 the interior the cattle traffic should alone be sufficient to cover working 



