14 Timehri. 



compared with those of the candle-makers of Paris who endeavoured to 

 restrict by legislation the construction of windows in order to bring 

 about a betterment of the candle industry. The cry " Guiana for the 

 Guianese " lacks sympathy with the spirit of these times when it is more 

 than ever before the duty of each unit of the Empire, however humble, 

 to sink its ewn particular ends to those of Empire. Similarly in these 

 days when the world is emerging from the titanic struggle in which 

 civilisation itself has been at stake, any sentiment for the maintenance 

 of the few remaining vestiges of artificial barriers to the onward sweep 

 of civilisation in the development of world resources for the benefit of 

 the civilised race, in the nature of hindrance of legitimate international 

 investment, is totally at variance from the spirit of brotherhood of 

 civil sed nations that obtains to-day, and is a relic of the doctrine of 

 every nation for itself and the devil take the hindmost, and its in- 

 evitable accompaniment of petty international strife, intrigue and jealousy. 

 Such doctrine is directly responsible for the appalling events of the past 

 four years, and only by the discarding of such a doctrine by the civilised 

 nations has civilisation as we know it to-day been saved from perishing 

 from the very face of the earth. 



The future undoubtedly holds in store enormous demands tbat the 

 Colony's resources could supply, and it behoves the people of British 

 Guiana, the custodians of this important storehouse of the Empire's 

 resources, to be prepared to make the best of opportunities for rapid 

 advancement in the near future. 



While the railway project has of necessity been temporarily shelved 

 due to the impossibility of obtaining the necessary machinery and equip- 

 ment, there would seem to be no reason why the building of well-con- 

 structed highways should not be undertaken at once, especially when, as 

 appears later, more than one hundred miles of existing roads leading to 

 the hinterland, representing a large investment by the colony (most 

 of which lies idle) are available for inclusion in a scheme for reaching 

 the interior by road. 



Mention of the scientific encouragement of settlement on the vast 

 areas tapped and served by the great Canadian and American transcon- 

 tinental railroads may not be inopportune in view of the great interest 

 tli at has been aroused and the serious efforts that are about to be made, 

 in the matter of colonisation. It is fairly well known that capital was 

 induced to embark upon the construction of the earlier transcontinental 

 lines in North America, because of the liberal attitude of the Canadian 

 and American Governments with respect to the granting of land to the 

 Railroad Companies. Most of the first settlers naturally located in fairly 

 close proximity to the main transcontinental line. These lands, controlled 

 by the Railroad Companies, however, were naturally more valuable and 

 therefore more difficult of acquisition by the immigrant of small means 

 than the lands more remote, or what are known by the local term of 

 " second depths " or " back lands." While the railroad companies 



