Colonisation Scheme. 9i 



power. Vast schemes have been formed for the utilization of water-falls 

 not only in India (Madras presidency), Switzerland and Montana (where 

 all railways and mines are under an electric system), but also in the 

 United Kingdom (Preliminary Eeport of the Water Power Committee of 

 the Conjoint Board of Scientific Societies, July, 1918). We are in a 

 position to work our existing railways, mines and sugar factories by 

 electricity and to increase that quantity of power some fifty-fold. We 

 could supply a railway running to Manaos(and its branch lines) without 

 any difficulty whatever and could cut, haul and saw hundreds of millions 

 of feet of lumber. There is in sight employment for hundreds of thous- 

 ands of men of all classes by the economic utilization of our water-power. 

 The cataracts which have postponed the exploration and development of 

 the interior by making the navigation of our great rivers so difficult from 

 some sixty miles inland will thus be turned into our greatest source of 

 wealth. His Excellency Sir Wilfred Collet, K.C.M.G., has already planned 

 the first step in this matter. (Government Resolution, Combined Court 

 16th April, 1919.) 



How the Movement Began. 

 When the attention of the Officers of the Royal Agricultural and 

 Commercial Society and Royal Colonial Institute (British Guiana Branch) 

 had been called in January by Mr. Strang (Chairman, Planters' Associa- 

 tion) to a serious decline in the acreage under sugar during 1918 due to 

 labour shortage and to the apparent certainty of a future decline instant 

 action was taken. Such a decline, if continued, means disaster to the 

 Colonial revenue and the throwing of very heavy burdens upon other 

 industries. A smaller population will have to bear unreduced expenditure. 



It means widespread unemployment among the present population 

 as sugar can employ not less than one full grown man to the acre and 

 contributes about 65°b to the revenue. There had been no compensating 

 increase in the acreage under other crops and the situation therefore was 

 menacing in the extreme. It had become a question of Colonisation and 

 Development or Decline. 



A conjoint meeting of the members of the Combined Court and of 

 various representatives, of Municipal and other public bodies assembled 

 in Georgetown on 27th January at the Royal Agricaltural and Commercial 

 Society's Rooms, under the chairmanship of the Mayor, Hon. E. G. 

 Woolford, M.C.P. It included also the officers of the British Guiana 

 Farmers' Association and Village Chairmen's Conference and the leading 

 East Indian and Chinese citizens. A programme of work was outlined 

 by the Secretary of the Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society (Dr. 

 Nunau,) and unanimously accepted. It included the formation of an 

 Executive Committee consisting of the heads of all the public bodies and 

 of a huge General Colonisation Committee consisting of all members of 

 the Combined Court and of a full representation of various interests. It 

 contemplated the study of all the facts and figures, the direct investiga- 

 tion of the questions of sanitation, mechanical tillage and factory 



