Some Home Truths. 191 



These gigantic health problems must be faced, we have shirked them 

 long enough in the past, and at a time when we hope to attract Colonists 

 to these shores, it becomes still more important to act and to act at once. 



Years ago there was no such thhag as Tuberculosis in this Colony of 

 perpetual sunshine. To-day silently this dreaded plague is creeping 

 forward. Enteric occasionally arises in epidemic form, our infantile 

 mortality is a standing reproach. Are these questions faced seriously by 

 the authorities ? 



Tuberculosis Societies are supposed to be mainly supported by charity, 

 malaria and filaria are on the increase, they are our constant menance, 

 and yet we continue to play at eradicating the former and controlling 

 the latter. Some of the homes our Village people inhabit are veritable 

 death traps so far as malaria is concerned. The growth and health of our 

 people seem not be as important as the growth and health of many of 

 our plants ! 



If only we could drop some of the petty and stupid questions of the 

 day and diligently devote ourselves to some of these pressing problems, 

 we fancy we should be doing more for our people than all the preaching 

 of this or that doctrine, all the campaigning for a Labour Union, all the 

 discussions of political subjects. The Gospel of Our Lord needs in this 

 Colony to go hand-in-hand with the Gospel of sanitation. 



The problem is a big one. Are we afraid to face it ? The problem of 

 Sea Defence was a big one, but it was faced. 



We may fashion it how we like, but the health conditions under 

 which our people exist to-day is a standing reproach to any community. 

 The puny efforts that have been made in the past are bound to give way 

 in the near future to sturdy methods. 



No Colonisation Scheme can possibly be a success unless this is done. 

 " Sapere aude, 

 Incipe ; vivendi recte qui prorogat horam, 

 Rusticus expectat, dum defluat amnis ; at ille 

 Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum." 



The river of ill-health and inefficiency has flowed on Jong enouo-h. 



It is time that our people were given a fair chance to live their lives 

 as they should be lived — not go through a distorted existence, crippled 

 with malaria. 



With a healthy people, with a population in proportion to the huge 

 areas waiting the hand of the husbandman, what a thriving colony this 

 would be ! With our coffers tilled, with a happy and healthy people, with 

 Principle, as old Disraeli once said, as our Motto, and not Expediency, 

 then indeed might British Guiana claim to be what now is a mad mis- 

 nomer, The " Magnificent Province." 



