88 Timehri. 
third party who, we must take it, was actuated by considerations of — 
the ultimate best interests of a colony which should treat tenderly the 
capital of whose incoming it is in so much need. There remains the 
fact, however, that the tax was imposed at a time when revenue was not 
badly wanted. The opportuneness of its remission will be appreciated—at a 
time when the purchasing power of the community (the fount of the revenue) 
has been sensibly impaired by a drought of unprecedented duration, at a time 
when a large amount of revenue is to be sacrificed in terms of a reciprocal trade 
agreement whose ratification cannot be far off now. 
But there is something more pleasing to comment upon. A Government 
which have so managed their finances that during the course of six and thirty 
years, the expenditure has exceeded the revenue only eleven times, can hold 
their head high in the pride of a respectable achievement. For, as Wilson 
has it, “ Finance is not mere arithmetic ; finance is a great policy. Without 
sound finance no sound government is possible ; without sound government 
no sound finance is possible.’’ It is worthy of note that during the fifteen 
years immediately preceding the reform of the political constitution of British 
Guiana the expenditure was allowed to exceed the revenue as many as seven 
times. Since then such a phenomenon has occurred only four times. Let 
them halt, however, who would regard this as prima facie evidence of the greater 
vigilance of the elected members of the Combined Court whom an extended 
franchise sent up. For whereas up to 1891 the deficits of the preceding seven 
years amounted to $674,902 those of the four bad years in the succeeding four 
lustrums total a sum only $54,674 short of the figures just mentioned. In the 
three years ended 1898 the governing body made a tortoise of the 
constable: in that short time the deficits totalled $589,308. In the 
year 1895-96 the expenditure reached the highest point known to the 
present generation or indeed ever known. It amounted to £596,493. 
The optimistic local Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day who 
so deftly put the watchfulness of the elected members to sleep has 
since enjoyed the emoluments of two Governorships. He now enjoys 
doice far niente. Since his time more efficient measures of financial police 
have put a period to extravagance, and so the pantings of the constable have 
become less distressing. 
The colony has no Unfunded Debt, but rather a surplus balance of appreci- 
able dimensions. As shown, it was not always so. How then, arises the 
question, did the Government manage to carry on when their income did not 
quadrate with their expenditure? They never had the authority to issue 
Ixchequer Bonds or Exchequer or Treasury Bills. They had always, how- 
ever, lots of money belonging to other people lying uninvested in the Chest, 
and it is on these that they must have operated. The Public Debt is very 
small. Everybody seems to be agreed that the time has come when the in- 
dustry of posterity should be mortgaged for the earlier material advancement 
of the colony. Not only is the Public Debt insignificant in amount, but much 
of it has been incurred on acount of other people than the taxpayers. At the 
end of the financial year 1911 the Public Debt stood at $4,258,152, but of this 
