90 Timehri. 
with the colony loan, which amount since 1899 has been paid into revenue and 
will continue to be so paid until the colony loan matures ; the equivalent pro- 
portion of the Public Debt charges borne by the colony in respect of this 
sum is $43,294.00, so that the present generation is paying no less than 
$10,794 per annum more than it would have had to pay had only the 
proper amount been taken to revenue prior to 1899. 
‘“‘ The whole of the instalments repaid in connection with loans made out of 
moneys raised under Ordinance 19 of 1896 having been credited to the Reserve 
Fund, the full equivalent of the Public Debt charges is taken from the fund 
and credited to revenue.” 
Strictly speaking—and this is a point which used to be laboured by the late 
Mr. Patrick Dargan—it is no function of Government to lend out moneys not 
for the benefit of the contributors to the State in their capacity of taxpayers, 
In theory, there is a tendency for taxation to be increased by reason of such 
transactions, but as a matter of fact some small profit does accrue to the State. 
Thus the moneys that have been lent from time to time to the corporations 
and the bodies responsible for the management of the water conservancies, 
pay interest at the rate of 4 per cent., whereas a large portion of the 
Public Debt has been raised by the Government at rates varying from 
3 to 33 per cent. In 1898 a sum of $720,000 was raised in bonds paying 
3 per cent.; in 1900 a sum of $138,720 bearing interest at the rate 
of 3} and 32 per cent. was borrowed; in 1901 a sum of $22,656 
was raised at a price of 33 per cent. The East Demerara Sea Defence 
Commissioners have borrowed from the Government a sum of about $130,000. 
For this accommodation they pay interest at the rate of 4 per cent. Thise 
moneys came out of the floating balance in the Receiver General’s hands ; 
if invested in the ordinary way they would have earned only 3} to 3} per cent. 
There can be no hard and fast rule as to what proportion of revenue should 
be put aside for works of a permanently useful or reproductive nature. When 
surpluses accrue, provision having been made for the service of the Funded 
Debt, it should be found not impracticable, and it would not be unwise, to 
appropriate some 10 to 20 per cent. of the year’s revenue to such works, and 
this without harbouring such an intensely selfish thought as that involved in 
the unsophisticated query : ‘‘ What has Posterity done for us that we should 
do anything for her in return ?”” We do no harm in earning in anticipation a 
benison from those distant people callcd Posterity. Tf we regard surpluses 
as ‘ capital receipts,’ and we do well so to do, they should be devoted to the 
purposes for which money now raised on Loan Account is put. We should, in 
short, borrow from ourselves, a proceeding which Posterity would or should 
applaud. Probably the next best use for a surplus is to regard it as a bufler, 
and use it for emergencies, an idea which Governor Hodgson once entertained. 
We had a practical illustration of this just a few years ago when a series of 
surpluses unbroken for more than a decade suffered the accident of a $30,000 
deficit. Then should come the turn of the taxpayer for a lightening of hin 
burdens, But taxpaying man never is but always to be blest. Aided and 
