152 Timehri. 
effect of changed conditions of life on the physique of this people. In any case 
they promise to take an important part in the development of Surmam. And 
Surinam is developing. The population is at present meagre it is true, and the 
black race diminishing in numbers and decreasing in industrial efficiency but 
efforts have been made to attract capital and have been fairly successful. In 
forest industries especially a marked expansion has taken place within the 
past few years. The output of balata for example greatly exceeds that of 
British Guiana and in the cultivation of rubber they are some years ahead 
of us. With a view to opening out areas for timber, rubber and gold a railway 
from Paramaribo into the interior has been in progress for seven years and 
has now reached a place called Dam, about 89 miles to the South-East. Finally 
it is intended to reach the upper waters of the Marowyne above the falls, whence 
a clear waterway will be open to the borders of Brazil. A colossal international 
dredging proposition on that river is being negotiated by a powerful Syndicate 
of Dutch and French financiers, which, if successful, should give a great fillip 
to development of the interior. The pessimistic views taken of this railway 
by some who have spoken about it in the colony seem a good deal subjectively 
coloured. It has only recently been equipped for anything like regular traffic 
and the appropriation for construction and maintenance has been only a million 
guilders (£80,000) yearly. Information therefore that it has not paid is quite 
superfluous and mournful prognostications, based on its past history, quite 
irrelevant to the future. Even as it is, a string of mining prospects line the 
railway in one section and rubber plantations, settlements and timber locations 
extend to its present terminus, so that recently it has, I am told, covered 
expenses. So much is this the case that it was able at a recent Easter festival to 
shut down for three days while every employee all along the line from General 
Manager to greaser resorted to Paramaribo on holiday. 
Another sign of the awakening of our Hollander cousins is to be found on the 
sugar estates, inthe extended application of labour and time-saving machinery. 
Marienburg, for example, brings its canes to the mill ona metre gauge railway. 
I regretted that time did not allow me to visit this estate, the management 
of which is, I understand, alive on the points of mechanical tillage and other 
power appliances in farm and factory. 
A method common to several estates of distributing man labour was explained 
tome. The estate is divided into sections on each of which is located a negro 
yard and overseers’ house, so that the labour is close to the fields on which it 
isto be employed. The Dutchman has in this matter tumbled to the fact that 
the foot poundage put into walking the dams morning and night means sugar 
lost. Some of our estates with fields seven or eight miles from the negro yard 
might find it profitable to take a hint from over the river. The spirit of com- 
petition between the sections is a not unimportant factor in the efficiency 
gained. Sugar is not of so much importance in Dutch Guiana as coflee, cocoa, 
and bananas. Some 8,231 acres are planted in the latter crop and in 1909 
650,000 bunches were shipped. Disease has appearea in this cultivation also 
and in recent years the output has been seriously affected. There is a possi- 
bility that this fact may lead to the withdrawal of the fruit steamers, and I 
