THE LABOUR QUESTION. 
THE PROBLEM STATED. 
By Frep C. 8. Bascom. 
The present would seem to be a fitting time to urge anew the 
importance of an adequate labour supply to the well-being of the colony. 
Rather more than a year ago a census of the population of the 
colony was taken, and it is now several months since the Census Com- 
missioner’s report on the figures obtained has been published, so that all 
who cared to could study them 
LESSONS OF THE CENSUS. 
It will not be disputed by anyone who has studied it that the docu- 
iment in question shows British Guiana te be in the unhappy position of 
being dependent on outside supplies for the labour it needs for its 
economic development. The evidence of the report on this point is clear 
in the extreme. The Commissioner on page 4 of the Report compares 
the natural increment population, that is the figure at which the popula- 
tion would have stood had births and deaths been the sole causes 
operating to produce change, with the population as enumerated in 1911. 
The result shows an excess of the enumerated population over the 
natural increment population of 19,980. ‘The origin of this excess is 
shown on page 5, where the emigration is deducted from the immigration 
for the period under review, the result being again 19,980. The Com- 
missioner then adds the following comment: ‘‘ The East Indian section 
of the population is responsible for the whole of the immigration here 
shown.” And a couple of paragraphs lower down the page, going more 
fully ito the matter, he adds : 
“Had there been no Hast Indian immigration the population would 
have shown a decrease of 9.8 per cent. on the population in 1891, 
while had there been neither immigration nor emigration the decrease 
would have been 7.2.” 
A NATURAL INCREASE. 
Confronted with these facts, the man who undertakes to oppose 
immigration would seem to have an uphill task before him. He might, 
it is true, if the extracts I have made from the Census Report stood 
alone, object on ethical grounds to people being persuaded to emigrate to 
a colony where the population decreased in the absence of immigration. 
But happily for the colony, whose chief reed is an increase of its labour 
force, they do not stand alone. On page 24 of the Report there is a 
table showing the increase of the native-born population. All races show 
an increase except the Aborigines, who show a decrease of 7.53 per 
cent. The increases per cent. are: Europeans 8.99, Portuguese 20.45, 
