344 Timehri. 
the rates themselves would be sufficient to pay expenses, and the $25,000 
would then be used in improving the sanitary condition of the other 
villages throughout the colony ; but this was never carried out, and year 
after year, until 1892-93, when the yrant ceased, we find the whole 
amount of the grant was expended on the same lot of villages to the 
exclusion of all others in the colony. Perhaps the original ideas were 
conserved on too sanguine lines, roseate hopes and insufficiency of data. 
But what ever the reason for the failure of the carriage of the scheme 
as originally mapped out, the result was that a few fortunate villages 
for over nine years got the most liberal help from the Government 
towards their upkeep, maintenance and improvement. 
The year 1883 was in other respects a notable one for the villages 
on account of their being relieved of any share in the maintenance and 
upkeep of any of the public roads. The late Sir A. M. Ashmore states 
the matter so plainly in his memorandum that I cannot do better than 
quote his remarks: ‘In the same year (1883) the maintenance of the 
trunk roads, other than those passing through sugar plantations or through 
Georgetown or New Amsterdam, was assumed by the Government, and 
the villages finally relieved of one burden on their poor resources. 
$150,000 was represented to be outstanding and uncollected on account 
of the maintenance of these roads: not of course only or principally 
on account of villages. But the problem of village indebtedness was 
not, as it should have been, grappled with. Fifteen villages, most of 
them incorporated, at that time owed in round figures $94,000. It was 
recognised that they could not manage their own affairs and also pay 
their way. Their property and the responsibility for their future was 
on that account taken out of their own hands and assumed by the 
Government, in return for a fixed rate of annual taxation, the general 
revenue providing for the deficiency, but their several debts to the 
Government were retained on the colony’s books.” 
In 1892, a new Village Law, No. 6, was passed. This Ordinance 
which owes its existence to Sir John Carrington, the Attorney General 
at that time, wasa well-thought-out act. It changed the whole system of 
village administration. It removed the villages from the control of the 
Public Works Department and placed them under the control of the 
Central Board of Health, created by the 1878 Ordinance, and made the 
Inspector of Villages an officer of the Board. The main object of the 
Ordinance was to give to the villages a large measure ot local self-govern- 
ment and the management of their affairs by the formation of elected 
Village Councils acting under the Central controlling body :—* The 
Central Board of Health ”—sitting in Georgetown and charged with the 
central administration and coutrol of the villages. The Central Board of 
Health was given very large powers of supervision and control as will be 
seen from section 3 of the Ordinance, which reads as follows : —“ Subject 
to the provisions of the Ordinance and the Regulations, the Central 
Board of Health shall have the superintendence of all villages in the 
