DEVELOPMENT AND TAXATION. 



The important question " Can the colony be developed without 

 increased taxation was discussed at the regular meeting of the Royal 

 Agricultural and Commercial Society on 23rd July. His Excellency the 

 Governor, Sir Walter Egerton, K.C.M.G., presided after the preliminary 

 business had been completed. 



The acting President of the Society, the Hon. J. J. Nuuan, opened 

 the discussion, his views on the subject being as follows :— 



President's Address. 



Your Excellency, Ladies and Gentlemen: — I think the Society can 

 congratulate itself on the presence of Your Excellency this afternoon. 

 The subject of this discussion was arranged by the President before he 

 was compelled to leave the colony on business, and on accepting the acting 

 presidency I did not feel at liberty to alter it, and indeed saw no reason 

 why I should do so. Some friendly remark appears to have been 

 occasioned by the announeement that a Government officer would be in 

 the chair, but the founder of this Society in 1836, Dr. Campbell, was a 

 Government officer, and so are some of our most active directors. It will 

 be a bad day for this or any other colony, when officials cease to take an 

 interest in public matters, either regarding themselves as pariahs and so 

 beneath the privileges of ordinary citizens, or else like the gods of the 

 Epicureans lifted above all worldly cares to an atmosphere where no sound 

 of human sorrow mounts to mar their sacred, everlasting calm. There is 

 a very wise regulation which prevents them from taking part in political 

 discussions or indulging in public criticism on matters of administration, 

 but the very same regulation endorses their right as British citizens to 

 <leal with matters of public interest. In so doing they will be supposed 

 to act with discretion and in no sense can their action bind the Govern- 

 ment. I do not know of any matter of such absorbing public interest as 

 the future development of this great, this ancient, this side-tracked colony, 

 nor any time more urgent than the present, for the carefnl consideration 

 of its problems by all classes of its citizens. We are face to with a falling 

 sugar and bala'a market and the collapse of the New Colonial Company 

 does not increase the prestige of our staple as a form of investment. 

 Nothing much can lie hoped from the rice crop on the Corentyne and the 

 West Coast of Berbice owing to the effects of the drought on the Coast 

 savannahs. Our timber possibilities arc still in the region of nebular 

 hypothesis for the hope of seeing a market test applied to them on the 

 largest scale which so many of us entertained when I last addressed you 

 in October has vanished like the delusive hues of a rainbow. A 

 considerable sum of money has been circulated in Water street owing to 

 the gold rush to Pigeon Island, but only at some risk to the labour 

 supply for the coming sugar crop. Finally the East Indian indenture 

 system which has given us two-fifths of our population can no longer be 



