86 Timehri. 



during their early years in the colon}*. I cannot assess the sum to be so 

 paid, but if the principle is admitted, the amount would be easily settled, 

 half the total cost, say, £13 per head, would appear to be a fair basis. 

 (6) The Imperial Government should be asked to assist development by 

 contributing towards the cost of introduction of families of settlers by an 

 annual grant, similar to that recently given to the Sudan. (7) An effort 

 should be made to interest capitalists so as to enable them to secure some 

 of the labour which will be set free by the completion of the Panama 

 Canal in 1914-1915. (8) Arrangements should be made for the comfort 

 of settlers on arrival by the establishment of Government rest-houses in 

 suitable spo's, which would offer a home to settlers, on their first arrival. 

 (9) Inducement to capitalists to invest in sugar production would increase 

 the wealth of the colony and provide part of the means for development 

 of the interior. (10) Development must be gradual so as to avoid too 

 great a strain on the Colonial resources. 



In July, 1912. a writer in Timehri thus deals with the question of 

 ways and means : — 



The Hon. George Garnett, in his address at the Town Hall at the 

 general election, mentioned £3,000 a mile as his estimate. I am inclined 

 to fix £4,500 as closer to the real sum. I do so while realising that 

 there are virtually no engineering difficulties except the inevitable bridging 

 of the Esssequebo. We have moreover none of the unhealthy conditions 

 of other tropical countries. The death-rate of our balata industry is not 

 even one per cent. I believe that a railway tapping the savannahs and 

 aiming to link up with a line from Manaog would barely exceed 300 

 miles in length and could be built of a metre gauge for 1^ millons sterling, 

 the lengths mentioned in the debate being excessive. I also believe that 

 even if the entire amount of any guarantee e\er likely to be demanded by 

 business men or given by a business Court were called upon from the 

 colon}* it would be defrayed under an amortization scheme by a maximum 

 increase on our present burdens of taxation of five per cent. There would 

 be no need to fund the debt until it became due, (if it ever became due 

 at all), by annual deficits, and payment of any guarantee for fifteen or 

 twenty years coi Id be spread over fifty or sixty. There is no reason why 

 posterity should not pay a reasonable proportion of the cost of our work 

 in providing them with a modern state in which to earn their livelihood. 

 Borrowing from the able rhetoric of the First Lord we ma}* ask : 

 ■• What shall a colony have in exchange for it soul ? A cheaper gin or 

 whisky swizzle ? " 



Such estimates, however, must be merely a working hypothesis 

 pending a report by skilled engineers after an exploration survey and after 

 consideration of the present cost of materials and labour, which varies from 

 year to year. The most important recent factor in the local railway prob- 

 lem has been the formation, on the invitation of the Hon. George Garnett, 

 of a Railway Joint Committee by delegations from the Chamber of Com- 

 merce, the Planters' Association, the Royal Agricultural and Commercial 



