92 • Timehri. 



than at any previous period. That was the question of development of 

 the colony. When they spoke of development of this colony he believed 

 they generally meant the development of the interior, but he quite agreed 

 with Mr. Eussell Garnett when he said they should not forget the coast- 

 lands and their development at the same time. This colony was a very 

 big one. They had the population concentrated in a narrow fringe along 

 the coast. They spoke of a population of three to the square mile but, 

 really, it was much more than that because practically all the population 

 was on this narrow belt of coast-land and they were living in that narrow 

 belt under very artificial conditions. " You cannot, cultivate your land 

 until you empolder it" proceeded His Excellency. " You have got to 

 provide for letting out the water into the sea and at the same time you 

 have got to provide for pumping it in from the interior. Now you have 

 all grown accustomed to that here. You are not frightened at these 

 burdens and you are willing to go on living in the coast belt and culti- 

 vating in that manner, but when you try to induce people from outside 

 to come here that is a very different matter. The writer of this very 

 interesting paper this afternoon spoke of the gold rush in the Pigeon 

 Island district as having drawn away labour that is wanted on the East 

 Coast. Doubtless that is so, but he forgot to mention that if you go a 

 little further along the coast you find hundreds, possibly thousands, of 

 people crying out for work and crying out for work so urgently that I 

 have had to hurry on the construction of a road in order that some of 

 them might find employment. 



Plenty of Labour. 



" There is plenty of labour in the colony," pursued His Excellency, 

 " but it may be attracted from one district where it is wanted and, if that 

 is so, the remedy is not the importation of labour from elsewhere but the 

 attraction of labour further along the coast. I do not quite share the 

 pessimistic view regarding the present years rice crop and the possible 

 disappearance of sugar cultivation. I have heard so often that rice 

 crops are an absolute failure and 1 have so often had the great pleasure 

 of going in harvest time to the same district and rinding the crop was all 

 right. I sincerely trust that the shortage of rain in Berbice, which has 

 delayed the planting, may be only a temporary shortage and that in the 

 autumn the people there will reap a decent crop. One company in sugar 

 may fail to make sugar pay, but I have sufficient confidence in the East 

 Coast lands, which seem specially designed for sugar cultivation. 

 I have confidence enough in them to believe that sugar cultivation 

 will continue and that it will continue to be profitable where it 

 is supported by adequate capital. Poor companies cannot engage 

 with success in sugar cultivation. I agree that if we are to have 

 development, we must have rigid economy, and possible retrench- 

 ment in the public administration. I only hope it may be my 

 good fortune to have reasonable schemes of economy and retrench- 

 ment placed before me, and if I have them, I will certainly do what 

 I can to have them carried out. We should look to development 



