RAILWAYS, TWELVE YEARS AFTER. 



By Joseph J. Nunan, LL.D.. Attorney General. 



By his despatch of 5th January, 1914, to the Secretary of State foi 

 the Colonies, His Excellency Sir Walter Egerton has brought the idea of 

 opening up the interior of British Guiana from the domain of theory to 

 one of discussion of the practical details. For this the colony owes him 

 a very great debt of gratitude which it has not been slow to acknowledge. 

 By securing the services of Mr. Bland for a flying inspection of the route, 

 by visiting the Bupununi Savannahs personally and by voicing in no 

 uncertain tones his belief in the possibilities of the interior and in the 

 feasibility of a trunk-line to Manaos, the capital of the Amazon Valley, 

 he has done much to rout the pessimists and to determine the waverers. 

 He has a firm belief in the future of British South America and in its vast 

 resources. He agrees with those pioneers of the movement who have, 

 for some years, been advocating that Georgetown should regard itself as 

 destined to be a great South American port, the terminus of a railway 

 which should not alone tap the Amazon Valley but should form the 

 northern section of a line linking us in a short time with Uruguay, 

 Chile and the Argentine. 



The scheme of a trunk-line to Manaos was, so far as I can ascertain, 

 first discussed as a practical proposal at my house in Kingston in 

 September, 1907. I had left the colony for a short holiday early in July 

 and had lent the house to the late Colonel Link who expected to be gone 

 before my return. He was not able to conclude his business as early as 

 he had expected, and on my arrival I invited him to stay until he was 

 ready to leave for home. He was an elderly man in somewhat delicate 

 health, but with a cultured and attractive personality. He eventually 

 sailed three weeks later. My previous acquaintance with him had 

 arisen from my having been engaged on behalf of the Crown in a 

 successful defence (in association with the present Chief Justice, then 

 Attorney General) to his action against the Government about a 

 rubber lease. Subsequent to this period, however, I acted for him 

 as counsel in the long and troublesome negotiations, here and in 

 England, which led to the formation of the Consolidated Rubber and 

 Balata Estates. If his plans had been carried out as conceived 

 and at the time contemplated, this colony would probably have attract- 

 ed a great deal of attention in 1909 among growers of rubber. As 

 it was the colony met only the ebb tide of the rubber boom and endured 

 indignities accordingly. He had prophesied the rubber development but 

 his counsels fell upon deaf ears. Colonel Link returned to the colony in 

 March, 1908. He informed me that he had interested many of his former 

 friends and financial supporters in the scheme which we had discusst-.l 



