346 TiMEHRI. 



fafl is that it does not pay a licenced woodcutter who has 

 his path cut and his men on the spot to cut one of these 

 cedar a.id other trees. I have often talked with woodcut- 

 ters on the subjeft as suggested to me, on seeing the trees 

 standing in their paths. Much less then would it pay a 

 man to make a speciality of the job and constru6l 

 the same path for one or two trees as would do for 

 100 trees, use the same gang, in fa6l incur all the 

 heavier expenses of a woodcutter, for one or two trees 

 scattered over a very large area. If the proposed 

 ordinance were put in force a large portion of the 

 present scarce wood-cutting labour would be diverted 

 into an unprofitable channel ; because it is noto- 

 rious that when a wood-cutting labourer, whether 

 negro, Indian, or mixed breed, goes to work for him- 

 self he values his labour at nothing; b'lt when the 

 same man goes to work on a grant for a wood-cutter he 

 values his labour at something ; of course the grantholder 

 and he have different ideas about the value of that some- 

 thing, yet nevertheless the labourer would make more 

 off the wood-cutter than he would do by putting in 

 wood-cutting on his own account as you would encourage 

 him to do by the ordinance. Seeing that quite enough 

 of this exists already, I would say leave the existing 

 ordinance alone. Some kind of double purchase regu- 

 lation should be enforced to preserve the Bullet-free, as 

 the " piece work" or "job work" system employed in 

 collefling ballata lends itself to the reckless destruction 

 of trees. I fully agree with Go/ernment Officer SUTHER- 

 LAND in his remarks on the Demerara river. 



I have never bought any timber from Indians, or rather 

 so-called Indians, since 1890, as the regulations of that 



