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TlMEHRI. 



Empire's subjefts who might, perchance, at this very moment be starving 

 and destitute, or if not, at least a cause of grave apprehension to the 

 Government of their native land. And before passing from the subjefl 

 of labour, bear with me one moment. Your history shows me that after 

 a certain event generally known by the name of the Emancipation— the 

 labour supply in the then sugar growing colonies became short and 

 required extending, replenishing. Now this is no place, nor is it for me 

 to go into the why and the wherefore of that effefl: — it was an effe£l, 

 and it had to be met and dealt with just as the eff eft of the system which 

 now presses on you so heavily will be, I hope, met and dealt with. But to 

 those who without looking very deeply may question what has gone be- 

 fore in connexion with labour— nay, might now question present arrange- 

 ments — I would mention some words which I recently read and which are 

 to the effeft that whilst the idea of men being bound to work for work's 

 sake may be without foundation, yet all men must contribute to the support 

 of the State within the confines of which they reside, and which gives 

 them the benefit of protedlion in peaceful idleness. I believe, 

 gentlemen, that without any assisted labour introdu6tion we should 

 have had no Planters, without any Planters we should have had but 

 few sea and river defences— without sea and river defences we should 

 have had towns and communities settled into the depths of mud flats, and 

 when that undesirable condition had obtained, we should have found the 

 peaceful remnant driven aback, and yet aback into unconserved and 

 unirrigated regions where even the semi-idleness of provision growing 

 would not have kept the wolf ot hunger from their benabs, or the over- 

 whelming flood of waters, and the evil effefls of periodic drought from 

 their unprotected acres. But I would not wish to be thought as crystal. 

 Using on our crystal industry only. We have wide fields for adventure 

 and development, and we have possibilities of success apart from that 

 industry. The tyre man is crying out to us to send him Guiana-grown 

 rubber. The Bovril man will, in the no far distant future, clamber 

 over the Beef Extractors in his desire to purchase the herds which one 

 can foresee will roam and fatten on our upland Savannahs. The 

 timber broker will be here and there at the inland dep6ts which will 

 spring up round railways making and to be made, eager to buy the 

 hardwood wealth of our forests, and the adventurer who seeks for the 

 precious metal our lands have held long before Raleigh's days, 

 will become amongst the well-to-do men of the earth. This is no 

 day dream, gentlemen— it is all within the bounds of our Colony's 



