Report of Society's Meetings. 435 



possibilities ; it is all here for us as the outcome of peace within well 

 defined borders, the result of the influx of capital which must 

 follow on the attainment of that looked for, long deferred, and most 

 desirable end. The influx of capital : we all desire it— the community 

 would welcome it, but permit me one little thought thereon. And 

 that is, when it arrives, as assuredly it must — let not those who now have 

 at their hands undeveloped forest and savannah wealth, above and 

 below the soil, be astonished or disheartened if the capitalist who 

 ventures his cash should seek to take its usufruft or a fair proportion of 

 it to his home beyond the sea. In plain words, though we want men 

 and we want money, the man who finds the money, if he be from the 

 outside, will stay there and we must not be surprised if in the success 

 of his adventures in the development of our Colony's resources, an 

 appreciable modicum of his gain should leave our shores. But after 

 all that is but a small matter, for in the golden future we all hope to be in 

 store for the land, there surely would remain a sufficiency — a satisfying 

 sufficiency — for those who own or are native of the soil which has such 

 bright possibilities upon and beneath it. A few words as to the year's 

 work, a word in which vale has its full meaning, and I have done. The 

 Society has held twelve meetings during the year. Several papers have 

 been read and discussed. The annual Show, in spite of certain govern- 

 mental relu6lance, happily for the Society timely turned to the 

 following of precedent, passed off most successfully, and that success was 

 due, as we all gratefully recognise, to the untiring energy and devotion 

 of Messrs. Quelch and Harrison and Hargreaves. We have not 

 found out, gentlemen, how to kill down fungus, bounties, rind-rust, beet 

 or other enemies of honest cane. We have not discovered the method 

 of always being able to turn a deficit into a credit balance. We have 

 not succeeded in persuading outside markets that Guiana Sugar, Coffee, 

 Cocoa, Plantains, Rum, Rice, and such like fruitful results of labour, 

 are the best in the world, the only ones in fact to be purchased if the 

 consumer would live long and happy. We have not erected numbers 

 of many-stamp mills in the El Dorado regions of our Province, but I 

 venture to think that your work has not been entirely useless, and if we 

 cannot attain all the ends I have foreshadowed above, it is at least my 

 hope and my most heartfelt wish that the future may not be without a 

 very general development of the wealth and the possibilities which are 

 the Colony's possession— the gifts of Nature's bountiful hand. And now, 

 before I close, let me express here my grateful thanks not only to yoti 



