TRINIDAD: THEN AND NOW- 259 



the future, we have a practically limitless supply. 

 The importance of our oil resources to the British 

 Navy needs no elaboration. Trinidad, as the advan- 

 ced guard of the British West Indies in the Carib- 

 bean Sea, is bound to become a great British base. 

 The harbour of Port-of-Spain, properly fortified, 

 would be impregnable. Already the Government is 

 debating the spending of £750,000 sterling on the im- 

 provement of this port. Our shipping activity is 

 even to-day considerable ; there is not a day in the 

 year in which some steamer does not enter our port, 

 while it is impossible to limit our shipping importance 

 when we become, as will shortly be the case, one of 

 the ports of call for vessels passing through the 

 Panama Canal, and going south to Brazil, the Argen- 

 tine, and other South American lands." 



There is, as I have mentioned in the chapter 

 " The Coastal Service," a substantial, though I be- 

 lieve a not irremovable, block to a clear entrance to 

 Guayaguayare Bay ; but why it should remain so, 

 now that this bay is likely to be of such importance, is 

 a question for the naval authorities to consider. A 

 few thousand pounds sterling, and a hundred pounds 

 avoirdupois of dynamite expended on it ought to 

 clear a sufficient passage to render it the finest har- 

 bour in Trinidad and a safe naval base for a small 

 fleet ; this (is, however, a matter beyond my ken, my 

 present object being to deal with the oil prospects ; 

 but if it were done it would enable large oil tank 

 ships to go very close to the river up which Guaya- 

 guayare oil-wells are situated. 



