INAUGUKAL MEETING 1897 - 1898 . 
193 
as he had told them, that proportion of children, and that there 
should not be more children attending school. So far as he could 
see, that audience was not one that would communicate that fact, 
probably to the whole Colony, but they would try to do so for 
their own friends’ sake. This Island, if it was to progress, must 
mind education. The Government spared no money to give pro- 
per education to the children of the natives of this Island. It was 
their duty to look after education, and no money should be spared 
upon that great and noble object. Education was the means of 
ennobling man, of making man something, and therefore those 
who looked after that had to pay for education, and were 
willing to do so, and the others in the Colony must respond to 
that. He would return to the subject presently and they would 
see what a neighbouring island could do in the way of education. 
The imports had maintained themselves at very high figures 
indeed for a West Indian Colony, higher in fact than in Jamaica, 
and exports had done the very same thing, the only difference 
between the exports and imports being £297,000. It was 
always interesting to know what exports and imports meant. 
The exports meant what they produced in the soil and sold 
outside and got money for. Imports meant that one had to buy 
that which could not be produced here, and he wanted to dwell 
upon that, because presently when they came to the second 
stage of comparison he would show them that in J amaica they 
understood it better than we had, and we must be careful upon 
that point. The whole of that £297,000 had come out of their 
pockets. They must make no illusion upon the subject, £297,000 
had been made a present of by this Colony, to Venezuela, to 
England, to France, to Germany, and elsewhere. It was money 
out of their pockets, and that money out of their pockets was 
money which ought to have been in the Island if they had only 
grown and manufactured that which had cost that amount. Im- 
ports and exports were for the Governor a sort of weather-glass 
which told him whether a Colony was prosperous or whether it 
was not ; it was one which he should have his eye upon exactly 
ln the same way as the captain of a ship had his eye upon the 
compass which showed the direction. As soon as the imports 
exceeded the exports unnecessarily, he meant of course, after 
making all allowance for the due oscillations between the crops 
of different years, but if it exceeded it too much it was a proof 
that the power of spending was not upon revenue but upon the 
capital of the Colony and therefore impoverishing it, and that 
was a point that ought never to be lost sight of. Well, as he 
should show them, it was quite satisfactory as it was at present. 
It was more satisfactory still when they looked at the shipping. 
■Wow, the shipping was a very interesting point. The shipping 
