38 TlMEHRI. 
Ordinances, instructions, placards, statutes, customs, and all written 
and unwritten laws having force of law in the colony relating to mat- 
ters provided for by the new legislation are repealed and cease to have 
any force or effe6t in so far as they are not expressly maintained. 
There is now certainty of law and in the adminis- 
tration of justice, and there can be no departure any 
more from the principle on which the Colonial law- 
system is now based. Uniformity between the Home 
and Colonial legislation is for the future secured by the 
new fundamental law of the colony. 
Finality, or a perfect code is to expect impossibilities. 
Emergencies will arise, new wants may appear, and 
any code of human origin will require amendments 
and enlargement. A code cannot be eternal, it will be 
durable, with occasional readaptations, to meet the 
progress of society ; it will furnish a definite, simple, 
comprehensible and systematic jurisprudence. It may 
also diminish litigation. 
I am far from contending that, with the advantage 
of her codes, it is at present in Surinam pour le 
mieux dans le meilleur des mondes. But the founda- 
tions are laid for a better future : her liberal constitution, 
and her systematic codes. The gloom now pervading 
the prospects of the colony will be dispelled, and the 
united efforts of the Home and Colonial Government, 
coupled with self exertion and the energy of the colo- 
nists and of those at Home interested in the welfare and 
prosperity of the colony, will surely and in a short space 
of time lead Surinam to financial independence ot the 
Mother Country, to entire local self-government and 
to local self-administration. 
The foregoing lines are written in British Guiana. I 
