Notes on Labour, &c. 13 
who trouble to think on the matter, will deny that sound 
sense was shewn in the vote for maintaining immigra- 
tion. 
British Guiana, in its early days, like many other parts 
of the Western hemisphere, started with slave labour, a 
condition to which, deplorable as it is universally ad- 
mitted to be, is probably due the fa6l that it was ever 
settled at all and became prosperous. On the termina- 
tion of that system, there would appear to have been a 
strong revulsion of feeling on the part of the freeman 
against anything in the shape of contra6l labour. He 
would work, but only when it pleased him, and at his 
own price. As sugar can not be grown under such 
conditions as these, the industry had either to be aban- 
doned, or a reliable supply of labour obtained. India, 
with its teeming population, has been the source from 
which since then, a more or less continuous stream of 
immigrants has flowed into the Colony, much to the ad- 
vantage not only of the sugar industry, but of the com- 
munity in general. 
Census returns indicate that the natural increase of 
the people has been extremely slow, and this applies 
more especially to the black race, which notwithstanding 
a considerable inflow from West Indian Islands, has im- 
proved its position numerically but little since the time 
of Emancipation. 
The country being under-populated, and the natural 
increase being too small to be of account, immigration 
becomes a necessity if development is to go on. Un- 
seasoned people, without capital and unacquainted with 
the country and its capabilities, cannot be introduced, 
placed on the land^ and simply left there. A system of 
