Note 13 — Chapter X · THE LANDS OF THE SPANISH MAIN VENEZUELA AND GUIANA

There is an indication that British Guiana is itself awakening to the need for exerting itself, in order to bring itself before the notice of a somnolent Mother Country. A deputation arrived in England from the colony in the middle of 1919 charged with the purpose of interviewing the Secretaries for the Colonies and Indian Government, and they went through a course of dinners, meetings and lectures, in which the customary excellent speeches were made. Certain of the speakers made the asservations that British Guiana "could supply all the meat, except mutton, consumed in the Mother Country," and sugar and minerals received equal notice, whilst gold, diamonds and bauxite—an ore of aluminium—were also dangled, metaphorically speaking, before the Imperial-minded diners.

To produce these excellent matters, five thousand settlers per annum are required, the word settler being employed as a well-meaning term for coloured labour. There must be a flow of British capital too. But British capital has not very readily been forthcoming. It can be spared for enterprises anywhere in Spanish America, even "wild-cat" schemes, but not for Guiana, apparently.