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LORD G. BENTINCK wished to put some questions to the Under Secretary for the Colonial Department, relative to British Guiana and Jamaica. He had received a letter from one of the members of the Combined Court of Demerara, communicating a number of resolutions which had been placed before the Court of Policy, of which the following was one:—
That, in the present state of the colony, this Court cannot proceed to vote the estimate, or to take any part in raising the supplies, as the sources of income from which the colonial expenditure has hitherto been defrayed have ceased to be productive, and this Court is consequently deprived of the means of providing the necessary funds to support the civil government and institutions of the colony. The Acts of the British Government have placed the colony in its present perilous position, and on the British Government must the responsibility rest.
The whole of the resolutions, though laid before the Court of Policy, had not been passed, but had been unanimously agreed
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to by the elective section of the Combined Court, and by the financial representatives, who had expressed their concurrence in the course pursued by the elective section of the members of the Combined Court. The resolutions had also received the approval of a large meeting of planters, merchants, and others interested in the agriculture, commerce, and general welfare of British Guiana, which agreed to a declaration, from which the following were extracts:—
We desire to express our conscientious and firm belief that the measures proposed by Her Majesty's Ministers as remedial are a mockery and delusion, and are totally inadequate to meet the ends proposed.
That the time has arrived when the public expenditure must, of necessity, be effectually reduced, inasmuch as the colony is not in a condition to bear even one-half the amount levied by direct and indirect taxation for the service of the year 1847. And that, with such an onerous burden as the present civil list, so entirely inconsistent with the present circumstances of the colony, it is impossible to raise by taxation an adequate amount to support, even on a greatly reduced scale, those institutions which have become necessary from the altered state of society, and for the maintenance of internal peace and good order.
We desire to express our entire and unqualified approval of the course pursued by the elective section of the hon. Court of Policy at this trying and eventful juncture, and we heartily concur with them in opinion.
He wished to know whether Her Majesty's Government had received information confirmatory of the statement he had made, and also whether Sir C. Grey, the Governor of Jamaica, had been correctly reported in theJamaica Times as having made the following address to a deputation from a meeting at Jamaica; and if so, whether the Governor had announced to Her Majesty's Government the circumstance of his having made such address?—
His Excellency thought matters were in a very unsettled position at home; that there was a Committee sitting to consider West India affairs, and that, although Her Majesty's Ministers had stated that they would not alter their present policy, yet that this was not to be considered final, and that something might yet be done for the colonies, arising out of the inquiry before the Committee.
§ MR. HAWES said, in reply to the first question of the noble Lord, that the resolutions he had referred to had been agreed to at a private meeting as contradistinguished from the Court of Policy, and that he had no official cognisance of them whatever. With respect to the question relative to the statement reported to have been made by the Governor of Jamaica to a deputation from a meeting, he could only state that he knew nothing of the deputa- 764 tion or o the answer given to it, and therefore was not able to inform the House whether the reported statement were correct or not.