§ MR. ANDERSONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If the attention of the Colonial Office has been drawn to an unusual amount of malarial fever of a malignant kind existing in Trinidad, by which a number of valuable lives have been lost; if he is aware that the inhabitants have had indignation meetings blaming the Governor for his supineness and apathy in not taking steps for improved sanitation, and particularly for not insisting on the removal of one special nuisance arising from the lees pond of the Colonial Company to which much of the sickness is attributed; and, whether he will send out such instructions to the Governor as will lead to the allaying of the dissatisfaction that exists?
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKESir, no official Report on this matter has been received, but the local newspaper contains a report of a meeting on the subject of the lees pond of the Colonial Company which is alleged to be a nuisance and to have caused serious illness in its neighbourhood. One of the resolutions at this meeting complains of the Executive not having taken decided steps to abate the alleged nuisance. A Report from the Governor will probably be received by next mail, as it appears that the resolutions of the meeting were to be sent to him with a request that he would forward them to the Colonial Office. I may add that a letter has been received from the Colonial Company, in which they assert that it is quite impossible that the outbreak of fever in question can be in any way attributable to the lees pond, and that the nuisance was entirely removed when the rains set in.