§ MR. ANDERSONasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, If he is aware that great dissatisfaction has been caused in the Bahamas by the withdrawal from the Colony of a fund accumulated from sales and rents of waste lands and other Crown pro- 1529 perty there; whether it is not the fact that a Despatch of Earl Grey's of 9th September 1851 (paragraph 6), had assured the Colonists that the fund in question was to be administered by the Crown only as trustee for the Colony; and, whether the recent withdrawal means a change in the policy which, since that Despatch, had been always adhered to?
§ MR. COURTNEYWe have had no official information that any dissatisfaction existed in the Bahamas on the subject; but a copy of The Nassau Times has reached the Colonial Office complaining of the withdrawal of the fund, and expressing a fear that it had been absorbed into the Imperial Treasury, the exigencies of which the writer recognizes. There is, of course, no foundation for this suggestion. The balance in the Colonial Bank appeared unduly large, and there were no securities in the Colony in which it could be invested, and accordingly it was ordered that £1,700 should be remitted to the agents of the Crown Colonies for investment in Colonial securities. The trusts of the fund remain absolutely unchanged.