§ Mr. SPOORasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that consulting engineers reported on the Georgetown sewerage scheme and accounted for the excessive expenditure on it, and that that Report has been supplied to the Georgetown Town Council and published for general information in British Guiana; whether a copy of that Report as published can be made available to Members of this House; whether he is aware that the Georgetown Town Council has submitted a full reply to that Report to the Secretary of State for the Colonies; whether that reply of the town council has also been published locally; whether a copy of that reply can also be made available; and whether the Parliamentary delegates were furnished with these two documents before they prepared their Report on British Guiana?
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREThe reply is in the affirmative, except that as the second of these documents is dated 25th March, 1927, a copy could not have been furnished to the Parliamentary Commission before their Report was prepared.
§ Mr. GRIFFITHSasked the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies why the local commission of inquiry into the city improvement schemes of Georgetown, British Guiana, which was instituted by the Colonial Government in 1926, was shortly after dropped without any Report?
§ Mr. ORMSBY-GOREThe Commission was dissolved, with the concurrence of its members, on the ground that circumstances had arisen which indicated that, in certain eventualities, it might be necessary to enlarge the scope of the in-998W quiry beyond that contemplated by the terms of reference; that it was impossible at that moment to foresee how soon such a course might be necessary; and that in the meantime the stay of the Chairman in the Colony could not be indefinitely prolonged.