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(b) This has already been done by the large sugar companies, and by some private settlers. In a few instances the same accommodation has, of late years, been provided in the residential quarters of European Government Officials, and steps are being taken to adapt others to meet this object. In some the occupants have already done so at their private expense.

(c) There are places in the Colony where protection of the kind referred to in (b) would avail little; as for example, a country court-house in a mosquito district, where natives of all classes must attend, at times, in the presence of several European Officials. As ingress and egress is, of necessity, frequent under such circumstances, and very free ventilation indispensable, it is next to impossible to exclude mosquitoes by means of wire gauze fittings alone, or to escape being freely bitten by mosquitoes which have fed on native blood. There are places where, in the hot season, they are so numerous and persistent, even in the day time, as to seriously hinder the act of writing.

In such cases special means for their destruction, superadded to wire gauze pro- tection, is what is needed, and the most efficient and harmless we have observed is to burn pyrethrum powder in the room, but we should be glad to know of others.

(d) This practice is universally followed in Fiji, or all but so.

(e) If 100 copies of the notice can be supplied the suggestion can and should be given effect to; but the local printing office has no blocks from which it could print the diagram.

(f) This duty may well be assigned to the District Medical Officers, individually and collectively, in so far as the Executive sees its way to give effect to any recom- mendations they may offer.

(g) We understand this suggestion to be now before Your Excellency, and we feel it to be a good one. It was on this principle that we invited Your Excellency to give publicity to the memorandum by Sir Michael Foster on the same subject, which was reprinted accordingly in the Royal Gazette of the 25th of January last.

(h) We concur in this as regards wire gauze; but it is unnecessary with reference to this Colony in so far as cotton mosquito netting is concerned-an article of suitable mesh being always procurable from the local contractors and in country stores.

(i) In this we concur.

We wish to add that while it would be unjust to class this Colony at the present time among malarial ones, we have expressed our general concurrence in the sug- gestions made by the Committee in question because modern researches into the mode of transmission of the malarial parasite considered side by side with the actual experi- ence of Mauritius and Réunion appear to us to render the infection of Fiji at some future date a matter of possibility or even probability against which it is well to be forearmed.

The substance of these recommendations, moreover, accords generally with the principles of Hygiene.

July 23, 1901.

32457

B. G. CORNEY,

Chief Medical Officer. WM. SUTHERLAND, Acting Assistant Colonial Secretary.

No. 51. TASMANIA.

ACTING-GOVERNOR SIR J. S. DODDS to MR. CHAMBERLAIN.

(No. 45.) SIR,

(Received September 16, 1901.) ·

[Answered by 32457 ; not printed.]

Government House, Hobart, August 10, 1901. REFERRING to your circular despatch, dated 20th April, 1901,* relating to suggestions made by a Committee of gentlemen appointed to consider the connection of malarial fever with mosquitoes, I have the honour to transmit to you a letter which I have received from my Prime Minister on the subject.

I have, &c.,

J. S. DODDS.

35

Enclosure in No. 51.

(S. 92/1901.) YOUR EXCELLENCY,

Premier's Office, Hobart, August 7, 1901. REFERRING to the Secretary of State's despatch, dated 20/4/01 (returned here- with), on the subject of the connection of malarial fever with mosquitoes, I have the honour to inform you that as Tasmania is entirely free from malarial fever, and, it is believed, from the presence of the kinds of mosquito which transmit the malarial parasite, there does not appear to be any occasion here for carrying out the sug- gestions made by the committee of experts, and which are detailed in the above mentioned despatch.

have, &c.,

His Excellency

33351

The Administrator of the

Government of Tasmania,

Hobart.

No. 52.

SIERRA LEONE.

N. E. LEWIS

Premier.

GOVERNOR SIR C. A. KING-HARMAN to MR. CHAMBERLAIN.

(No. 301.)

SIR,

(Received September 24, 1901.)

[Answered by 30222: not printed.]

Government House, Freetown, Sierra Leone,

September 2, 1901.

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your circular despatch of the 20th April last,* asking for an expression of my opinion with regard to certain sug- gestions made by a Committee appointed by you to consider in what way the risk from malaria to health and life may be diminished. My reply to your despatch has been delayed pending my obtaining a report on the matter from Dr. Prout, the Principal Medical Officer of this Government.

2. While Dr. Prout agrees that the suggestions made by the Committee are sound and practical, he sees great difficulty in carrying into effect the most important of them which relate to the segregation of Europeans and the rendering of their resi- dences mosquito proof.

3. I am also of opinion that in Freetown, a crowded city with few, if any, available sites for new buildings, it would not be possible, even if it were desirable, to entirely isolate the residences of the European section of the community, and to render their houses impervious to mosquitoes.

4. But Dr. Prout concurs with me that, so far as the Government Officials are concerned, it would be most desirable to establish quarters for them on some elevated site away from Freetown, in a purer atmosphere, but easily accessible from the city; and herein lies, in my opinion, the crux of the whole situation so far as Sierra Leone is concerned.

5. At a distance of 34 miles from the city, on a plateau, with an elevation of 700 to 800 feet above the sea level, and casily accessible by a railway of easy gradient, there is provided an ideal site for European residence. In my despatches, No. 193, of 7th June, and No. 300, of 31st ultimo, I have advocated the construction of the necessary railway; the provision of suitable quarters for Government Officers would follow, and sites would be reserved for the European community, who would, without doubt, establish themselves in a brief space of time in a situation where, after the fatigue of a day's work in the city, they would lay in fresh stores of health and strength.

8. Should the pernicious mosquitoes follow the population to the hills, the preventives recommended by the Committee could, in a new location, be readily and

† 21418 and 32193; not printed.

* No. 11.

No. 11.

9305

PUBLIC PECORD OFFICE

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