2. DUTCH GUIANA or SURINAM is bounded on the north by the Atlantic Ocean, on the east by French Guiana, on the south by Brazil, and on the west by British Guiana. It ex tends from lat. 2° to 6° N., and from long. 53° 50' to 58° 20' W. Area 46,072 square miles. The political divisions are districts, 13 in num ber, and communes; the capital, Paramaribo, has (1 Jan. 1915) 35,530 inhabitants. Chief products'are cacao, sugar, coffee, bananas, rice, maize, rum, molasses, balata, and gold (output 918,595 grammes in 1914). The mining experi ence of this colony resembles that of British Guiana : gold has been sought hitherto in beds of streams, etc., hut is now being taken also from mines which require crushing machinery. Imports regularly exceeded in value the colony's exports during many years, hut from 1910-14, inclusive, the balance of trade has been as regularly favorable. Fxecutive authority is vested in a governor. The representative as sembly, called the Colonial States, is composed of members chosen for six years by a limited number of electors. The council consists of five members, including the governor himself as president, and represents the sovereign. The revenues of the colony fall short of the expenditures. The military force is about as follows: Garrison, 20 officers and 351 men; militia, 27 officers and 411 men; and civic guard, 59 officers and 1,061 men. There are
a few guard ships and vessels of the royal navy. The number of inhabitants 1 Jan. 1915 was 85,536, beside the forest-dwellers. Edu cational institutions are: A normal school; schools maintained by the Moravian Brethren and the Roman Catholics; private schools, with 4,822 pupils; and public schools, with 3,594 pupils. The judicial system comprises a court of justice (all the officers appointed by the queen), two circuit, and three cantonal courts. Slavery was abolished 1 July 1863, but the au thorities imposed the conditions that for 10 years the emancipated negroes should remain upon the plantations of the districts in which they had formerly lived, and should perform the same kind of work for wages that they had been accustomed to while in bondage. After 1 July 1873, the importation of laborers to replace the freedmen became a matter of life and death in Surinam as in the neighboring colonies, for agriculture was almost ruined. In teresting in this connection are the following figures: At the beginning of 1915 there were among the inhabitants 16,995 Hindus, 10,847 Mohammedans, 9,571 members of the Reformed and Lutheran churches, 25,862 Moravian Breth ren, 18,178 Roman Catholics and 837 Jews.