His sentence, therefore, may be legitimately constructed in full for him in the only sense which is applicable to the mutual relations actually existing between those two directly specified sections of British subjects who he would fain have the world believe live in a state of active hostility:—"If the whites are to combine for the Promotion of the general welfare, as many of the foremost of them have done before and are doing now, so will the blacks also combine in the support of such whites, and as staunch auxiliaries equally interested in the furtherance of the same ameliorative [177] objects." Except in the sense embodied in the foregoing sentence, we cannot, in these days, conceive with what intent persons of one section should so specially combine as to compel combination on the part of persons of any other. The further statement that a confederation having a full black voting-power would be a government "by the blacks and for the blacks," is the logical converse of the now obsolete doctrine of Mr. Froude's inspirers—"a government by whites should be only for whites." But this formula, however strenuously insisted on by those who gave it shape, could never, since even before three decades from the first introduction of African slaves, be thoroughly put in practice, so completely had circumstances beyond man's devising or control compelled the altering of men's minds and methods with regard to the new interests which had irresistibly forced themselves into importance as vital items in political arrangements. Nowadays, therefore, that Mr. Froude should desire to create a state of feeling which had, and could have had, no existence with regard to the common interests of the inhabitants for upwards of two full centuries, is [178] evidently an excess of confidence which can only be truly described as amazing. But, after all, what does our author mean by the words "a government by the blacks?" Are we to understand him as suggesting that voting by black electors would be synonymous with electing black representatives? If so, he has clearly to learn much more than he has shown that he lacks, in order to understand and appreciate the vital influences at work in West Indian affairs. Undoubtedly, being the spokesman of few who (secretly) avow themselves to be particularly hostile to Ethiopians, he has done no more than reproduce their sentiments. For, conscious, as these hankerers after the old "institutions" are, of being utterly ineligible for the furthering of modern progressive ideas, they revenge themselves for their supersession on everybody and everything, save and except their own arrogant stolidity. White individuals who have part and lot in the various Colonies, with their hearts and feelings swayed by affections natural to their birth and earliest associations; and Whites who have come to think the land of their adoption as dear to themselves as the land of their birth, entertain no such dread of [179] their fellow-citizens of any other section, whom they estimate according to intelligence and probity, and not according to any accident of exterior physique. Every intelligent black is as shrewd regarding his own interests as our author himself would be regarding his in the following hypothetical case: Some fine day, being a youth and a bachelor, he gets wedded, sets up an establishment, and becomes the owner of a clipper yacht. For his own service in the above circumstances we give him the credit to believe that, on the persons specified below applying among others to him for employment, as chamber-maid and house-servant, and also as hands for the vessel, he would, in preference to any ordinarily recommended white applicants, at once engage the two black servant-girls at President Churchill's in Dominica, the droghermen there as able seamen, and as cabin-boy the lad amongst them whose precocious marine skill he has so warmly and justly extolled. It is not because all these persons are black, but because of the soul-consciousness of the selector, that they each (were they even blue) had a title to preferential consideration, his experience and sense of fitness being [180] their most effectual supporters. Similarly, the Negro voter would elect representatives whom he knew he could trust for competency in the management of his affairs, and not persons whose sole recommendation to him would be the possession of the same kind of skin. Nor, from what we know of matters in the West Indies, do we believe that any white man of the class we have eulogized would hesitate to give his warmest suffrage to any black candidate who he knew would be a fitting representative of his interests. We could give examples from almost every West Indian island of white and coloured men who would be indiscriminately chosen as their candidate by either section. But the enumeration is needless, as the fact of the existence of such men is too notorious to require proof.
Mr. Froude states plainly enough (p. 123) that, whereas a whole thousand years were needed to train and discipline the Anglo-Saxon race, yet "European government, European instruction, continued steadily till his natural tendencies are superseded by a higher instinct, may shorten the probation period of the negro." Let it be supposed that this period of probation [181] for the Negro should extend, under such exceptionally favourable circumstances, to any period less than that which is alleged to have been needed by the Anglo-Saxon to attain his political manhood—what then are the prospects held out by Mr. Froude to us and our posterity on our mastering the training and discipline which he specially recommends for Blacks? Our author, in view, doubtless, of the rapidity of our onward progress, and indeed our actual advancement in every respect, thus answers (pp. 123-4):—"Let a generation or two pass by and carry away with them the old traditions, and an English governor-general will be found presiding over a black council, delivering the speeches made for him by a black prime minister; and how long could this endure? No English gentleman would consent to occupy so absurd a situation."
And again, more emphatically, on the same point (p. 285):—"No Englishman, not even a bankrupt peer, would consent to occupy such position; the blacks themselves would despise him if he did; and if the governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how long would such a connection endure?"
[182] It is plainly to be seen from the above two extracts that the political ethics of our author, being based on race and colour exclusively, would admit of no conceivable chance of real elevation to any descendant of Africa, who, being Ethiopian, could not possibly change his skin. The "old traditions" which Mr. Froude supposes to be carried away by his hypothetical (white) generations who have "passed by," we readily infer from his language, rendered impossible such incarnations of political absurdity as those he depicts. But what should be thought of the sense, if not indeed the sanity, of a grave political teacher who prescribes "European government" and "European education" as the specifics to qualify the Negro for political emancipation, and who, when these qualifications are conspicuously mastered by the Negro who has undergone the training, refuses him the prize, because he is a Negro? We see further that, in spite of being fit for election to council, and even to be prime ministers competent to indite governors' messages, the pigment under our epidermis dooms us to eventual disappointment and a life-long condition of contempt. Even so is it [183] desired by Mr. Froude and his clients, and not without a spice of piquancy is their opinion that for a white ruler to preside and rule over and accept the best assistance of coloured men, qualified as above stated, would be a self-degradation too unspeakable for toleration by any Englishman—"even a bankrupt peer." Unfortunately for Mr. Froude, we can point him to page 56 of this his very book, where, speaking of Grenada and deprecating the notion of its official abandonment, our author says:—
"Otherwise they [Negroes] were quiet fellows, and if the politicians would only let them alone, they would be perfectly contented, and might eventually, if wisely managed, come to some good.... Black the island was, and black it would remain. The conditions were never likely to arise which would bring back a European population; but a governor who was a sensible man, who would reside and use his natural influence, could manage it with perfect ease."
Here, then, we see that the governor of an entirely black population may be a sensible man, and yet hold the post. Our author, indeed, gives the Blacks over whom this sensible governor would hold rule as being in number [184] just 40,000 souls; and we are therefore bound to accept the implied suggestion that the dishonour of holding supremacy over persons of the odious colour begins just as their number begins to count onward from 40,000! There is quite enough in the above verbal vagaries of our philosopher to provoke a volume of comment. But we must pass on to further clauses of this precious paragraph. Mr. Froude's talent for eating his own words never had a more striking illustration than here, in his denial of the utility of native experience as the safest guide a governor could have in the administration of Colonial affairs. At page 91 he says:—"Among the public servants of Great Britain there are persons always to be found fit and willing for posts of honour and difficulty, if a sincere effort be made to find them."
A post of honour and difficulty, we and all other persons in the British dominions had all along understood was regarded as such in the case of functionaries called upon to contend with adverse forces in the accomplishment of great ends conceived by their superiors. But we find that, according to Mr. Froude, all the credit that has hitherto redounded to those [185] who had succeeded in such tasks has been in reality nothing more than a gilding over of disgrace, whenever the exertions of such officials had been put forth amongst persons not wearing a European epidermis. The extension of British influence and dominion over regions inhabited by races not white is therefore, on the part of those who promote it, a perverse opening of arenas for the humiliation and disgrace of British gentlemen, nay, even of those titled members of the "black sheep" family—bankrupt peers! As we have seen, however, ample contradiction and refutation have been considerately furnished by the same objector in this same volume, as in his praises of the governor just quoted.
The cavil of Mr. Froude about English gentlemen reading messages penned by black prime ministers applies with double force to English barristers (who are gentlemen by statute) receiving the law from the lips of black Judges.
For all that, however, an emergency arose so pressing as to compel even the colonialism of Barbados to practically and completely refute this doctrine, by praying for, and submitting with gratitude to, the supreme headship of a [186] man of the race which our author so finically depreciates. In addition it may be observed that for a governor to even consult his prime minister in the matter of preparing his messages might conceivably be optional, whilst it is obligatory on all barristers, whether English or otherwise, to defer to the judge's interpretation of the law in every case—appeal afterwards being the only remedy. As to the dictum that "the two races are not equal and will not blend," it is open to the fatal objection that, having himself proved, with sympathizing pathos, how the West Indies are now well-nigh denuded of their Anglo-Saxon inhabitants, Mr. Froude would have us also understand that the miserable remnant who still complainingly inhabit those islands must, by doing violence to the understanding, be taken as the whole of the world-pervading Anglo-Saxon family. The Negroes of the West Indies number a good deal more than two million souls. Does this suggester of extravagances mean that the prejudices and vain conceit of the few dozens whom he champions should be made to override and overbear, in political arrangements, the serious and solid interests of so many [187] hundreds of thousands? That "the two races are not equal" is a statement which no sane man would dispute, but acquiescence in its truth involves also a distinct understanding that the word race, as applied in the present case by our author, is a simple accommodation of terms—a fashion of speech having a very restricted meaning in this serious discussion.
The Anglo-Saxon race pervades Great Britain, its cradle, and the Greater Britain extending almost all over the face of the earth, which is the arena of its activities and marvellous achievements. To tell us, therefore, as Mr. Froude does, that the handful of malcontents whose unrespectable grievance he holds up to public sympathy represents the Anglo-Saxon race, is a grotesque façon de parler. Taking our author's "Anglo-West Indians" and the people of Ethiopian descent respectively, it would not be too much to assert, nor in anywise difficult to prove by facts and figures, that for every competent individual of the former section in active civilized employments, the coloured section can put forward at least twenty thoroughly competent rivals. Yet are these latter the people whom the classic Mr. [188] Froude wishes to be immolated, root and branch, in all their highest and dearest interests, in order to secure the maintenance of "old traditions" which, he tells us, guaranteed for the dominant cuticle the sacrifice of the happiness of down-trodden thousands! Referring to his hypothetical confederation with its black officeholders, our author scornfully asks:—