"And how long would this endure?"
The answer must be that, granting the existence of such a state of things, its duration would be not more nor less than under white functionaries. For according to himself (p. 124): "There is no original or congenital difference of capacity between" the white and black races, and "with the same chances and the same treatment, ... distinguished men would be produced equally from both races."
If, therefore, the black ministers whose hue he so much despises do possess the training and influence rendering them eligible and securing their election to the situations we are considering, it must follow that their tenure of office would be of equal duration with that of individuals of the white race under the same conditions. Not content with making himself [189] the mouthpiece of English gentlemen in this matter, our author, with characteristic hardihood, obtrudes himself into the same post on behalf of Negroes; saying that, in the event of even a bankrupt peer accepting the situation of governor-general over them, "The blacks themselves would despise him"!
Mr. Froude may pertinently be asked here the source whence he derived his certainty on this point, inasmuch as it is absolutely at variance with all that is sensible and natural; for surely it is both foolish and monstrous to suppose that educated men would infer the degradation of any one from the fact of such a one consenting to govern and co-operate with themselves for their own welfare. He further asks on the same subject:—
"And if the governor is to be one of their own race and colour, how long could such a connection endure?"
Our answer must be the same as with regard to the duration of the black council and black prime minister carrying out the government under the same conditions. It must be regretted that no indication in his book, so far as it professes to deal with facts and with [190] persons not within the circle of his clients, would justify a belief that its wanton misstatements have filtrated through a mind entitled to declare, with the authority of self-consciousness, what a gentleman would or would not do under given circumstances.
In reiteration of his favourite doctrine of the antagonism between the black and white races, our author continues on the same page to say:—
"No one, I presume, would advise that the whites of the island should govern. The relations between the two populations are too embittered, and equality once established by law, the exclusive privilege of colour over colour cannot be restored. While slavery continued, the whites ruled effectively and economically; the blacks are now as they."
As far as could possibly be endeavoured, every proof has been crowded into this book in refutation of this favourite allegation of Mr. Froude's. It is only an idle waste of time to be thus harping on his colour topic. No one can deserve to govern simply because he is white, and no one is bound to be subject simply because he is black. The whole of West [191] Indian history, even after the advent of the attorney-class, proves this, in spite of the efforts to secure exclusive white domination at a time when crude political power might have secured it.
"The relations between the two populations are too embittered," says Mr. Froude. No doubt his talk on this point would be true, had any such skin-dominancy as he contemplates been officially established; but as at present most officials are appointed (locally at least) according to their merit, and not to their epidermis, nothing is known of the embittered relations so constantly dinned into our ears. Whatever bitterness exists is in the minds of those gentry who would like to be dominant on the cheap condition of showing a simple bodily accident erected by themselves into an evidence and proof of superiority.