Froudacity; West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas

by J. J. Thomas

Lower down, on the same page, our author, luxuriating in his contempt for exactitude when the character of other folk only is at stake, continues:—"The town has between thirty and forty thousand people living in it, and the [55] rain and Johnny crows between them keep off pestilence." On page 65 we have the following astounding statement with respect to one of the trees in the garden in front of the house in which Mr. Froude was sojourning:—"At the gate stood as sentinel a cabbage palm a hundred feet high."

The above quotations, in which we have elected to be content with indicating by typographical differences the points on which attention should be mostly directed, will suffice, with any one knowing Trinidad, as examples of Mr. Froude's trustworthiness. But as these are only on matters of mere detail, involving no question of principle, they are dismissed without any further comment. It must not be so, however, with the following remarkable deliverances which occur on page 67 of his too picturesque work:—"The commonplace intrudes upon the imaginative. At moments one can fancy that the world is an enchanted place after all, but then comes generally an absurd awakening. On the first night of my arrival, before we went to bed, there came an invitation to me to attend a political meeting which was to be held in a few days on the Savannah.

[56] "Trinidad is a purely Crown colony, and has escaped hitherto the introduction of the election virus. The newspapers and certain busy gentlemen in Port of Spain had discovered that they were living under a 'degrading tyranny,' and they demanded a constitution. They did not complain that their affairs had been ill-managed. On the contrary, they insisted that they were the most prosperous of the West Indian colonies, and alone had a surplus in their treasury. If this was so, it seemed to me that they had better let well alone. The population, all told, was but 170,000, less by thirty thousand than that of Barbados. They were a mixed and motley assemblage of all races and colours, busy each with their own affairs, and never hitherto troubling themselves about politics. But it had pleased the Home Government to set up the beginning of a constitution again in Jamaica; no one knew why, but so it was; and Trinidad did not choose to be behindhand. The official appointments were valuable, and had been hitherto given away by the Crown. The local popularities very naturally wished to have them for themselves. This was the [57] reality in the thing, so far as there was a reality. It was dressed up in the phrases borrowed from the great English masters of the art, about privileges of manhood, moral dignity, the elevating influence of the suffrage, &c., intended for home consumption among the believers in the orthodox radical faith."

The passages which we have signalized in the above quotation, and which occur with more elaboration and heedless assurance on a later page, will produce a feeling of wonder at the hardihood of him who not only conceived, but penned and dared to publish them as well, against the gentlemen whom we all know to be foremost in the political agitation at which Mr. Froude so flippantly sneers. An emphatic denial may be opposed to his pretence that "they did not complain that their affairs had been ill-managed." Why, the very gist and kernel of the whole agitation, set forth in print through long years of iteration, has been the scandalous mismanagement of the affairs of the Colony—especially under the baleful administration of Governor Irving. The Augëan Stable, miscalled by him "The Public Works Department," and whose officials he coolly [58] fastened upon the financial vitals of that long-suffering Colony, baffled even the resolute will of a Des Voeux to cleanse it. Poor Sir Sanford Freeling attempted the cleansing, but foundered ignominiously almost as soon as he embarked on that Herculean enterprise. Sir A. E. Havelock, who came after, must be mentioned by the historian of Trinidad merely as an incarnate accident in the succession of Governors to whom the destinies of that maltreated Colony have been successively intrusted since the departure of Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon. The present Governor of Trinidad, Sir William Robinson, is a man of spirit and intelligence, keenly alive to the grave responsibilities resting on him as a ruler of men and moulder of men's destinies. Has he, with all his energy, his public spirit and indisputable devotion to the furtherance of the Colony's interests, been able to grapple successfully with the giant evil? Has he effectually gained the ear of our masters in Downing Street regarding the inefficiency and wastefulness of Governor Irving's pet department? We presume that his success has been but very partial, for otherwise it is difficult to conceive the motive for [59] retaining the army of officials radiating from that office, with the chief under whose supervision so many architectural and other scandals have for so long been the order of the day. The Public Works Department is costly enough to have been a warning to the whole of the West Indies. It is true that the lavish squandering of the people's money by that department has been appreciably checked since the advent of the present head of the Government. The papers no longer team with accounts, nor is even the humblest aesthetic sense, offended now, as formerly, with views of unsightly, useless and flimsy erections, the cost of which, on an average, was five times more than that of good and reputable structures.

This, however, has been entirely due to the personal influence of the Governor. Sir William Robinson, not being the tool, as Sir Henry Irving owned that he was, of the Director of Public Works, could not be expected to be his accomplice or screener in the cynical waste of the public funds. Here, then, is the personal rectitude of a ruler operating as a safeguard to the people's interests; and we gladly confess our entire agreement with [60] Mr. Froude on the subject of the essential qualifications of a Crown Governor. Mr. Froude contends, and we heartily coincide with him, that a ruler of high training and noble purposes would, as the embodiment of the administrative authority, be the very best provision for the government of Colonies constituted as ours are. But he has also pointed out, and that in no equivocal terms, that the above are far from having been indispensable qualifications for the patronage of Downing Street. He has shown that the Colonial Office is, more often than otherwise, swayed in the appointment of Colonial Governors by considerations among which the special fitness of the man appointed holds but a secondary place. On this point we have much gratification in giving Mr. Froude's own words (p. 91):—"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. Alas! in times past we have sent persons to rule our Baratarias to whom Sancho Panza was a sage—troublesome members of Parliament, younger brothers of powerful families, impecunious peers; favourites, [61] with backstairs influence, for whom a provision was to be found; colonial clerks bred in the office who had been obsequious and useful!" Now then, applying these facts to the political history of Trinidad, with which we are more particularly concerned at present, what do we find? We find that in the person of Sir A. H. Gordon (1867-1870) that Colony at length chanced upon a ruler both competent and eager to advance her interests, not only materially, but in the nobler respects that give dignity to the existence of a community. Of course, he was opposed—ably, strenuously, violently, virulently—but the metal of which the man was composed was only fused into greater firmness by being subjected to such fiery tests. On leaving Trinidad, this eminent ruler left as legacies to the Colony he had loved and worked for so heartily, laws that placed the persons and belongings of the inhabitants beyond the reach of wanton aggression; the means by which honest and laborious industry could, through agriculture, benefit both itself and the general revenue. He also left an educational system that opened (to even the humblest) a free pathway to knowledge, to [62] distinction, and, if the objects of its beneficence were worthy of the boon, to serviceableness to their native country. Above all, he left peace among the jarring interests which, under the badge of Englishman and of Creole, under the badge of Catholic and under the badge of Protestant, and so many other forms of sectional divergence, had too long distracted Trinidad. This he had effected, not by constituting himself a partisan of either section, but by inquiring with statesmanlike appreciation, and allowing the legitimate claims of each to a certain scope of influence in the furtherance of the Colony's welfare. Hence the bitter rivalry of jarring interests was transformed into harmonious co-operation on all sides, in advancing the common good of the common country.

The Colonial Office, knowing little and caring less about that noble jewel in the British Crown, sent out as successor to so brilliant and successful an administrator—whom? One Sir James Robert Longden, a gentleman without initiative, without courage, and, above all, with a slavish adherence to red-tape and a clerk-like dread of compromising his berth. Having served for a long series of years in subordinate posts in [63] minor dependencies, the habit of being impressed and influenced by colonial magnates grew and gathered strength within him. Such a ruler, of course, the serpents that had only been "scotched, but not killed," by the stern procedures of Governor Gordon, could wind round, beguile, and finally cause to fall. Measure after measure of his predecessor which he could in any way neutralize in the interests of the colonial clique, was rendered of none effect. In fact, he was subservient to the wishes of those who had all long objected to those measures, but had not dared even to hint their objections to the beneficent autocrat who had willed and given them effect for the general welfare. After Governor Longden came Sir Henry Turner Irving, a personage who brought to Trinidad a reputation for all the vulgar colonial prejudices which, discreditable enough in ordinary folk, are, in the Governor of a mixed community, nothing less than calamitous. More than amply did he justify the evil reports with which rumour had heralded his coming. Abler, more astute, more daring than Sir James Longden, who was, on the whole, only a constitutionally timid man, Governor Irving threw [64] himself heart and soul into the arms of the Sugar Interest, by whom he had been helped into his high office, and whose belief he evidently shared, that sugar-growers alone should be possessors of the lands of the West Indies. It would be wearisome to detail the methods by which every act of Sir Arthur Gordon's to benefit the whole population was cynically and systematically undone by this his native-hating successor. In short, the policy of reaction which Sir James Longden began, found in Governor Irving not only a consistent promoter, but, as it were, a sinister incarnation. It is true that he could not, at the bidding and on the advice of his planter-friends, shut up the Crown Lands of the Colony against purchasers of limited means, because they happened to be mostly natives of colour, but he could annul the provision by which every Warden in the rural districts, on the receipt of the statutory fees, had to supply a Government title on the spot to every one who purchased any acreage of Crown Lands. Every intending purchaser, therefore, whether living at Toco, Guayaguayare, Monos, or Icacos, the four extreme points of the Island of Trinidad, was compelled to go to Port of [65] Spain, forty or fifty miles distant, through an almost roadless country, to compete at the Sub-Intendant's auction sales, with every probability of being outbid in the end, and having his long-deposited money returned to him after all his pains. Lieutenant-Governor Des Voeux told the Legislature of Trinidad that the monstrous Excise imposts of the Colony were an incentive to smuggling, and he thought that the duties, licenses, &c., should be lowered in the interest of good and equitable government. Sir Henry Turner Irving, however, besides raising the duties on spirituous liquors, also enacted that every distillery, however small, must pay a salary to a Government official stationed within it to supervise the manufacture of the spirits. This, of course, was the death-blow to all the minor competition which had so long been disturbing the peace of mind of the mighty possessors of the great distilleries. Ahab was thus made glad with the vineyard of Naboth.

In the matter of official appointments, too, Governor Irving was consistent in his ostentatious hostility to Creoles in general, and to coloured Creoles in particular. Of the fifty-six appointments which that model Governor [66] made in 1876, only seven happened to be natives and coloured, out of a population in which the latter element is so preponderant as to excite the fears of Mr. Froude. In educational matters, though he could not with any show of sense or decency re-enact the rule which excluded students of illegitimate birth from the advantages of the Royal College, he could, nevertheless, pander to the prejudices of himself and his friends by raising the standard of proficiency while reducing the limit of the age for free admission to that institution—boys of African descent having shown an irrepressible persistency in carrying off prizes.

Every one acquainted with Trinidad politics knows very well the ineffably low dodges and subterfuges under which the Arima Railway was prevented from having its terminus in the centre of that town. The public was promised a saving of Eight Thousand Pounds by their high-minded Governor for a diversion of the line "by only a few yards" from the originally projected terminus. In the end it was found out not only that the terminus of the railway was nearly a whole mile outside of the town of Arima, but also that Twenty [67] Thousand Pounds "Miscellaneous" had to be paid up by the good folk of Trinidad, in addition to gulping down their disappointment at saving no Eight Thousand Pounds, and having to find by bitter experience, especially in rainy weather, that their Governor's few yards were just his characteristic way of putting down yards which he well knew were to be counted by hundreds. Then, again, we have the so-called San Fernando Waterworks, an abortion, a scandal for which there is no excuse, as the head of the Public Works Department went his own way despite the experience of those who knew better than he, and the protests of those who would have had to pay. Seventeen Thousand Pounds represent the amount of debt with which Governor Irving's pet department has saddled the town of San Fernando for water, which half the inhabitants cannot get, and which few of the half who do get it dare venture to drink. Summa fastigia rerum secuti sumus. If in the works that were so prominent before the public gaze these enormous abuses could flourish, defiant of protest and opposition, what shall we think of the nooks and corners of that same squandering department, which of [68] course must have been mere gnats in the eyes of a Governor who had swallowed so many monstrous camels! The Governor was callous. Trinidad was a battening ground for his friends; but she had in her bosom men who were her friends, and the struggle began, constitutionally of course, which, under the leadership of the Mayor of San Fernando, has continued up to now, culminating at last in the Reform movement which Mr. Froude decries, and which his pupil, Mr. S. H. Gatty, is, from what has appeared in the Trinidad papers, doing his "level best" to render abortive.

Sir Sanford Freeling, by the will and pleasure of Downing Street, was the next successor, after Governor Irving, to the chief ruler-ship of Trinidad. Incredible as it may sound, he was a yet more disadvantageous bargain for the Colony's £4000 a year. A better man in many respects than his predecessor, he was in many more a much worse Governor. The personal affability of a man can be known only to those who come into actual contact with him—the public measures of a ruler over a community touches it, mediately or immediately, throughout all its sections. The bad boldness of [69] Governor Irving achieved much that the people, especially in the outlying districts, could see and appreciate. For example, he erected Rest-houses all over the remoter and more sparsely peopled quarters of the Colony, after the manner of such provisions in Oriental lands. The population who came in contact with these conveniences, and to whom access to them—for a consideration—had never been denied, saw with their own eyes tangible evidence of the Governor's activity, and inferred therefrom a solicitude on his part for the public welfare. Had they, however, been given a notion of the bill which had had to be paid for those frail, though welcome hostelries, they would have stood aghast at the imbecility, or, if not logically that, the something very much worse, through which five times the actual worth of these buildings had been extracted from the Treasury. Sir Sanford Freeling, on the other hand, while being no screener of jobbery and peculation, had not the strength of mind whereof jobbers and peculators do stand in dread. In evidence of that poor ruler's infirmity of purpose, we would only cite the double fact that, whereas in 1883 he was the first to enter a practical protest against the housing [70] of the diseased and destitute in the then newly finished, but most leaky, House of Refuge on the St. Clair Lands, by having the poor saturated inmates carried off in his presence to the Colonial Hospital, yet His Excellency was the very man who, in the very next year, 1884, not only sanctioned the shooting down of Indian immigrants at their festival, but actually directed the use of buck-shot for that purpose! Evidently, if these two foregoing statements are true, Mr. Froude must join us in thinking that a man whose mind could be warped by external influences from the softest commiseration for the sufferings of his kind, one year, into being the cold-blooded deviser of the readiest method for slaughtering unarmed holiday-makers, the very next year, is not the kind of ruler whom he and we so cordially desiderate. We have already mentioned above how ignominious Governor Freeling's failure was in attempting to meddle with the colossal abuses of the Public Works Department.

Sir Arthur Elibank Havelock next had the privilege of enjoying the paradisaic sojourn at Queen's House, St. Ann's, as well as the four thousand pounds a year attached to the [71] right of occupying that princely residence. Save as a dandy, however, and the harrier of subordinate officials, the writer of the annals of Trinidad may well pass him by. So then it may be seen what, by mere freaks of Chance—the ruling deity at Downing Street—the administrative experience of Trinidad had been from the departure of that true king in Israel,—Sir Arthur Gordon, up to the visit of Mr. Froude. First, a slave to red-tape, procrastination, and the caprices of pretentious colonialists; next, a daring schemer, confident of the support of the then dominant Sugar Interest, and regarding and treating the resources of the Island as free booty for his friends, sycophants, and favourites; then, an old woman, garbed in male attire, having an infirmity of purpose only too prone to be blown about by every wind of doctrine, alternating helplessly between tenderness and truculence, the charity of a Fry and the tragic atrocity of Medea. After this dismal ruler, Trinidad, by the grace of the Colonial Office, was subjected to the manipulation of an unctuous dandy. This successor of Gordon, of Elliot, and of Cairns, durst not oppose high-placed official malfeasants, but [72] was inexorable with regard to minor delinquents. In the above retrospect we have purposely omitted mentioning such transient rulers as Mr. Rennie, Sir G. W. Des Voeux, and last, but by no means least, Sir F. Barlee, a high-minded Governor, whom death so suddenly and inscrutably snatched away from the good work he had loyally begun. Every one of the above temporary administrators was a right good man for a post in which brain power and moral back-bone are essential qualifications. But the Fates so willed it that Trinidad should never enjoy the permanent governance of either. In view of the above facts; in view also of the lessons taught the inhabitants of Trinidad so frequently, so cruelly, what wonder is there that, failing of faith in a probability, which stands one against four, of their getting another worthy ruler when Governor Robinson shall have left them, they should seek to make hay while the sun shines, by providing against the contingency of such Governors as they know from bitter experience that Downing Street would place over their destinies, should the considerations detailed by Mr. Froude or any other equally [73] unworthy counsellor supervene? That the leading minds of Trinidad should believe in an elective legislature is a logical consequence of the teachings of the past, when the Colony was under the manipulation of the sort of Governors above mentioned as immediately succeeding Sir Arthur Gordon.