“I writ to hear from you wether you intend to make me a fool. I is not a puppy show that you think you find any better than me. i witch (wish) to send the yam bed for plantin in your garden, but i do not know wether i will reap the benefit of it.”
“I writ to hear from you wether you intend to make me a fool. I is not a puppy show that you think you find any better than me. i witch (wish) to send the yam bed for plantin in your garden, but i do not know wether i will reap the benefit of it.”
Number five is honest but unhappy. He is filled with forebodings of evil. The green-eyed monster has claimed him as his very own:—
“My Dear Jemima—I has not heard from you for dis 2 weeks gorn. Has you forgot de day wen
“My Dear Jemima—I has not heard from you for dis 2 weeks gorn. Has you forgot de day wen
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you mek me promise to be my true luv? You must know dat I has heard a lot of tings about you which has been sorely disappoint me in you.“I have heard dat you stan at your gate and talk to a fine dress coachman. I have heard dat you go to church wid him. I have heard dat you am promise to me but you luv him.George.“Many kisses me sweet luv.”
you mek me promise to be my true luv? You must know dat I has heard a lot of tings about you which has been sorely disappoint me in you.
“I have heard dat you stan at your gate and talk to a fine dress coachman. I have heard dat you go to church wid him. I have heard dat you am promise to me but you luv him.
George.
“Many kisses me sweet luv.”
The sixth, and last, is a jumble of incomprehensible passion. No doubt the writer knew what he meant, and perhaps the lady was able to interpret the author’s meaning. But I do not know whether the average reader will gain much by reading:—
“Dear Eliza—I take the liberty of myself to inform you this few lines, hoping you may not offend (i.e.be offended), as often is. I had often seen you in my hearts. There are myriads of loveliness in my hearts toward you. My loving intentions were really unto another female, but now the love between I and she are very out now entirely.“And now his the excepted time I find to explain to my lovely appearance, but whether if their be any love in your hearts or mind towards me it is hard for I to know, but his I take this liberty to inform you this kind, loving, and affectionate letter.“I hope when it received into your hand you receive with peace and all goodwill, pleasure, and comforts, and hoping that you might ansure me from this letterwith a loving appearance, that in due time Boath of us might be able to join together in the holy state of matremony.“I hoping that the answer which you are to send to me it may unto good intention to me from you that when I always goine to write you again I may be able to write saying, my dear, lovely Eliza.“Your affectionate lover, affraied (i.e.afraid), J.S.“Dear Eliza, wether if you are willing or not, Please to sent me an ansure back. Do my dear.”
“Dear Eliza—I take the liberty of myself to inform you this few lines, hoping you may not offend (i.e.be offended), as often is. I had often seen you in my hearts. There are myriads of loveliness in my hearts toward you. My loving intentions were really unto another female, but now the love between I and she are very out now entirely.
“And now his the excepted time I find to explain to my lovely appearance, but whether if their be any love in your hearts or mind towards me it is hard for I to know, but his I take this liberty to inform you this kind, loving, and affectionate letter.
“I hope when it received into your hand you receive with peace and all goodwill, pleasure, and comforts, and hoping that you might ansure me from this letterwith a loving appearance, that in due time Boath of us might be able to join together in the holy state of matremony.
“I hoping that the answer which you are to send to me it may unto good intention to me from you that when I always goine to write you again I may be able to write saying, my dear, lovely Eliza.
“Your affectionate lover, affraied (i.e.afraid), J.S.
“Dear Eliza, wether if you are willing or not, Please to sent me an ansure back. Do my dear.”
So much for the black man’s love letters.
For an accurate picture of the love scenes you must visit the island of rivers and take your place in one of those quiet corners of the banana field, and wait for George and Jemima, or James and Mrs. Agostiss R——. I cannot describe the scene. Go to Jamaica and see it for yourself. It is enough that I have made public the love letters of six men I have never seen; I will not attempt to deal with the meeting and courting of a black man and his sweetheart, lest, unconsciously, I should travesty a fine poem.
The scenes of the love meetings of the natives of Jamaica are always framed in a rich setting of tropical moonlight, or waving palm trees and flashing fire-flies.
If a negro lover could not be eloquent in the midst of such rare beauty he would be unworthy of the name of man.
Next to love-making, eating and drinking, and thendancing may be counted the recreations of the Jamaican coloured gentleman. Though it cannot with justice be stated that the negro is an excessively large eater, the manner in which he takes his food evidences the keen enjoyment he gets from every meal. There is no question of lack of appetite in a negro when feeding time arrives. Whether the dish before him be fruit or salt fish, or mashed vegetables cooked with fat, the diner attacks his food with the utmost relish. There is great licking of lips, rolling of eyes and heavy munching by strong jaws. Give a negro a meat bone, and when he has done with it the fragments that remain would not be of the slightest service to the hungriest dog. When the native has finished his dish of vegetables he cleans the plate with his fingers and tongue. There is no food wasted in the land of eternal sunshine. Give a black child a dozen mangoes and then watch from a safe distance. Before you have seen the child’s manner of eating, you have not realised how juicy a mango really is. With the negro, eating is not an art, but a sensation of concentrated joy. It is very much the same with drinking. He can go an extraordinary length of time without needing any liquid, but when a negro gets the bottle to his lips, quarts disappear at every gulp. No matter whether the drink be water or cokernut juice or rum, the true black man cannot sip. He drinks as much as he can swallow without stopping to take breath, and then he has finished.
A social gathering is never a success in any Jamaican hut or drawing-room unless the assembled guests aregiven leave to indulge in the pastime of the dance. Dancing is to the black lady what small talk is to her white sister. Indeed, it is infinitely more even than that. Dancing is everything. They dance when they are merry and full of joy, and they dance when they mourn their dead; they dance when they are hungry and when they have feasted. They dance when they are carrying their fruits to the market-place, and they dance as they return with the spoils of their trading. In moments of religious ecstasy their limbs twitch for the relief found in treading the graceful measure, and when great sorrow has fallen on a household, the members dance slowly to express their woe.
Curiously enough their dancing lacks precision; they have not set pieces; no master teaches them “left foot forward, right foot up, twist”; there is no “one two three, hop, one two three, hop” about the coloured dance, yet it is always perfectly graceful. If there is music so much the better, but if there is no music the dancing goes on just the same. The Jamaicans dance with their legs and bodies and heads; all their limbs are brought into play. The arms wave in sympathy with the active legs, the body bends, the head is thrust forwards and backwards. The whole business is snake-like and fascinating.
Sometimes when a large party is collected, a dance will be arranged to represent some story or history. Biblical pictures are the most popular, and the unrehearsed effect of fifty perspiring negroes, seeking to represent in a ballet the story of Jonah and the Whale,
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is not without a certain weird and extravagant humour. When the story is of a more bellicose kind—when, for instance, the tableau is that of David and Goliath, the David sometimes overdoes the punishment of the vanquished giant, and there is a little riot caused by the indignation of a too severely-handled artist, who had been persuaded with difficulty to enact the unpopular part. To the black people acting ceases to be make-believe as soon as the dancing begins; David is David, and Goliath is in fact the unhappy giant. So it can be imagined that difficulties frequently arise though there has been no malicious intent, and though the violence may have been born of pure unconscious art.
Sometimes the coloured dancers break into song, and then the bizarre effect is heightened and intensified. The soft, melodious chants of the happy darkies are in perfect keeping with the languorous climate and romantic scenery of the tropical island. The songs are of love and passion. “Ma honey and ma little bird, ma sweet lips and true love” are the usual descriptions of the black man for his mistress. Most of these songs can be heard in the High Street of Kingston, in the early hours of market days when the villagers come down from the country to sell their garden-produce. But the real recreation of the negro is love-making; and all these things, with the exception of the eating and drinking, are simply parts of the game.
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Youcan see him in the market-place or in the drinking-shops. Sometimes he lolls about with his thin cigarette on the Kingston tram cars, but more frequently he is to be found leaning on his walking-stick at the corners of mean streets. As a rule his straw hat is tilted in the fashion affected by the London office-boy when taking his lady-love for a Sunday stroll on Peckham Rye. His coat is cut in the tight American style, which may be admirable for the comfort of people who live in climates colder than that of Kingston, Jamaica. His trousering is vivid and lacking in style, and his yellow boots are cut with the easy grace of a working cobbler who also deals in pictures. The glory of his get-up is his collar. It may be that our Dandy is not rich enough to afford a frequent laundry bill, so that his collar is worn to the bitter end of its condition of starchiness. Nevertheless it is always there, encasing the neck, and twisting each discordant ear in a manner painful to behold. He walks with a curious strut—for all the world like a half-lame peacock; and when hemeets any member of the fair sex he curls back his heavy lips and displays two rows of the whitest teeth. When he winks one is irresistibly reminded of the famous drill-sergeant who instructed his troop of country yeoman to “draw swords and twist your eyes round with a loud click.” The negro’s wink is a serious matter; it suggests a wealth of fearful possibilities. It is repellent, but alluring—frightfully attractive.
As a rule it is a youth who mixes much with the tourists that ventures in this unseemly manner to ogle the women and decorate the promenades. In his working hours the true Dandy is usually a call-boy at one of the hotels, or an assistant waiter. It is not at all certain that he is a single man; probably he has a young wife who takes in washing, or cleans the boots at some boarding-house. But his better half is never to be seen at his side when he dons his yellow boots and crimson necktie and goes for his Sunday stroll. He feels that it would be foolish to permit the dowdy rags of his working spouse to discount the glory of his rich attire. So he twists his cigarette (he cannot afford to light it since he has not got another) in his brass ringed fingers, and struts and grins in solitary grandeur.
It is his earnest hope that he may find some chance acquaintance, who, having more money but less magnificent attire, may invite him to drink in order that he may gain a sort of reflected splendour. So every friend he meets is hailed with a great gusto; even the working busmen in their shabby driving clothes are not beneath his notice, and he would beproud to clasp the hand of a coloured scavenger provided there was the remotest chance of finding such a person with a few Jamaican pennies. Your true Dandy is never exclusive; he is an adventurer pure and simple; and he dresses in the highest height of fashion, partly from great vanity and partly because he will not advertise his poverty. Sometimes he meets one of his own tribe, and then Dandy walks with Dandy and there is a heavy music of negro laughter. Together they are bold as half-tamed lions. They accost a white man and ask for a match or a cigarette; they will even raise their tiny hats to the wives of high officials. Then they make a tour round the rum shops and enter each, hoping to find a friend or make a new acquaintance. If they pass the ancient market-women selling sweet stuffs, they will exercise their wit at her expense, and the ends of their slender canes will disturb her fly-blown dainties; if she is not extremely quick of sight, they will thieve a sugar stick or two, and munch them in the open street; they exhibit a profound contempt for the law of petty larceny. Though the sticky stuffs will not improve the condition of their lips and fingers, the dirty face smudges will exhibit to an admiring world the fact that they have eaten luxuriously.
When our pair of gallants meet a lady whose acquaintance they desire, they introduce themselves with a playful prod with their walking-canes; if the damsel should resent this undue familiarity, she must endure a long and loud chorus of personalities. Forthe Dude is lacking in the elements of chivalrous refinement. But as a rule the lady is proud to be conquered by such a duet of splendour. She submits to the playful gallantries of the couple, and takes her full part in the round of boisterous persiflage.
Great joy fills the heart of Dandy when a cynical busman sarcastically hails them with “Want a bus, sah?” No matter how fascinating the lady who at that particular moment may be engaging his attention, he steps in the roadway and loudly asks the fare to the swellest hotel he can think of. The grinning busman replies, and then there is much bargaining done in the loudest tones in the public highroad. It is a game of make-believe. The busman pretends that he has found a possible fare, the Dandy pretends that he wanted to be driven to a certain place for a certain sum. Such a scene does not suggest amusement to the Englishman, but it is rare sport to the penniless Dude and superior busman. The end comes only when the busman sees a really possible customer and whips his horse along; then the Dude assumes an air of offended dignity and resumes his conversation with the lady. It is truly a brainless, exquisite Dandy.
With similar characteristics but employing very different methods is the coloured lady of extreme fashion. She dresses as extravagantly as the dandiest Dandy; she wears vivid colours in cheap silks or heavy brocades or velvets; she affects coloured picture-hats of huge dimensions, and her foot-wear is always made in brilliant patent-leather; but she is not so poor or
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so adventurous as the Dandy. She is careful in her conversation. A polite accent is her chief ambition. She simpers and lisps and uses pigeon English, and when she is forced to laugh she screens her face with a scented cambric handkerchief. She is a coloured lady, and not the richest, boldest busman dare claim her friendship, though it may be that one of them is her husband. Her friends are among the chapel people; the preachers, the deacons, and the gentleman of the choir. She will condescend to notice West Indian non-commissioned officers, but in doing this she is reaching to her lowest limit. Her ambition is to be counted rich and beautiful. She is a lady of colour and fashion. Call her a negress and she will faint with indignant shame. Her husband is a citizen with a vote, and she is his lady. Though she parades the High Streets her object is simply to be admired. Though she is an absolute coquette, her desire is not to make chance acquaintance with the unimportant natives on the side walks. If a white man, or a rich man who is nearly white, looks and looks again—well that of course is a different matter.
Harmless types, both of them. Both the Dandy and the coloured lady of extreme fashion are amusing, picturesque, and harmless. They have elected to play droll parts in the game of life; it may be that they lack perspective, but certainly they possess great imagination. Their’s is a part of make-believe, and they play it with great seriousness.
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Jamaica, the land of wood and water, is rich in the possession of countless streams of clear, rushing water. Each of its mountains and rocky hills contains at least one or two fine waterfalls; each of its peaceful valleys is streaked with a silver band of river-water flashing in the sun. To say which of all the rivers might be counted the most beautiful would be to offend a thousand streams, and all the Jamaican districts save one. But this at least can be said. No stream in Jamaica is more beautiful than that part of the Rio Cobra River that flows from Spanish Town, seawards, through the country called by the islanders, Bog Walk.
I know a man who was sent by his English doctor to Jamaica for rest and change. He landed in Kingston and, falling in love with the island, determined to stop for many weeks. After three days he left Kingston for Spanish Town, and there he saw Bog Walk.
His intention had been to stop in Spanish Town one night and then journey farther inland in order to thoroughly explore the country. Spanish Town delightedhim; Bog Walk fascinated him. He bought a fishing-rod and sat in a punt, anchored in the centre of the Rio Cobra River at Bog Walk, smoking his pipe and catching fish for five weeks. He could not tear himself away. And that was all the Jamaica he ever saw. He had seen Kingston and Spanish Town and Bog Walk, and that he counted quite enough. And who, knowing these places, knowing the Rio Cobra River at Bog Walk especially, would be foolish enough to count my friend foolish. At any rate he saw enough to enable him to say that Jamaica is the most beautiful country in the world. That is his unqualified opinion. To him Jamaica is a white city filled to overflowing with bungalows and coloured people; and a glorious golden valley rich in tropical trees and fairy flowers which shelter a clear river alive with fish and brilliant weed. For five weeks he lived in Paradise, at peace with all the world. His Jamaica is the memory of that time. For our part we saw the rich Cobra River and drifted down along the shores of Bog Walk in a flat punt, listening to the music of the birds and the melody of the insects; watching the shadows of heavy trees flirting with the river ripples; shivering along the dark stretches where the sky was blackened by the heavy bamboo clumps, and listening, awe-stricken, to the noise of their clicking stems. The beauty of the bamboo is a melancholy beauty; the high canes, fluttering with wavy foliage at their heads, look cold and miserable along their stems. Our sporting friend, Large, said they reminded him of those unpleasant
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moments in his school days when he chose corporal punishment in preference to Latin lines. Forrest would not paint them. They were too foolishly ugly. And I will leave them alone and remember only the rich river glades of sunlit water studded with white lilies and aflame with brilliant weeds. I will call to mind the banks filled with palm trees, thin bush-topped giants, straight as arrows or curved like the archer’s bow. The palm groves, planted by the mysterious hand of nature in the form of army corps in battle formation; the front-rank trees on either side of the stream engaged in bowing in accordance with the chivalry of romantic forests. The bent trees form a graceful arbour, miles long. The sun, filtering through the palm-tree roof, spangles the river with flashing gems of light. And both banks are cool and soft and filled with scented plants and gaudy blossoms. Occasionally a dragon fly, pursued by twittering birds, flashes ahead, twisting and doubling like tropical lightning. Our punt makes no noise as it floats down stream, guided from the stern by a negro with a bamboo pole. I sit in the bow and watch the little brown, river-tortoise, the water-rats and gleaming fish.
In the water of the Rio Cobra River there is only one thing that is not really beautiful, and that is the tortoise. Made into ornaments for my lady’s hair, the shell of the tortoise is full of subtle fascination. But on the back of its mother reptile the shell is coloured like the mud of the Thames at Lambeth; and in the scum that hides the beauty of the shell weeds of thedarkest, dreariest kind grow, like seaweed on an old wooden sailing-ship. When the tortoise swims the weeds trail from his back like a cluster of rats’ tails.
Animal life is not in evidence. The most remarkable thing in connection with Jamaica is the fact that, practically, it cannot boast the possession of a single indigenous animal larger than the rat species. The island should be filled with deer. The high bush-covered mountain slopes would give cover to the greatest of the antlered tribe, and here among the trees of the valleys and the water of the clear rivers one can imagine that the quiet pools are the drinking-places of herds of elephants. But Jamaica is barren so far as animals are concerned. Not even a monkey scrambles among the leafy vastness of the heaviest forests, and even in the thickest undergrowth a man may tread with safety.
Large, who in England is a squire and a sportsman, frequently bemoaned this lack of animal life. “Put a herd of deer in each of the forests of Jamaica, and in five years the island will be the sportsman’s paradise,” he said. And I have no doubt his estimate was correct. I put his opinion on record for the benefit of those who run the island for profit.
Our boat floated along a stream so narrow that one’s arm, stretched horizontally at full length, would have measured the exact width; the attitude would have enabled our fingers to brush through thick beds of flowering orchids. We passed a native ruthlessly cutting away fragrant weeds with a murderousmachette; we swept beneath a bridge of solid masonry, and in a little time emerged into a great pool of silent water which made our little craft pause, and enabled us to dream in peace. It would be a horrible thing to travel at more than one knot speed down this river of scented beauty.
We remained quietly still and gazed at a scene as glorious as a young child’s dream-fairyland. A dream of wood and rock and water, shaded and shrouded by the wildest mass of luxuriant tropical foliage.
This Jamaica is indeed the Queen of the Antilles, the fairest jewel in the golden Caribbean, the land of perpetual music and light and beauty. As I have already written, its name should be God’s island. Its beauty cannot be translated by art or word or music. It is a dreamland and a land of dreams.
People talk of its industrial backwardness, its commercial weakness,—of the impossibility of its finances. I myself have written of its commercial future. As well discuss the poverty of the convolvulus or the nakedness of the lily. Jamaica was created by Providence to show mankind something of the meaning of beauty. It was to stand as an explanation of Eden—a glimpse of Paradise. Nature never intended that it should become a rum garden, or even a field for speculative agriculture. It is just a place that should be allowed to stand for ever as the garden of the world; the vigorous yet languorous Hesperian reflection of all the beauty of the east and west and north and south; the heart and soul of terrestrial beauty. We drifted along,but I know not what else we saw. I remember the place in a hazy manner; my memory serves me as though it were a kaleidoscope whose every piece of broken glass was a glimpse of a new world fitted with joyous life and beauty.
I know that we slipped anchor at last and drank the milk from green cocoanuts. I know that we got into a buggy and drove along a white dusty road and reached a place where a meal was served and eaten. But most of all I remember that across the pools and streams of the Bog Walk gorge of the Rio Cobra River is to be heard the music of the stars and the rich lullaby of the rustling of angels’ wings. And Large said it would have been better had there been a few deer about; Forrest had put down his sketch-book with a sigh.
For the rest any Jamaica guide-book will tell you that the flat-bottomed river-boat cost you only a few silver coins.
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I methim in a country road a few miles out of Spanish Town. He was a well-dressed black, and had that air of sanctity about him which immediately suggests the church of Nonconformity. He wished me good morning with cheerful superiority, and I engaged him in conversation. He was not a parson, but he prayed to God that he was a good Christian and a deacon of His holy Church. He would have discussed every dogma known to Christendom had I been in the philosophic mood. But I led the way to politics, and my friend found congenial ground.
He was an Imperialist and a Protectionist, and withal, he added, a staunch democrat. He believed in God and Jamaica and the negro race. Jamaica for the Jamaicans. It must be a government for the people by the people. Not a fantastical caricature of law-making and liberty which always could be vetoed by a despotic Governor and his clique. He hoped he was loyal to the Crown and to the King of Britain, but his heart bled for his own country and his own race. He was preparedto make Jamaica the horizon of his political outlook. His duty to God was to attend to the needs of the people of his own race and blood settled in the country of their birth. “We black people outnumber you whites by at least forty to one; is it rational that we should always submit to your despotic government? Though the British Government is the cleanest and the most enlightened in the world, neither Imperial Parliament nor a Governor four or five years resident in the colony, properly understands the needs of Jamaica. Since the population is black let the Government be black. The British gave their slaves unconditioned freedom; that was an act for which no negro owes any thanks to Britain. Freedom is the natural right of every individual, whether he is white or black; so the black man owes no thanks to the white for having been permitted to claim his natural heritage of freedom. Rather do the whites owe a great debt to the black for the gross injustice of the slave days.” That was a matter he did not wish to press. To-day he and the people of his race are, as individuals, entirely free. His complaint was that politically they were still bound. They are not permitted to govern themselves as they would like to do. The Governor of Jamaica has never been a black man. Yet, for all practical purposes, the population of Jamaica is entirely black.
My friend had scathing criticisms to offer on the questions of the Jamaican Representative Government. The minority—by law it is a permanent minority—of the members of the legislative assembly are elected by thepeople. The elected members were returned after having pledged themselves to certain measures. These measures were, in the majority of cases, thrown out by the Governors’ permanent legal majority. Government under such conditions was characterised by my friend as being little better than a farce. He repeated his phrase “fantastical caricature of law-making.”
“What would you have?” I asked.
The verbosity of his reply was only equalled by its vehemence.
“I would have Jamaica governed as England is governed. The people of this island have every moral right to govern themselves, to frame their own laws and to administer those laws. We are no longer barbarians; we are an educated people with ambitions, and the strength to attain our ambitions. We recognise that it is a fine thing to be a part of the great Empire of Britain, but we recognise, even more clearly, that it is a finer thing to be a free, unfettered nation. England will always have our heartiest support and affection. When we have become a nation and ceased to be a crown colony, Jamaica will always feel that really she is the child of Britain.”
“So you anticipate that one day Jamaica will be entirely independent of England?” I asked.
“It is inevitable,” he replied. “Already the more educated coloured people feel the bitterness of their semi-dependence. Already the smouldering embers of the fire of absolute freedom are in evidence throughout the land. We are not without our politicians. Weare not without our leaders; perhaps we have not yet found one quite strong enough to lead us on to political victory. We have not found our Cromwell. But, some day, soon, a strong man will appear, and Jamaica will become an independent nation.”
“And what about the white men?”
“They will be unaffected. They will always be made welcome in our country; law and order will prevail under the new system just as it prevails to-day. You English have taught us how to become a great people; you have given us the immeasurable benefit of your religion; you have given us a framework for our laws and constitution. When the time comes for us to make full use of that knowledge, you will find that your wisdom was not thrown to waste.”
“But the freedom you aspire to can only come by revolution.”
“Political revolution—yes; armed revolution—no. We natives of Jamaica think we frequently see indications in your English Parliament that your Liberal party would not be averse to granting us that freedom which, one day, we shall be strong enough to demand. I believe that in the end justice must prevail. I know that our independence must come because I know that it is just that it should come.”
“And,” I suggested, “if you cannot obtain it by peaceful methods you will take it by armed force?”
“I do not think, when we are ready, that armed force will be necessary. Jamaica is no longer of great value to England.”
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“But England guards the interests of her children, and nearly all the land of Jamaica belongs to English planters.”
“The land of Jamaica belongs by natural right to the people of Jamaica.”
“You believe in the doctrine of land nationalisation?”
“I believe in the doctrine of justice.”
“Would you propose to compensate the planters when you despoil them of their land?”
“That I cannot say. Compensation such as that would be a simple act of grace. Morally it would not be necessary.”
I mentioned to him that I had heard much about the annexation of Jamaica by the United States.
“That will never come about,” he said. “Jamaicans would not stand it, America does not desire it. But it would be better for America if we were entirely independent.”
“Why?” I asked.
“When the Panama Canal is completed Jamaica will be a place of some strategical importance,” he replied.
The conversation drifted to the condition of the people. I mentioned that the intelligence of the majority of the coloured people was not equal to the standard of the white.
“There I disagree,” he said. “So far we have not produced one great man. We have no great statesmen or warriors or divines. But in the mass our peoplecompare favourably with the agricultural labourers of England, Germany or France. They are a clean-living, quiet people, easily led and easily governed.”
“You know Europe?” I asked.
“I lived in England ten years,” he replied. “I have been to many of the continental capitals. But my heart has always been in Jamaica. I like my own people best. We live a happier life than any European people, and we are cleaner in our mode of living.”
“Yet,” I ventured, “the majority of the children born on the island are illegitimate.”
“True,” he admitted, “but have you seen in Kingston, or anywhere else in the island, any traces of an immorality to equal the wickedness of London, Paris, or Berlin?”
I took refuge in the remark. “If you are so happy why change your condition; why attempt to alter your system of Government, why attempt to become an independent nation?”
“Because we have ambition, and because it is good for any nation that its children shall be eligible for the highest honours the nation can give. As a people we cannot be perfectly happy while we know that another race has drawn a chalk circle, as it were, round us, and has said, Thus far you may go, but not beyond. The possibility of maintaining a permanent minority in the legislative council is the chalk mark.”
“How long will it be,” I ventured, “before the chalk mark is erased?”
“That I cannot say and do not care to guess.
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Perhaps five years, perhaps less than five years, or perhaps it will be a quarter of a century. Your Liberal party may rub out the chalk for us, or——”
“Or,” I insisted.
“America may suggest to England that it would be a graceful thing to do.”
We walked along together and for some time there was a silence. Then my friend began: “It is the only thing. The only possible solution of the many Jamaican problems. The weakness of the English rule in Jamaica is that the island is governed by those who are paid to govern. The ambition of the majority of the English officials seems to be to earn their money and begone. Jamaica is not their home. Just as I in England always thought of this island as home, and worked in England so that I might return here, so do the English people think of England while living here. It would be foolish to expect anything else. The more ambitious servants of the British Government work hard here, not so much for the good of the place as for the good of themselves. They want to make a noise and distinguish themselves. Their hearts are set on promotion, not on the well-being of the people of the Government. The same applies to some extent to the planters. English planters who have settled in the island feel that they are living in exile. If they cannot make money enough to afford long holidays in England,—if they cannot send their wives to England every year and their children to English schools,—they complain of their poverty. Economically that is wrong; it is notfair to the country that so much money made in Jamaica should be spent in England. I am a planter—a very successful planter. I make quite enough money to live here in the greatest comfort, but I could not afford prolonged holidays in England, neither could I afford to send my wife and children there. If I were an Englishman I should bewail my fate and call myself a pauper. As it is I count myself rich. I want no more than I have.”
“But,” I said, “you have your tourists here. Surely more money comes into the island from the pockets of English and American tourists than goes out by reason of the holidays of the planters.”
“Yes,” he admitted. “But the tourist money goes to the hotel-keepers and retail dealers in the towns. The money the planters take out is taken from the agricultural districts; money which should have been invested in agriculture, spent in improving the sugar plantations and the fruit fields. We cannot hope to become rich because we have rich hotels and flourishing tradesmen. We can hope to become rich if our agricultural resources are developed, if our plantations are improved, and more machinery is imported. The English planters treat the island as though it were a gold mine to be sucked dry and then abandoned. The coloured people know that Jamaica is not that. The three quarters of a million of a people can only be supported in comfort by the commercial advancement of the country. Do not forget that our population is rapidly increasing.”
“I see at least one insurmountable difficulty in your path,” I said. “Even if your dream of freedom came true, how would you deal with the half-breed population?”
“We should absorb them,” he replied. “They are at one with us in our dream of freedom.”
“And you can trust them to be at one with you always?” I asked.
“They will be our Irish,” he replied.
Image unavailable: STEAMERS UNLOADING, BARBADOESSTEAMERS UNLOADING, BARBADOES
I havegiven at length a political conversation I had with an intelligent and well-informed negro. May I add the record of the talk I had with an important servant of the Government. Though he was not concerned with the actual work of governing, he was a man who had a voice in the affairs of the State, a friend and servant of the Government, a man who could well remember the Jamaica of twenty years ago.
I dined with him in a bungalow pleasantly situated in a Kingston suburb. And I retailed to him the opinions of my friend the coloured reformer.
“Bosh,” he said; “stuff and nonsense. Your glib acquaintance was engaged in the delicate art of pulling your leg.”
Remembering the earnestness of my companion of Spanish Town country road—remembering his deep seriousness—I disagreed.
“But, my dear fellow, if they tried on that sort of business we should go for them. Eyre strung up Gordon for that sort of thing, and the black fellows have notforgotten the lesson they were taught then. The black Tommies—who are not all Jamaicans—in Up-Park Camp, and the white troops at Newcastle and Port Royal, would have something to say in the matter of Jamaican freedom.”
“How about the intervention of America?”
“So much rubbish. The Yankees have pretty well cornered the trade of the island; the natives count their money in dollars and American notes instead of English sovereigns, and that is about all America wants.”
“But what’s the good of Jamaica to England if America controls the trade?”
“Give it up my boy. England’s got Jamaica and she will have to keep it. Even dear old arrogant Britain cannot do what she likes with her Colonies. There would be a terrible kick-up if we started turning our possessions adrift because they had ceased to be remunerative. Besides, there is still a good trade done with England, and lately fresh British enterprise has done something in the way of increasing the Briton’s share.”
“But suppose the coloured people were to properly organise, and, under the leadership of a strong man, demand absolute home rule?”
“Then we should have to tell them to go to the devil.”
“And if they refused?”
“Well, then, I suppose, there would be a bit of shooting.”
“With a Liberal Government in power at home?”
“Give it up again, my boy. You know as much about home politics and the colonial policy of the Liberal party as I do.”
“Perhaps the Americans would openly side with the blacks?”
“Then not all the Liberal Governments in the world could prevent the shooting.”
“You think there is no possibility then of the introduction of home rule for Jamaica?”
“I am sure that if the black people were the absolute governors of the country, not one white man would remain in the country. It would be impossible; look at Hayti! The blacks are utterly incapable of self-government; ten years of independence would reduce a black Jamaica to the level of an inland Gold Coast village. With Jamaica a lawless republic, as well as Hayti, the West Indies would be impossible. America knows that; the Yankees would be the first to cry out against it. No, Jamaica is bound fast to England, and neither England nor Jamaica can undo the binding.”
“You think that Jamaica will again become as rich and prosperous as she was in the early days?”
“Why not? The place is rich enough, the climate is good enough. Do you realise what a tremendous upheaval the emancipation of the slaves meant to this little island? The whole economic system was put out of joint. That was only seventy years ago. The old planters who had made great fortunes by means of slave labour were heavily compensated. They saw labour difficulties ahead and sold up their plantationsand cleared out of the island. The consequence was that the country found itself in a pretty mess. Can you wonder that its finances got a bit deranged, and that the Jamaican problem loomed large in the London parliament? The island was in a pretty bad way. The negroes felt the pinch as well, but not so much as the white people. Consequently the negroes began to have grievances, and one or two of them started in business as political agitators. It was about the best-paying business in the island in those days. But as things began to brighten up a bit the negro grievance became less acute, and though the agitators did their best to earn a decent living, they began to become less popular. That is about the size of the affair. Of course the negroes are not all content. As your friend said, they have ambition—at least some of them have. But you can be sure that three quarters of a million black men are not going to seriously upset the British constitution. Yes, I am certain that Jamaica has a most prosperous future. We lack capital and we lack good men. There is room in Jamaica for thousands of good, educated Britons with a bit of capital. And these will turn up some day. Fortunes are being made in Jamaica to-day. And as soon as Englishmen get wind of that sort of thing they will find their way to Kingston quickly enough. We have not done with the sugar trade yet, and there is plenty of money in fruit, timber and coffee. We can grow anything, and land is cheap enough. The railway is going to help the country along, and so is the Panama Canal. But most of all we