they could gain the
upper hand, would not be allowed to keep it. As little would they submit
to be ruled by a race whom they despised; and I thought it quite certain
that something would happen which would compel the British Government to
interfere again, whether we liked it or not. Liberty in Hayti had been
followed by a massacre of the French inhabitants, and the French
settlers had done no worse than we had done to deserve the ill will of
their slaves. Fortunately opinion changed in England before the
experiment could be tried. The colonial policy of the doctrinaire
statesmen was no sooner understood than it was universally condemned,
and they could not press proposals on the West Indies which the West
Indians showed so little readiness to meet.

So things drifted on, remaining to appearance as they were. The troops
were not recalled. A minor confederation was formed in the Leeward
Antilles. The Windward group was placed under Barbadoes, and islands
which before had governors of their own passed under subordinate
administrators. Local councils continued under various conditions, the
popular element being cautiously and silently introduced. The blacks
settled into a condition of easy-going peasant proprietors. But so far
as the white or English interest was concerned, two causes which
undermined West Indian prosperity continued to operate. So long as sugar
maintained its price the planters with the help of coolie labour were
able to struggle on; but the beetroot bounties came to cut from under
them the industry in which they had placed their main dependence; the
reports were continually darker of distress and rapidly approaching
ruin; petitions for protection were not or could not be granted. They
were losing heart--the worst loss of all; while the Home Government, no
longer with a view to separation, but with the hope that it might
produce the same effect which it produced elsewhere, were still looking
to their old remedy of the extension of the principle of
self-government. One serious step was taken very recently towards the
re-establishment of a constitution in Jamaica. It was assumed that it
had failed before because the blacks were not properly represented. The
council was again made partially elective, and the black vote was
admitted on the widest basis. A power was retained by the Crown of
increasing in case of necessity the nominated official members to a
number which would counterbalance the elected members