scornful feeling towards English authority. The
current belief in them is a fact of a kind and a very serious one.

The confederation of the Leeward Islands may have been a convenience to
the Colonial Office, and may have allowed a slight diminution in the
cost of administration. The whole West Indies might be placed under a
single governor with only good results if he were a real one like the
Governor-General at Calcutta. But each single island has lost from the
change, so far, more than it has gained. Each ship of war has a captain
of its own and officers of its own trained specially for the service. If
the Antilles are ever to thrive, each of them also should have some
trained and skilful man at its head, unembarrassed by local elected
assemblies. The whites have become so weak that they would welcome the
abolition of such assemblies. The blacks do not care for politics, and
would be pleased to see them swept away to-morrow if they were governed
wisely and fairly. Of course, in that case it would be necessary to
appoint governors who would command confidence and respect. But let
governors be sent who would be governors indeed, like those who
administer the Indian presidencies, and the white residents would gather
heart again, and English and American capitalists would bring their
money and their enterprise, and the blacks would grow upwards instead of
downwards. Let us persist in the other line, let us use the West Indian
governments as asylums for average worthy persons who have to be
provided for, and force on them black parliamentary institutions as a
remedy for such persons' inefficiency, and these beautiful countries
will become like Hayti, with Obeah triumphant, and children offered to
the devil and salted and eaten, till the conscience of mankind wakes
again and the Americans sweep them all away.

I had an opportunity of seeing what can really be done in Dominica by
an English gentleman who has gone the right way to work there. Dr.
Nicholls came out a few years ago to Roseau as a medical officer. He was
described to me as a man not only of high professional skill, but with
considerable scientific attainments. Either by purchase or legacy (I
think the latter) he had become possessed of a small estate on a
hillside a mile or two from the town. He had built a house upon it. He
was cultivating the soil on scientific principles, and had politely sent
me an invitation to call on him and see what he was about. I was