d
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.

"The exclusive privilege of colour over colour cannot b