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and very frequent inefficiency; and with a multiplication of offices, a waste of public money, and inefficiency, there follow a whole train of evils which I need not specify, because they will easily suggest themselves to your Lordships, but evils demoralizing to the public life of these communities, and such as it is the duty of the Government,

despatch on this so-called Confederation, I was well aware that an unfriendly feeling might be entertained in Barbadoes on the subject. There had, no doubt, been a good deal of local prejudice. Even before Governor Hennessy arrived there a public meeting had been held at which very violent language had been used. At the same time I thought it was not consistent with my duty to avoid bringing the question before the Legislature. I did not see that there was any more cause for apprehension than in former years; and on reading these Papers I think your Lordships will admit that I exercised all the caution and forbearance in the matter which a Minister ought to exercise. I desired not to press the proposal, but that it should grow from the spontaneous action of the Legislature, and I was at least entitled to suppose that the Legislature would give a fair and patient hearing to any proposals which the Governor, as the Representative of the Queen, might make. I will only add on this part of the subject that there is a point which, perhaps your Lordships would do well to bear in mind

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plaints which various parties in Barbadoes have made either directly or indirectly as regards the action of Her Majesty's Government; and thirdly, and most important of all, the charges that have been brought against Governor Hennessy. With respect to the statement of the facts, those facts are so well known that I need not trouble you with them. As to the complaints, they sub-if possible, to check. When I wrote my stantially divide themselves into two heads-there is more or less complaint with reference to the subject of Confederation; there are also complaints with regard to certain changes which have been made in the Executive Council, and which the Assembly of Barbadoes seem to resent as a great innovation on the Constitution. With respect to the third, I shall have more to say before I sit down. As regards Confederation, I need not go into the whole of its history. Successive Secretaries of State have endorsed it, and it may, therefore, be fairly assumed that their opinion is in favour of such a measure. But I would point out what Confederation really means. Confederation in Canada means one thing; it might mean at the Cape of Good Hope another; it certainly means a very different thing in the West India Islands, where the scale and measure of things are smaller than in either of the other colonies I have named. What did Confederation in the West India Islands mean? What did it mean specially in Barbadoes? I might take the six points, as they are called, of Governor Hennessy. They comprise the appointment of an Auditor General, the transport of prisoners from one island to another, one common lazaretto, the re-modelling of the judicial system, and one police force common to the whole of the Islands. There is nothing very grand or very formidable in these proposals. It is, perhaps, in some respects a misnomer to speak of them as Confederation-it is rather an amalgamation of some municipal arrangements. At the same time I do not underrate the importance of such a change. It has been admitted, as I have said, by successive Secretaries of State to be important and desirable. At present there is a multiplication of offices in these Islands a separate Judicial Staff for each, a Chief Justice, an Attorney General, and so forth. There is also, by consequence, a great waste of public money

namely, that this question has never been discussed by the Legislature of Barbadoes. There has been a great deal of violent language used in public meetings and otherwise with respect to it, but there has never been any discussion in the Legislature. Passing from this, I would allude to the changes which have been made in the Executive Council-reference to them will be found all through the Blue Book, and they have been made a great matter of complaint. I desire to explain what the change really amounts to, and how little foundation there is for the charges that are based upon it. Until within the last year or so the Executive Council and the Legislative Council were composed of identically the same persons; they sat at a different time and in a different place, but they were identically the same

body discharging different functions. | the speaker. It is quite true that other But that being so, and part of the body Governors who had preceded Mr. Henbeing composed of unofficial members, nessy had used equally objectionable there could be none of that unreserve language; but that is no excuse for his and that confidential communication having followed their example. It is passing between the Governor as the not because one man has committed an head of the Executive and the Ministers indiscretion that his successor should who had to carry out his measures which make a similar mistake. The effect of are essential to the conduct of any Go-language is altered also by time and vernment at all. I am not aware of any place. Thus, what may be uttered other single colony or of any civilized without any ill effects in Pall Mall may State in which such an arrangement have grave results when spoken in the exists, as that the members of the Go- West Indies in the hearing of a negro vernor's Cabinet should be other than population. I think, therefore, that had those who are his confidential advisers Mr. Hennessy more carefully measured and persons whom he trusts. I am his words on the occasion referred to, he bound to add the exceptional system would have shown more discretion than adopted in Barbadoes had worked badly he did. But, at the same time, having and had led to many difficulties and said this much, I think that I have evils; and, therefore, when a new Go- stated all that can be substantiated vernor went out to that island I thought against Mr. Hennessy. And I wish that provision should be made to secure once more to repeat that, so far as the that the Executive Council should hence- actual language goes, I do not think it forth be composed exclusively of his con- was in excess of much that had been fidential advisers. That is the sum total uttered by his predecessors in the governof the change which has been made, and ment of the island. When, however, I the whole of the offence which I have come to the second charge-namely, that given. I pass now to the charges which he sent emissaries throughout the counhave been brought against Governor try in order to propagate his own opiHennessy. The first charge against him nions, that involves a totally different was that he addressed violent and in- question. I must say at once that I do temperate language to the House of not see in these Papers one particle of Assembly on the 3rd of March; the reasonable evidence in support of it. On second was that he, having received my the contrary, I see more than once a flat instructions as Secretary of State, and and an absolute contradiction of it. knowing that it was my desire that What are the words which Mr. Hennessy Federation should not be forced upon himself uses with regard to it? He the inhabitants of Barbadoes, had in says, in his despatch of the 30th of defiance of those instructions sent secret Mayemissaries through the island to scatter abroad among the negro population his views respecting Federation; and the third was that, not content with these means of spreading his views, he had resorted to extraordinary methods of propagating them by presiding at negro meetings and giving dinners to negro deputations. It would, perhaps, have been well had Mr. Hennessy remembered the old maxim about

"I have never employed, directly or indirectly, any paid or unpaid emissaries in favour of Confederation. I never attended a meeting about Confederation in any part of the Island, or in any way encouraged or countenanced agitation on the subject. I have never made any criticism on the Legislature or institutions of Barbadoes, or delivered addresses on that or any other subject that I have not, in due course, laid before your Lordship in official despatches.”

I deem it due to Mr. Hennessy that I should read to your Lordships the flat contradiction which he has given to the charge; and no one can reasonably doubt, there being no evidence in support of the charge and there being this flat contradiction of it, that Mr. Hennessy stands entirely acquitted with regard to it. Referring to the third charge-that he entertained negroes at banquets and presided over negro meetings-your Lordships will find in Mr. Hennessy's

despatches very careful and elaborate | long period his conduct was uniformly answers to it, which seem to reduce courteous and conciliatory, though that it to a complete absurdity. It appears was not the characteristic of the lanfrom those despatches that on one occa-guage of his opponents. On this part of sion he directed his butler to give a few the case, therefore, not only do I acquit negroes who had called at his house as a Mr. Hennessy of all blame, but I think deputation some little refreshment, and that he is entitled to very great praise. that he had on one occasion addressed a The next question that arises is as to few words to a single negro in his own the course which Her Majesty's Governgrounds. Under these circumstances, ment have thought proper to take in the therefore, Mr. Hennessy stands entirely matter. The Assembly passed a resoluabsolved from the two latter charges. tion a short time since, in which they This is how the matter stands with re- prayed for two things-first for the gard to his conduct before the riots recall of Mr. Hennessy, and, secondly, occurred; but now let me ask your for the issuing of a Commission. Now, Lordships to consider what was Mr. after what I have said with regard to Hennessy's conduct during the riots. Mr. Hennessy, your Lordships will agree Your Lordships will remember that he with me that to recall Mr. Hennessy is had been denounced with violence in simply out of the question. It would be the public newspapers and at public a base and monstrous injustice to him. meetings, and that charges had been I do not deny-although I admit it with made against him by agents sent home great pain-that the relations between to denounce him to the Secretary of Mr. Hennessy and the Assembly and State, and that he had been constantly some other classes of people in Barbathreatened with assassination. On the does have become greatly strained; and other hand, it should be remembered of this there is one instance in the Blue that he had been continually urged by Book, which certainly is without preexcited persons to shoot and hang and cedent. It appears that on the occasion to proclaim martial law, and thus to re- of the Queen's Birthday, Mr. Hennessy, vive a state of panic and terror, which according to the ordinary custom, gave a the noble Lord opposite will remember formal banquet, to which he invited the was an unfortunate incident in the leading persons in the colony; but I Jamaica disturbances. Mr. Hennessy, regret to say that with two exceptions however, kept his head clear and cool the leading members of the Assembly throughout. He declined to be a party declined to accept the invitations they to such acts-and he even refused per- received, and fixed another day, on mission to the special constables to carry which they gave a dinner on their own fire-arms. During the whole of the dis- account. I think that in doing this they turbances not one shot was fired by the acted in deplorable taste, to say the least troops, and whatever lives were lost of it. If the Assembly or any other were lost through the action of the political Body in Barbadoes desired to police. In other matters also he acted put themselves at variance with the with the utmost impartiality. He Governor, they should have adopted the allowed the Crown officers to vote ordinary political means of doing so, against him on the question of Federa- without dragging Her Majesty's name tion; he gave leave of absence to the into the controversy, and should have persons who were delegated to visit this acted in political warfare like political country to denounce his conduct to the men and not in the fractious temper of Secretary of State, and he gave leave to mere children. Looking to the extreme the Assembly to discuss the question of tension of the relations between Mr. his recall. An Assembly debating the Hennessy and the Assembly, I have question of the recall of their Governor been urged, both by the opponents and is a case almost without precedent in friends of Mr. Hennessy, that his removal colonial history. Probably there are not from the colony would be desirable. I many Governors who would have shown think that tension of feeling is very much equal coolness and forbearance with Mr. to be regretted; but surely at such a Hennessy in such a matter. Further moment as this, I am precluded from than that, he discountenanced all Peti- entertaining this suggestion. Whatever tions which were presented in favour of may be done hereafter, I cannot conhis particular views; and throughout a sent to remove Mr. Hennessy now. To

do so would be to pass an indirect censure | peasantry is in itself an unsatisfactory, upon him; and it would seem as though and, I venture to say, an unsound conHer Majesty's Government had accorded dition. The population is, no doubt, a victory to those who have carried on redundant. It is consequently paid in this warfare in a manner which I think very low wages, and even these wages, they, upon reflection, will be the first to I suspect, are sometimes liable to various regret. A second point urged by the stoppages and deductions. I doubt Assembly is, that a Commission should whether the law in some instances does be issued. Now, there are two kinds of not press with a certain amount of Commissions. There is a Commission severity upon the peasantry. All these such as was issued in the case of Jamaica, points have at different times been and there is a kind of Commission ap- pressed not merely by Mr. Hennessy in pointed in the case of the Mauritius. these despatches, but by successive GoThe first was a Commission issued to vernors-some of them men whose affecinquire into the disturbances in Jamaica, tion for the Barbadian Constitution canand the amount of blame which might not for one moment be questioned. I attach to one side or the other in con- go a step further, and I doubt whether nection with them. Now, I see no reason many public institutions of the colony why we should incur the expense of are in at all a satisfactory condition. raking up these causes of quarrel in Take the case of the prisons. In some Barbadoes and in provoking recrimina- of those Papers will be found a despatch tions of the bitterest kind, and in keep- written in 1872 by my noble Friend (the ing alive that state of feeling that has Earl of Kimberley). I cite it as an illusprevailed. Let the storm which has tration and nothing more. A statement been raging subside, and then it will be as to the deplorable condition of the full time to think of any further steps. gaols in Barbadoes had been sent to my There is a second class of Commission- noble Friend, who forwarded it to the namely, a Commission to inquire into Governor for the time being for a report. the condition of classes, the interests of The answer was that, though, no doubt, the Island, and the best way of pro- more or less coloured, there was a good moting them; the question of the fran- deal to complain of. In 1867, Sir James chise, the labour question, emigration, Walker, who certainly had no prejudice and many other matters which make for against Barbadians or Barbadian instithe welfare of Barbadoes; and I do not tutions, twice called the attention of the say that hereafter it may not be desirable Legislature to the state of the prisons. and may not be the duty of the Govern- No notice was taken of his Message, and ment to issue such a Commission. At he made some very severe comments this moment, however, I do not think it upon the subject. All through 1871-2 would be needed; and as regards the the late Governor, Sir Rawson Rawson, first kind of Commission I think it would called attention to the same subject. In be highly objectionable. My Lords, I can 1873 a Commission of both Houses was hardly bring these remarks to an end appointed. In 1874 a Vote for a sum without adding some expression of opi- of money was read a first time; but nion as to that which has been brought in- delays occurred, the whole question was directly to light by those disturbances- shelved, and the gaols remained very namely, the present state of the colony. much in the same condition. Take I am quite aware that in entering upon another case--that of prison discipline, this subject, however briefly, I walk and the punishments inflicted for prison upon delicate ground as far as the feel- offences. It is impossible not to be ings of the Barbadians are concerned. I startled by their character and number. am not insensible to many points which On the average of the last six years the may be urged in their favour-their floggings in the Barbadian prisons apattachment to their ancient Constitution, peared to be 20 times as numerous as their loyalty to the Crown, and other those of all the prisons of Jamaica. estimable qualities. At the same time During the first 10 months of 1875, 50 I should be untrue to the facts if I were persons were flogged in Barbadian prinot to state that, in my opinion, the sons-while on the other hand, not one present condition of the Island as re- single case was recorded in St. Lucia. vealed by these Papers is one by no Grenada, or St. Vincent: and the total means satisfactory. The condition of the prison punishments in Barbadoes during