CARIBBEAN ISLANDS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27404, 17 July 1954, Page 3

CARIBBEAN ISLANDS

CRITIC OF COLONIAL ADMINISTRATION The Baths of Absalom. A Footnote to Froude. By James Pope-Hennessy. With a Frontispiece by Lucian Freud. Wingate. 64 pp. In 1886 J. A. Froude wrote a book called “English in the West Indies,” which was received in the British Caribbean colonies with cries of rage. He declared that the colonies were shamefully neglected and that they compared very unfavourably with the French islands in the area. In 1954, in this beautifully written little “footnote to Froude,” Mr James PopeHennessy reiterates Froude’s verdict. The major colonies have changed of course, but the lesser islands like Santa Lucia and Dominica (in which Mr Pope-Hennessy planned to spend a quiet winter writing) are still a blot on England’s record; they have, if anything, retrogressed since Froude’s day. And the chastening contrast with the French islands of Martinique and Guadaloupe remains. Sickened with the poverty and squalor of Dominica, Mr Pope-Hennessy retired with relief to Martinique, which demonstrates still “that with intelligent thought and care a European government can make these islands at once prosperous and truly civilised.” Mr Pope-Hennessy does not mince his words. Cries of rage are likely to arise again in the Caribbean. “Everything in the West Indies,” he declares, “looks much better seen from some way out at sea.” The child-prostitutes and open drains of Castries (the capital of Santa Lucia), the sordid rumshops, the neglected roads and public buildings of Dominica do not look good on close inspection. His book is an eloquent indictment of the inertia of British policy in these islands, which are naturally rich but utterly undeveloped. The book is also far more than a political indictment. It contains fine descriptions of tropical scenery, it evokes the nostalgic attraction of the West Indies—“a haunting illogical emotion which even the West Indian islands you have most heartily disliked can soon inspire”—and there are some memorable pictures of the people. As our boat edged into the wharf ... our aesthetic pleasure was increased by that intense and unselfconscious theatricality which is native to the West Indian negro crowds. The wharf was tightly packed with people, but all were silent, all were still. You had a vague delightful impression of old women in coloured skirts and turbans, of negro girls dressed in marigold yellow, magenta, scarlet, royal blue, with hats of transparent lace. There were black youths in Murillo-like rags who rolled their eyes and wore broken raffia hats at dashing angles; some of the better-dressed sported brilliant “swagger-boy” shirts. There were a great many children. There were Colonial Police in their smart white uniforms. There were women seated beside piles of new clay pots and woven baskets. And they were all as static as in a tableau, as authentic and as typical as the West Indian people on the label of a rum bottle. They gazed upwards at the white boat with its blue funnel in total silence: waiting, watching, calculating. And then, when the ship, had been firmly moored to the stanchions and the gangplank had been let - down, the whole scene came suddenly to life. Examined In detail it revealed Itself as composed of a human swarm of prostitutes, beggars, pimps, and scallywag children, with several lunatics and one or two lepers—the whole unutterably mournful paraphernalia of life in a British Caribbean port. As an artistic piece of writing, this book deserves to be widely read. As a critical “expose” of conditions in these ancient British colonies, it is to be hoped that it will be read in the right quarters.