ROMANTIC BARBADOES

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXVIII, Issue 4634, 11 December 1934, Page 2

ROMANTIC BARBADOES

MUCH STORIED PAST. The most cohesive, non-cosmopoli-tan people of the West Indies are the residents of Barbadoes—Binshire, or "Little England," as it is affectionately known, by reason of its Trafalgar Square, Hastings, and a hundred other place names that denote its English paternity, says the. Kingston correspondent of the New Zealand Herald. Its picturesqueness is differ- - ent from the mountainous glory of Jamaica. The scenery in Barbadoes resembles certain parts of the Motherland—the wolds of Lincolnshire or the gentle slopes of Devonshire, down towards Torquay. Its people are born of the soil. Lying far out in the ocean, fanned continually by the trade winds, its climate is pleasantly salubrious. Its area of 166 square miles supports

180,000 people, its density of popula- j tion being rivalled only by Hongkong and Malta.

The history of the island is romantic and inspiring to a degree. Discovered by the Portuguese, who made no attempt to settle there, it was visited by an English vessel, driven off her course on the way to Guiana. In 1624 a privateer, chartered by the Courteen brothers, of London Town, called there, homeward bound from Brazil. A year later, the little vessel the William and John, founded the first settlement.

Disputes as to the ownership followed. The claim of the Earl of Carlisle was sustained, conditionally on his agreeing to pay the Earl of Marlborough and his heirs £3OO a year in perpetuity. Its relative value to Canada is indicated by the fact that 2,000,000 square miles of Ca'nada were at about that time rented to the honourable company for two beaver skins a year. Earlier, Cabot was rewarded by Henry VII with £lO for discovering Newfoundland.

When trouble arose between the King and Parliament, Barbadoes sided with Charles, influenced by a number of Loyalists who fled there from England. When the King was beheaded, Barbadoes acknowledged Charles 11. For this, the colony was included in the celebrated interdict of 1650, which prohibited trade with Virginia, Barbadoes and Bermuda, because of their "rebellious" attitude. A fleet was sent out to subdue the island. It is a tribute to the hardihood of the islanders that, although the fleet arrived in Octobei", not until January of the following year did they capitulate, and then only because of thendesire to save the island from ruin and desolation. The terms of the capitulation alone show that it was not from cowardice that they surrendered, for they secured for themselves religious liberty, property rights and representative government, with full powers over taxation. After the Roundhead-Cavalier period the Privy Cou'ncil decreed that onehalf of the annual revenue surplus of the island should go to Lord Willoughby during his lease, and the rest to the Government, to be used to pay the Marlborough claim and a pension of £SOO a year to the Earl of Carlisle

and his heirs—subsequently increased to £IOO. To raise the necessary sum, an export tax of 4% per cent, was imposed on all produce leaving the colony. The colony bore their grievances for 175 years, for it was not until 1738 that the tax was repealed. In 1665 the island was attacked by the great Dutch admiral de Ruyter, who, with his 14 men-of-war, was repelled by the staunch settlers. In the wars against France, Barbadoes rendered signal service, the regiment which captured St. Kitts from the French in 1690. Three years later they sent two regiments to aid in the unsuccessful attack on Martinique. In 1762 another regiment from barbadoes formed part of the force under Rodney which eventually captured Martinique. Next only to England, Newfoundland and Bermuda, Barbadoes is the proud possessor of the oldest Parliament in the world. Its Constitution was granted as long ago as 1627—at the time the illustrous Champlain was still in the "wilds of Canada." The Constitution provided that the inhabitants of the island were to possess "all the liberties, franchises and privileges of the kingdom of England."

This "tight little, bright little island" has been pulling itself out of the depression just as it pulled itself out of the troubles that bese'c it in the early days of its history. 'Badians do not acknowledge the word "defeat." Froude, on his visit in the "eighties," the period of another great depression, declared that "if these places are going to ruin, Barbadoes at any rate is being ruined with a smiling face." The 'Badian is neither an apologist nor a compromiser. Loyal he has ever been, and, equally with all the West Indies colonies, he may be relied on to preserve the British tradition. 'Badians laugh-loudest and longest when they hear of some American politician or newspaper suggesting that they be handed over to "Uncle Sam" in payment of the war debt.