FUTURE
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THE
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long as we are on the spot to keep the peace, will speedily double itself again. The English inhabitants will and must be crowded out. The geographical advantages of the Gulf of Paria will secure a certain amount of trade. There will be merchants and bankers in the town as float ing passage birds, and there will be mulatto lawyers and shopkeepers and newspaper writers. But the blacks hate the mulattoes, and the mulatto breed will not maintain itself, as with the independence of the blacks the intimacy between blacks and whites diminishes and must diminish. The English peasant immigration which enthusiasts have believed in is a dream, a dream which passed through the ivory gate, a dream which will never turn to a waking reality; and unless under the Indian system, which our rulers will never try unless the democracy orders them to adopt it, the English interest will come to an end. The English have proved in India that they can play a great and useful part as rulers over recognised inferiors. Even in the West Indies the planters were a real some thing. Like the English in Ireland, they produced a remarkable breed of m e n : the Codringtons, the Warners, and many illustrious names besides. They governed cheaply on their own resources, and the islands under their rule were so profitable that we fought for them as if our Empire was at stake. All that is gone. The days of ruling races are supposed to be numbered. Trade drifts away to the nearest market —to New York or New Orleans — and in a money point of view the value of such posses sions as Trinidad will soon be less than nothing to us. As long as the present system holds, there will be an appreciable addition to the sum of human (coloured human) happiness. Lighter-hearted creatures do not exist on the globe. But the continuance of it depends on the continu ance of the English rule. The peace and order which they benefit by is not of their own creation. In spite of schools H