Part 12 (1/2)
The entire city of Port of Spain had been effectively decorated.
Sugar-cane-stalks, cocoa-pods, and coco-nuts, were worked in cleverly upon arches, spanning its substantial streets, to represent the agriculture of the Colony. The other main Trinidad industries, asphalt and oil, were well in evidence in the smooth surface found upon the roads along which the Royal procession pa.s.sed. The crowds lining the route were made up in fairly equal proportions of negroes, East Indians, and persons of mixed or ”coloured” race. Few Europeans were seen until the Legislative Council building and the Town Hall were reached, where they were in considerable numbers. Those presented to the Prince included Messrs. De B. Best, Colonial Secretary, H. B. Walcott, Controller General, A. G. Bell, Director of Public Works, L.
Elphinstone, Solicitor-General, Colonel Mui, Commandant of the Local Forces, Major Rust, acting President of the Civic Council, Rev. Dowling, Catholic Archbishop, Dr. Ansley, Anglican Bishop, Sir Alfred Smith, Chief Justice, also Justices Russell and Deane, and Father de Caignai, Head of the Tunapuna Monastery.
The official address, read by the Governor, made special mention of how much the island owes to the British Navy, and the Prince in the course of his reply also dwelt upon this matter: ”You have well referred,” he said, ”to the security enjoyed by Trinidad during the Great War, in which the people of this colony contributed in worthy measure to the victory of British arms. I am particularly glad to have this opportunity of congratulating the colony upon its fine services, and of meeting some of the gallant men whom it sent overseas. I am also much pleased to hear the colony appreciates how much it owes to the Royal Navy for its tranquil prosperity during those terrible years.” Touching upon more local matters, the Prince said the colony had given a high measure of prosperity to those whose forbears had made it their home. It had also provided new opportunities for progress and well-being for a large immigrant population from His Majesty's Indian Empire. ”I feel sure,” he added, ”that all its people, not only long established but recently arrived, will do all in their power to maintain its good traditions of law-abiding progress and loyalty to British ideals.”
The Prince spent several days in Trinidad, driving through its thickly wooded hills, past shady cocoa plantations, well-ordered coco-nut groves, and fields of sugar-cane. He also visited the old-time Spanish capital of St. Joseph, where an address was presented to him. He attended in Port of Spain a state dinner and various other official functions, besides inspecting a big gathering of children. In the course of his remarks, replying to the toast of his health at the state dinner, he said, ”I saw a suggestion, before I left England, that the British Empire might be willing to part with one or more of the British West Indian Islands to a foreign power, and I should like to say here again what I said in Barbados in March, that British subjects are not for sale. I can a.s.sure you that the King and all of us in the old country have very much at heart the welfare of Trinidad and all the British West Indies, also of all other British possessions,” a statement which cannot be too often repeated in sentiment or exemplified in fact.
Visits were paid to some of the oil-wells, which are already a source of much wealth to Trinidad, and promise to become still more important in the future. The famous pitch lake was a sight along the coast, forty-five miles out. It is a semi-solidified deposit, lying in a shallow hollow, a quarter of a mile in diameter, close to the sea, where men have been digging out black slabs of asphalt for years without making a perceptible hole. The lake is so near the coast that s.h.i.+ps sail practically up to it to carry away a product which is ultimately spread over the streets of the world. Fifty thousand tons have been taken out of it every year for a generation, and the level is estimated to have sunk only about nine inches. Oil underlies the pitch in the vicinity and a forest of derricks rises a quarter of a mile away.
From Trinidad the Prince made a side trip to Demerara, British Guiana, in the _Calcutta_, the _Renown_ being too big to cross the bar into Georgetown harbour. All the sunny richness of this steamy sugar and rice-growing corner of South America was in evidence when he landed at Georgetown, immediately after the ceremonial visit of the Governor, Sir William Collet. A fine West Indian guard-of-honour saluted him upon the pier, and mixed crowds of Anglo-Saxons, negroes, East Indians and Portuguese cheered in the decorated streets as he proceeded to the Government buildings. Here more guards-of-honour were inspected, including armed constabulary and militia. The Prince also shook hands with a long line of returned men. Entering the building he found the leaders of the local community a.s.sembled, including the princ.i.p.al officials and their families. An address of welcome was read by Mr.
Brown, a coloured West Indian, senior elected member of the Court of Policy. Archbishop Parry and General Rice were amongst those presented.
In the course of his reply the Prince referred to the great potential wealth of British Guiana and to the determination of its inhabitants to develop their inheritance to the full. It was essential, he added, that all parts and sections of the community should pull together loyally, in order that their future might be a.s.sured, and particularly that the great inland wealth of the colony might be laid open for the benefit of all. He hoped their ex-service men would prove themselves as public-spirited and useful citizens in time of peace as they had on active service in the field.
Two days pa.s.sed in Demerara in the enjoyment of the hospitality of the Governor and other leading residents. Visits were paid to a largely-attended race meeting, to sugar and rice estates in the swampy flats around the city, and to some very beautiful botanical gardens, where the schools of the colony were a.s.sembled, and the Prince pa.s.sed down dense lines of negro, East Indian, and European children.
[Ill.u.s.tration: SAMOA MAKES MERRY]
[Ill.u.s.tration: TRINIDAD: IN THE DRAGON'S MOUTH]
As the _Calcutta_ put out to sea ten thousand musical West Indian voices on the Georgetown wharves joined with the light cruiser's band in the strains of ”Auld Lang Syne.” Probably never in the history of this important British outpost in South America has patriotic sentiment held more undivided sway or the fact been made more clear that the hearts of its flouris.h.i.+ng inhabitants still turn faithfully to the old country.
Its people are looking to England at the moment with some hope, as well, of that co-ordination of Imperial resources of which British Guiana stands so much in need. The labour question has never before been so acute. The recent abolition of the long-established Indian indentures system, and therewith the cessation of immigration from India, has synchronized with enormous increases in world prices and world demand for the sugar which Demerara is so pre-eminently qualified to provide, and for this more labour is wanted.
The same question arises in connexion with new industrial developments, now on the eve of fruition, which must add enormously to the position that agricultural produce has already won for this colony. These will come with the exploitation of vast deposits of bauxite-alumina, that promise expansion of world-wide significance in connexion with steel manufacture, into which this comparatively new mineral is entering increasingly. The position, at the time of the Prince's visit, appeared to be that a million sterling had been spent by an American Company upon machinery and s.h.i.+pping and railway facilities for handling the ore, and that its effectual arrival upon the market was only a matter of time.
That an American Company should be spending such a large sum in the development of natural resources in British territory, was not the least interesting feature of the situation. It is to Anglo-American co-operation that Demerara and also the British West Indies must look increasingly for brains, initiative, and capital for the development of natural resources which are as yet by no means fully utilized.
The Prince returned to Trinidad through still steamy seas. Dawn on the day after leaving Demerara found the _Calcutta_ pa.s.sing the rocky portals of the narrowest of the three channels which make up the famous ”Dragon's Mouth” entrance to the roadstead of Port of Spain. The sh.o.r.e on the landward side of this entrance was dotted with pleasant verandahed villas and fresh-tilled fields, signs of the civilization which is pus.h.i.+ng back the forest in all parts of the island.
On reaching Port of Spain the Prince visited H.M.S. _Calliope_, a light cruiser just arrived from the north. He also paid a farewell visit to the Governor, and inspected the local fire brigade. In the evening he returned to the _Renown_, which shortly afterwards heaved up her anchors and left harbour for Grenada.
At St. George's, the princ.i.p.al town of Grenada, the Prince landed on the sheltered cove of Carenage, upon a decorated wharf on which was drawn up a guard-of-honour of the West Indian regiment beneath the stone bastions of an old French fort. He was received with every formality by the princ.i.p.al officials, headed by Sir George Haddon-Smith, Governor of the Windward Islands, Mr. Joyce Thomas, acting administrator of St. Vincent, Mr. Herbert Fergusson, Colonial Secretary, Mr. E. Laborde, Colonial Treasurer, and Sir Thomas Haycroft, Chief Justice, also the heads of the local Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist and Catholic Churches.
Thereafter, up steep streets decorated with flowery arches, beneath the clanging bells of numerous churches, through smiling, bowing, cheering crowds of cheerful West Indians and their gaily dressed women and piccaninnies, he was taken by car to the colonial Court-House, where the leading residents were a.s.sembled. He entered through a shaded courtyard, where he shook hands with a number of returned men and officers. The address was read in a low-ceilinged legislative a.s.sembly room, with wide French windows commanding a wonderful view of city and harbour.
In the course of his reply the Prince said the strength and spirit of the British Commonwealth could not be fully grasped by anyone without first-hand knowledge of the British Dominions and Colonies. ”The more I see of the King's world-wide possessions,” he added, ”the more deeply I am impressed by the strength of the sentiment which binds them to the Empire and the throne”--the truth of which was testified to by every street he had pa.s.sed through.
The Prince was afterwards taken by motor into the interior, through some of the most luxuriant vegetation in the world, past cocoa and nutmeg plantations, up two thousand feet into the mountains, about the forest-shaded depths of the circular lake of Grand Etang, the crater of an extinct volcano. An official lunch and a garden-party at Government House filled up the day, which ended with a reception given by the Prince on the _Renown_ to the princ.i.p.al residents of the island.
Leaving Grenada at daylight the _Renown_ threaded her way through the cl.u.s.tering Grenadine Islands and past the steep twin green cones of the inaccessible Piton peaks, and anch.o.r.ed near the Pigeon Rock--Admiral Rodney's eighteenth-century naval base.
The Prince, accompanied by Sir George Haddon-Smith, who had come on with him from Grenada, landed at Castries at noon, where he was received by Colonel Davidson-Houston, Administrator of St. Lucia, supported by Mr.
Anthony de Freitas, Chief Justice, and other members of the Executive Council. St. Lucia's special arch was of coal, token of the colony's importance as a West Indian coaling-station. From under it His Royal Highness proceeded through decorated streets, the entire population of which had a.s.sembled to welcome him. The first stopping-place was in Columbus Square. Here, in the warm shade of big coco-nut palms and mango trees, a thousand children were drawn up, each school flanked by teachers, many of whom wore the black ca.s.sock of the Catholic Church.
The Prince afterwards climbed a hill overlooking the town, and wandered through the deserted barracks of historic fort Charlotte, where his great-great-grandfather, the Duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria, hoisted the British flag in 1797, after the capture of the island by forces under Sir Charles Grey and Sir John Jervis. Here, standing amidst luxuriant tropical vegetation, he looked northward to the rocky Vigie promontory, on which he could descry lines occupied by Sir William Medow's thirteen hundred British, who in 1778 hurled back invading enemies twelve thousand strong. Westward he looked over the muddy Cul-de-sac Bay, where Sir Samuel Barrington, in the same year, fought a desperate engagement with the French fleet under Count Destaing.
Eastward also the scene was full of historic interest, for here, beyond the red roofs of Castries city, was visible a distant palm-shaded beach, where Moore and Abercromby effected their landing in 1796.
Descending the steep gra.s.sy Morne, the Prince afterwards attended a popular reception at Government House, and thence went back to the _Renown_.