362 TRINIDAD. 



duty of the latter to interfere. Had criminal prosecutions been 

 instituted against the perpetrators of such shameless spoliations, 

 not only would those infamous acts not have been of such frequent 

 occurrence, but the people would have felt satisfied that the 

 government was acting really and truly as their protector. But, 

 unfortunately, instead of a mitigation in the operation of direct 

 taxation, it was rendered inflexibly oppressive. It was a hard 

 case, indeed, for a poor man to pay a double tax because a dis- 

 honest agent had not accounted for the first assessment to the 

 warden ; it was a hard case to see his property advertised, he him- 

 self not being a defaulter ; and it was a harder case still to be 

 unable to obtain redress. This I consider to be one of the most 

 deplorable results of the " laissez oiler " system. 



Another frightful cause of annoyance and dissatisfaction arose 

 from the way in which payments were made for work performed 

 in the wards. " All payments to be made for the public uses of 

 any ward are made by the colonial treasurer, on the order in 

 writing under the hand of the warden of such ward for the time 

 being, to be approved by the governor." (Clause XLIX.) So 

 that, in many cases, an individual contracting for a very insignifi- 

 cant amount of work in a ward, is obliged to come to town from a 

 distance of six, ten, eighteen, or even fifty miles, to receive his 

 wages often a paltry sum and, in case the order given by the 

 warden is not in due form, he is sent back for a new one. Again, 

 should it be packet or council day, or for any other reason, the 

 payment is postponed to the next day, or that following the 

 greatest part, or it may be, the whole of the money to which the 

 contractor is entitled, being thus spent in journeying to and fro or 

 waiting in town besides the loss of time and inconvenience arising 

 from absence. The Ordinance requires revision in this as in other 

 respects. It has been amended lately by the amalgamation of 

 several wards, in order to form ward-unions, and the appointment 

 of union-wardens ; but this alteration I apprehend will not prove 

 a change for the better. Lord Harris perfectly understood the 

 urgency of multiplying the official agents, in order to place them 

 within reach of the people, as well as to facilitate the general 

 administration of the colony ; and with this view, each of the old 

 quarters had been by him formed into a ward, which was placed 

 under the authority of a warden, that official himself being a 

 respectable inhabitant of the ward whenever practicable. Instead 



