384 [TRINIDAD. 



desultory life must " revert to a state of barbarism." It becomes, 

 therefore, the imperative duty of the Government to combine 

 effective measures for the speedy suppression of squatting ; and 

 yet the conduct of the executive is so anomalous that, on the con- 

 trary, as shown by the following observations, protection is vir- 

 tually granted to this most nefarious practice. The Territorial 

 Ordinance, in terms most positive, discountenances the unautho- 

 rised holding of public land, and instructs the wardens to use 

 every exertion for suppressing the practice of squatting. In the 

 teeth of this, squatters are called upon to send in returns of the 

 lands they occupy, their possession being thus implicitly, and yet 

 distinctly, recognised, by their lands being rated, and the rates 

 thereon received, precisely on the same principle as that affecting 

 other legal possessions. Is not this indirectly to connive at, or 

 rather to countenance what the law condemns ? It is urged that 

 the wardens, not the government, are responsible for the non- 

 execution of the ordinance. But the wardens of the wards so 

 circumstanced answer, that there are several reasons for their 

 being lax in the fulfilment of their duties in that respect. They 

 represent that, although the local rates have been invariably 

 charged at the maximum fixed under the Territorial Ordinance, 

 many wards can barely meet their annual local expenditure; 

 and that, where part of the funds of such wards is derived 

 from the rates imposed on illegal holdings of lands, to reduce 

 them by twenty, thirty, or even fifty per cent. as the dis- 

 continuance of squatters' assessments would inevitably do is to 

 place those wards in a position of inability to defray their 

 expenses. 



This is evidently a serious consideration. Experience has 

 proved, besides, that no advantage or compensation is derivable 

 from the simple ejection of squatters, since they generally retire 

 farther into the interior; whilst the number of those who, in conse- 

 quence of such ejection, resort to estate- work is comparatively insig- 

 nificant, though not so their example, forming as they generally do, 

 a class of discontented, intractable, and troublesome labourers. 

 Thus the benefit derived from the accession of these few malcon- 

 tents is more than counterbalanced by the loss of job-labour 

 they willingly perform , and by the discontinuance of provision- 

 cultivation. In confirmation of this statement, I may mention the 

 following case, which I borrow from very good authority. In one 



