II 



JAMAICA 



Once again the Union Jack floats over the Govern- 

 ment buildings beside the quay, welcoming eyes 

 that have for many weeks seen first the Stars and 

 Stripes, its younger cousin, and then the ensign of 

 an island independence, of which the days are surely 

 numbered. Travel is the Englishman's best tonic, 

 and it inspires a sturdy patriotism of broader ideals 

 than those preached beside the parish pump. 



The wide divergence between the standards of 

 both great branches of the Ang-lo-Saxon race is 

 nowhere, perhaps, more appreciable than when the 

 traveller, fresh from the teeming parallel hundred 

 and fifty hives of New York, comes to anchor 

 before the dreamy verandahs of Kingston. The 

 American thanks his Stars that he is not doomed 

 to drone his only life away in such a backwater. 

 The Englishman thanks his God that he is at home 

 again, given time to collect his thoughts without 

 being pushed off the pavement, brought in contact 

 with a working class that does not meet every 

 behest with " Say, boss . . . !" 



It has been said that America casts a covetous 

 eye over the whole of the West Indies. I doubt 

 her conceiving such an ambition even more than I 

 doubt her realising it. That she must eventually 

 acquire Cuba is a foregone sequel of the war as the 

 result of which she installed a tinsel Government 



199 



