[Sidenote:  Questions of finance]

The finances of the colony were at this time in a state to require the most careful treatment.  At a moment when the recent violent change in the distribution of the wealth of the community had left the proprietary body generally in a depressed condition, the Legislature had to provide for the wants of the newly emancipated population, by increasing at great cost the ecclesiastical and judicial establishments; and at the same time it was necessary that a quantity of inconvertible paper recently set afloat should be redeemed, if the currency was to be fixed on a sound basis.  Under these conditions it was not easy to equalise the receipts and expenditure of the island treasury; and the difficulty was not diminished by the necessity of satisfying critics at home.  Before long an occasion arose to test Lord Elgin’s tact and discretion in mediating on such questions between the colony and the mother-country.

Towards the end of 1842 a new tariff was enacted by the legislature of the island.  When the Act embodying it was sent home, it was found to violate certain economical principles recently adopted in this country.  An angry despatch from Downing Street informed Lord Elgin that it was disapproved, and that nothing but an apprehension of the financial embarrassments that must ensue prevented its being formally disallowed.  In terms almost amounting to a reprimand, it was intimated that the adoption of such objectionable enactments might be prevented if the Governor would exercise the legitimate influence of his office in opposing them; and it was added, ’If, unfortunately, your efforts should be unsuccessful, and if any such bill should be presented for your acceptance, it is Her Majesty’s pleasure and command that you withhold your assent from it.’

Lord Elgin replied by a temperate representation, that it was but natural that traces of a policy long sanctioned by the mother-country should remain in the legislation of the colony; that the duties in question were not found injuriously to check trade, while they were needed to meet the expenditure:  moreover, that the Assembly was, and always had been, extremely jealous of any interference in the matter of self-taxation:  lastly, that ’while sensible that the services of a Governor must be unprofitable if he failed to acquire and exercise a legitimate moral influence in the general conduct of affairs, he was at the same time convinced that a just appreciation of the difficulties with which the legislature of the island had yet to contend, and of the sacrifices and exertions already made under the pressure of no ordinary embarrassments, was an indispensable condition to his usefulness.’

The Home Government felt the weight of these considerations, and the correspondence closed with the revocation of the peremptory command above quoted.

[Sidenote:  Education.]