Mr McDonald is the dominant of the two men. Almost before we had found our seats, and begun to sup the beveridge, he asked after the whereabouts of Mr Brown. I said that I assumed Mr Brown to be out in the fields. I quickly seized this opportunity to pursue the question of Mr Wilson, directing my enquiries towards our new guest. My past gambits on this subject had been effectively countered by Mr McDonald with evasiveness and some outward signs of discomfort. For his part Mr Rogers simply shook his head and confessed that some not inconsiderable time had passed since Mr Wilson had taken up residence on a neighbouring island. Unless my eyes deceived me I felt sure that I detected a knowing glance, perhaps even a reproving one, pass from Mr McDonald to the other. Possibly to avoid Mr Rogers stumbling into waters from which he would prefer his friend to steer clear, Mr McDonald took the initiative and commenced a solo rendition of his feelings about the deficiencies of absentee planters, and those they leave in charge of their fortunes.
Mr McDonald contrasted the use of the phrase 'at home', when applied by the English expatriate, with its use by the French. For the former, he always means England, but the Frenchman will determine that his island is his 'home', which naturally results in his making a greater effort to ensure its moral and social survival. The English planters look upon these islands as colonies to which they are exiled for a certain period, places containing their properties, and therefore of the greatest consequence to them, but very few expect to die on these tropical estates. Those who have troubled to bestir themselves all look forward to spending their last years in the land of their birth. They never see, or inhale the fragrance of, a creole rose without letting their imaginations stray through the rich gardens of fair England. Mr Rogers asked if this was so bad. After all, was it not only natural that one should wish to return to one's provenance? Mr McDonald stormed this defensive position and expanded his argument thus. When, according to our physician, the decline in revenues from tropical American holdings set in, the overseas owners as a class increasingly neglected to visit the tropical zone, and some among them even to care for their personal possessions. These men of the privileged pigmentation, who eschew the slightest labour as not only painful but degrading, have of late begun to exhaust their scant credit in England, transferring their holdings to the jurisdiction of agents, managers, overseers and book-keepers. They are now happy to see their properties maintained in any way, so long as they continue to reap a small reward while some profit remains.
According to Mr McDonald the day of profitable exploitation of West Indian sugar is in its eventide, due in part to trading restrictions, and in part to the new age of industry dawning in England. Thus, fewer men of calibre are wont to appear in the tropics, and the dire consequences of abandoning control to others are everyday visible. Throughout the region places once of honour and trust are being gradually filled by mediocrities and scoundrels. Multiple office-holding has apparently become commonplace and is being carried out to extravagant lengths, as self-created lawyers, self-educated physicians, and venal merchants carry the day. The good doctor swears that at any moment the legislative and administrative organization of our own island is likely to collapse, and he is sure that there can be few local estates not now hopelessly entangled in debt, and indeed he insists that many are probably mortgaged beyond their real value.
It was at this crossroad that I felt I ought to remind my companions, in as pleasant a fashion as possible, of my position as the daughter of an absentee owner. While it would be true to claim that my father has a healthy annual income returned to the mother-country, and has also been known to indulge in the common practice of borrowing heavily with his trans-Atlantic properties as security, surely the fact that I had arrived to inspect the estate made him less culpable than these absentee blackguards. They agreed, but suggested that their basic argument was sound. Absenteeism was the primary cause of social breakdown, for just as one could not run a school without a headmaster, or a monarchical system without a monarch, one could not hope to run these tropical possessions without commitment to responsibility at the highest level. It was further suggested that in the West Indies the white expatriate of upper rank is liable to become simply indolent and inert, regardless of all but eating, drinking and self-indulgence. 'What is a man, If his chief good and market of his time, Be but to sleep and feed?' Mr McDonald declared. The passion with which he declaimed these lines from Hamlet surprised me not a little. I had not thought him so excitable. In the lower orders, they are the same, with the addition of conceit and tyranny, considering the negroes to be creatures formed merely to administer to their ease, and to be subject to their vagary. These degraded white people appear to be the offscum, the offscouring, indeed the very dregs of English life. It is near impossible, contended our physician-politician, to persuade these white people, high or low, that blacks are human beings, or that they might possess souls.
On completion of this interlude, Mr Rogers replaced upon the table a piece of bread that was already half-way lifted to his mouth, and sought clarification from Mr McDonald that he had understood him correctly. He claimed that our physician, this same man who appeared to be defending the blacks, was one who had frequently spoken otherwise of our darker brethren. Mr McDonald smiled, and then prepared to defend himself, first by restating briefly his opinions upon the white populace in case there should have been any misunderstanding of his position. 'In short, our islands have become the midden for the detritus of the parent country.' At this point Mr McDonald paused for effect, and then continued. 'But this is not totally the fault of the white arrivant. Constant association with an inferior race will weaken the moral fibre of a white man and debase the quality of his life. A mere glance should be sufficient to convince an observer that the West Indian negro has all the characteristics of his race. That he steals, lies, is witless, incompetent, irresponsible, habitually lazy, and wantonly loose in his sexual behaviour, is apparent to even the most generous of those who would take sambo's part. It is only the dread of corporal punishment which keeps these incorrigible thieves in order. To each other they display unimaginable cruelty, and when they fight they are particularly adept at kicking and biting. All attempts at mental instruction having failed, it is to be regretted that only a hearty laying on of that hateful implement, the whip, will rid them of their rebellious thoughts.'
I listened intently, and observed Mr Rogers nodding in agreement with some of what the doctor prescribed. Mr McDonald went on and claimed that the clearest evidence of West Indian moral turpitude was to be found in the social evil of miscegenation, a practice contrary to the Anglo-Saxon nature, and one that gave rise to a sub-species of hybrid. Some white men, though considering negroes little more than beasts of burden, had no objection to making these negroes partners of their illicit intercourse, and then condemning the issue of such unions to shame and degradation. The female offspring invariably take the name of housekeeper and in turn become the mistresses of white men, while the male offspring merely drag out an existence as scarcely tolerated spaniels permitted to lick the feet of their masters, but just as likely to be kicked out of doors on a whim. The mothers of such children face an even worse destiny, having been used by degenerate Englishmen who no doubt simply came to make a quick fortune and return rejoicing at their success. Such women are abandoned with little to sustain them socially but the significance given their litter's skin, and seldom even the most meagre of allowances. These dingy women may soon grow fat upon the bread of prostitution, and when their bodies become diseased, and their constitutions weakened by dissipation and excess, their sources of support fail, and the curse of poverty falls hard and heavy upon the afflictions of decrepit age. Their lot, truly, is wretched, more so when one considers that in the tropics, unlike England, immorality is impossible to conceal, for all is known and speedily rumoured abroad.