Westlake, Donald E - NF 01 by Under An English Heaven (v1.1) Read Free Book Online Page A

execution than delay national
independence.
    In London ,
they spoke to Mrs. Judith Hart, then Minister of State for Commonwealth
Relations, who promised them something would be done very quickly about local
government. They also spoke with reporters, and the result was another first: Anguilla made the headlines. In the London Times of February 18, 1967 , under the headline
" Police Landed on
Anguilla by Frigate ," appeared an item in two distinct parts. The
first part, which announced the Salisbury 's deposit of Kit-titian police, missed accuracy on a few points; the British
landing wasn't mentioned, the Kittitian force was reduced to four men, and Anguilla was placed in the Windward Islands instead of the Leeward
Islands . The final sentence of this part was, if nothing else,
extremely hopeful: "The Commonwealth Office announced yesterday that the
situation in Anguilla was now normal."
    The second part of the item told
about Billy Herbert's meeting with Mrs. Hart, said that PAM was
"discontented," and failed to mention the man from Anguilla ,
Peter Adams, at all.
    Back at the Commonwealth Office,
Statehood Day had taken on the inexorability of the birth of Christ. There was
no possibility in British minds that it could be delayed past its prophesied
arrival.
    The Labour Party was then in power
in Great Britain ,
so Herbert and Adams turned to the Conservatives for help. They had entree via
various Englishmen who had connections in
    Nevis ,
principally old Etonian James Milnes Gaskell, owner of that island's Montpelier
Hotel.
    The natural ally of middle- and
upper-class PAM was the middle- and upper-class Conservative Party, just as the
natural ally of Bradshaw's Labour Party was Harold Wilson's Labour Party.
Circumstances would eventually alter these cases to some extent, but the
natural political flow was Labour to Labour and PAM to Conservative.
    The result was, on February 14,
Lord Jellicoe raised in the House of Lords the question of whether or not it
was a bad idea to give independence to a nation simultaneous with its breaking
apart. Speaking in reply for the Government, Lord Beswick said he understood
things were really all right, the necessary legislation for local councils on Nevis and Anguilla had already been drafted. This answer
combined vagueness with inaccuracy in perfect proportions to stifle the
discussion.
    However, Mrs. Hart, either wanting
to make a token gesture to please Herbert and Adams or else belatedly worried
that perhaps they were right, sent out an Under-Secretary, Mr. Henry Hall, to
look things over. Hall arrived in St. Kitts on February 20, one week before
Statehood Day, talked with some people in the Government, and the next day left
to visit Anguilla . When he arrived, there was some
shouting and perhaps some jostling. The last Englishman the Anguillans had been
able to talk to, Mr. Peter Johnston, the local-government expert, had so far as
they could tell left without having heard a word they'd said, so they raised
their voices a bit while talking to Mr. Hall.
    Much later, in a letter to the London Times , James Milnes Gaskell described that situation, and some of what had
led up to it, and wrote:
    Mrs.
Hart sent Mr. Henry Hall to Anguilla to explain Statehood. On February 23 Mrs. Hart issued
a press release saying: "I am told that there is a very much calmer
atmosphere in Anguilla . My official has toured the whole island and he tells
me that his reception has been most friendly." But on February 22 I had
received a cable from St. Kitts saying that Hall had been booed in Anguilla , demonstrated against and shot at.
    On the same day that Henry Hall was
failing to hear himself be booed, demonstrated against and shot at, the
beauty-contest incident was moving into a new stage. Sir Fred Phillips,
Governor of St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla (a primarily ceremonial position), himself
a West Indian, had gone to Anguilla to talk quietly with
Atlin Harrigan and Ronald Webster. He was the only Kittitian