, should be
lowered in the interest of good and equitable government. Sir Henry
Turner Irving, however, besides raising the duties on spirituous
liquors, also enacted that every distillery, however small, must pay
a salary to a Government official stationed within it to supervise
the manufacture of the spirits. This, of course, was the death-blow
to all the minor competition which had so long been disturbing the
peace of mind of the mighty possessors of the great distilleries.
Ahab was thus made glad with the vineyard of Naboth.
In the matter of official appointments, too, Governor Irving was
consistent in his ostentatious hostility to Creoles in general, and
to coloured Creoles in particular. Of the fifty-six appointments
which that model Governor [66] made in 1876, only seven happened to
be natives and coloured, out of a population in which the latter
element is so preponderant as to excite the fears of Mr. Froude. In
educational matters, though he could not with any show of sense or
decency re-enact the rule which excluded students of illegitimate
birth from the advantages of the Royal College, he could,
nevertheless, pander to the prejudices of himself and his friends by
raising the standard of proficiency while reducing the limit of the
age for free admission to that institution--boys of African descent
having shown an irrepressible persistency in carrying off prizes.
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