First Franchise Commission

By: Michael Anthony

Last month, the story of the visit to Fifth Company Village of the First Commission on the Franchise was featured in part. The main reason for the Commission going to Fifth Company Village, and this was on the request of Queen Victoria, was because of a letter from the head of the Fifth Company community, Pastor Robert Andrews.  This was to Queen Victoria, after he had witnessed her Golden Jubilee celebrations in San Fernando. Being very impressed and coming to the conclusion that the people of this colony loved her dearly he complained that the people carrying out her duties here were not doing their jobs well and he asked, “could Your Majesty find it in yourself to give the people of Trinidad their own representatives?”

      The Royal Commission went to Fifth Company specifically to interview Pastor Robert Andrews to find out why he wrote that letter. The visit took place on Saturday, April 14, 1888.
The members of the Franchise Commission present at Fifth Company were: Stephen Herbert Gatty, David Wilson, Arthur Wybrow Baker, Vincent Brown, George Lewis Garcia, Robert Guppy, Louis de Verteuil, Michel Maxwell Phillips, and Henry Brown Phillips.
    The meeting is in progress and Mr Andrews is answering a question as to why he signed a petition asking for the franchise. He says, “When I was approached I signed the petition readily because I felt a change in the system of government might lead to good roads because the government is neglecting us badly.”
   There were groans from the Commissioners and some of them shook their heads.  The chairman said, “Forgetting what you say about the government neglecting you what made you feel a change in system would lead to roads?”
    “I did not say “would,” Mr Chairman, I said “might.”
      “Okay,” go on please.”
    “I felt there was a good chance it would lead to roads because the people we would elect to represent us would know how we are suffering for roads. I am not only speaking of us here in this district, but all over the Companies. We are all descendants of the old Americans and we know how hard-working they were but the government put them here and forgot them and there was only so much they could do. Now we find that we have to fight against the same thing. Look at these houses all in the bush. If the government settled us here they have a right to look back and see how we are getting on. They brought us here in the first place, they have no right to neglect us. Every year they spend a lot of money on roads but not for Fifth Company.”
    A member of the Commission asked, “Do you know about the government’s expenditure on roads?”
    “The government’s what?”
     The chairman said, “Okay. Let him go on.”
      Pastor Andrews said, “Our principal need is roads. In any case we pay rates and we are entitled to benefits.”
    The chairman said, “How much rate do you pay?”
     “One pound sixteen I have to pay this year.”
    “And you say the roads are terrible, which we know. Is that the only reason why you and the other villagers signed the petition?”
    “It is not the only reason but it is the principal reason. All of us are settlers of the ground here. We live by planting provision and if we cannot lug our provisions   to market we’ll starve. The situation is so bad that when the rainy season comes we cannot do anything.”
    “Where do you sell your provision?”
   “In Mission.”
    “You mean ‘Princes Town,’ Mr Andrews.”
    “For us it will always be ‘Mission.’ We are loyal to the queen, and we know that it was named after her two sons (sic) who came here a few years ago. But there is nothing in calling it ‘Mission.’ We were born calling it ‘Mission,’ and I suppose we shall die calling it so.”
    The chairman squinted his face and looked at Pastor Andrews closely. The pastor looked strong for his age and he was standing up as erect as a young man. The chairman thought he could see defiance in the pastor’s eyes. He said, “Mr Andrews, I feel you do not like Queen Victoria. Did you attend jubilee last year?”
    “Yes.”
Captain Baker asked, “Where?”
    “In San Fernando.”
    The chairman said, “Why did you really sign this petition?”
    “For good roads.”
    “And that is all? If you get good roads, that is all you want?”
    “By getting good roads I don’t know want may take place hereafter.”
     The commissioners looked at each other and were really shocked by this reply.
    Chairman Stephen Gatty said: “We are not talking about hereafter — we are talking about now.”
   “For the present, good roads,” the pastor said. “Apart from getting our produce out, there is the question of schools. When it rains the children cannot go to school. The school is in Third Company, just about two miles from here. When it rains they just have to stay inside.”
  The evidence of Pastor Robert Andrews occupied the best part of the morning, but what remained with the commissioners appeared to be a prediction about what would happen “hereafter.” Yet one can say this was because the commissioners knew that an oppressive colonial regime was bound to lead to people who would fight back. So they came to Fifth Company suspecting resistance, and was sure that they had found it.
    So on mounting their horses to take the unpleasant, irregular, earthen road to Mission they were certainly thinking of putting out the bush-fires in the path of Queen Victoria.
    After completing the First Royal Commission on the Franchise, notwithstanding the signs they must have seen at many meetings and in many places they reported to Queen Victoria that the people of Trinidad had no desire whatsoever to have their own representatives.

      And thus began the fight for the franchise, which led to the road Pastor Andrews might have been dreaming of: the Road to Independence.   But next week we won’t look at roads as such but at the railways. The Trinidad Government Railways were established in 1876, just before the first Royal Commission on Franchise. So it can be said we were going places. Let’s look at that first section of line laid down.