Mr. Greene on Thursday asked whether it was true that
Mr. Pope Hennessy had stated in a public meeting at Cork that "he had never been in a community where there was such deliberate oppression of the masses as in the community of Barbadoes." /dr. Lowther, in reply, said that Mr. Hennessy had been asked for an explanation, and that the Government had no information which would warrant the statement. Mr. Hennessy, as a Governor still in the Service, should have been more discreet, and should especially have avoided the word "deliberate," which it is impossible to prove ; but his whole career in Barbadoes was one long struggle against the oppression of the masses, who, to begin with, are governed by the worst of all constitutions,—a Government which pretends to be representative, and is really elected by a caste ; who are liable to flogging for the smallest offences, some of them civil ; and who, on the smallest riot, are treated as if they had committed high treason. The truth is, that sympathy with the masses, and especially with black masses, is an offence to the present majority in the House. If Mr. Hen- nessy had said that all negroes were rascals, not a remonstrance would have boen uttered by the majority.
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