A happy ending for Snake Island?
It could be argued that Lord Caradon is doing more useful work on his repeated visits to Anguilla than he has the oppor- tunity of doing at the United Nations. Nevertheless, the fact that a Cabinet minis- ter has to return to the island to sort out disagreements arising from his previous visit fits all too precisely the pattern of muddle and misunderstanding which has shaped the Government's attempts to handle- this minuscule problem from the beginning. Anguilla, which used to be called Snake Island, has proved appropriately difficult to get a grip of. It now appears that Mr Ronald Webster has been upset because the British commissioner, Mr Tony Lee, insisted upon taking the chair at the first council meeting of the new regime. Mr Webster thought that he ought to be the chairman. Anguilla is small but it is not exactly Lilliput: this fatuous squabble, however, might well have been invented by Swift's mocking imagina- tion. It is embarrassing to think that the British Empire has dwindled to this—a nur- sery struggle with a thin-skinned island politician for the best chair. Even in the heyday of real empire, local susceptibilities were not always so clumsily offended.
When he has got the seating arrangements §ettled to the best of his ability, Lord Caradon might pause to ponder why British force is on the island at all and where the enterprise is likely to lead. The object is not, thankfully, to return Anguilla to Mr Bradshaw, whatever some Caribbean rulers may suppose. It is no longer to topple Mr Webster, but rather to prop him up (provided he doesn't take Mr Lee's chair). Nor is it, presumably, to preserve the island as a per- manent jewel in the shrunken imperial crown. It is still, officially, to oust the Mafia: but outside official circles, who believes that any longer? The truth seems to be found in a song which the soldiers on Anguilla will know well. We're there, in -short. be- cause we're there.
Although it plainly suits their book to complain vociferously about this, the islanders do not seem to be doing too badly as a result. They are gaining new roads, a telephone service and various other benefits, including an influx of money from overseas. They have carried their point about breaking away from St Kitts. They will have to put up with Mr Lee for a time, but since the British government has discovered some principle at stake in keeping him there, the islanders will no doubt be able repeatedly to raise their price for tolerating him. Indeed, it looks like a model of how to make the most of UDI, and other small islands of a similar kind have no doubt noted the lesson and may even now be- negotiating with Rentacrowd for the hire of a few Mafia-type desperadoes for verisimilitude. At any rate, the end of the story for Anguilla promises to be a happy one (even if at British expense), and that is not something to be sniffed at in these dark days.
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