Strickland and the pro-British press in inter-war Malta : 1919-1933

Abstract

To research the press in history is not to look up the newspapers for chronicle but to look into real history in the making. It is not to trace events as they happened but to look deeper to find a point of view, a political position, many times bringing out a genuine way of thinking, still strongly expressed on the pages of the primary sources. A pro-British position and its press, in a colonial context are surely not as romantic or as liberating as a nationalist press, full of aspirations of nationhood, although in the same context it is an equally challenging one to appreciate. To better understand the character of a pro-British press one must come to terms with the relationship between the British Colonial authorities in Malta and the Maltese subjects of a British Colony and how national identity could be understood to accommodate such a relationship. Contemporary opponents, especially of the Nationalist sort, would have considered pro-British sympathies or such loyalty to the colonisers as 'collaboration' but to both the British and to their local sympathisers, dual loyalty to empire and native country was accepted without problems. To think that the very livelihood and the standard of living of the working class depended on the fortunes of the British Empire, it was more comfortable to have the opportunity to earn one's daily bread than to support the Nationalist idea that was more sentimental than practical. That, of course remains a typical point of view that one may accept or reject. Thus Strickland, although partly of Maltese extraction, was easily identified with British colonial interest and his contribution to Maltese politics, genuine without doubt, would have been seen in the character of a generous foreigner rather than of a real politician of Maltese stock. His press would doubtlessly have been regarded in the same light even if some of his newsprint was in the vernacular. Augustus Bartolo, on the contrary, would have been looked upon as a 'complicit loyal Anglophile'' who unquestioningly followed the local colonial authorities, who courted favour, who edited the Daily Malta Chronicle in the language of the coloniser. In spite of their personal differences he was well partnered with Strickland. This is what it took to be pro-British at its Jack-waving best and there were no problems with it at the height of glory of king and empire. Even in the words of the very exponents of pro-British loyalty, the press in Malta was antiquated in its mentality and a relic of a by-gone age'. It allowed amateur journalists to have a free hand in rambling and propaganda. It was more often a source of mudslinging rather than information. "Our press is the laughing stock by the excess indulged in with impunity by papers which are devoted exclusively to the publication of libel, vulgar personal attacks and downright obscenity". Many times, the press was only a medium for political pamphleteering. The pro-British press was no exception. The issues chosen in this work are by no means the only ones dominating the good part of the inter-war years. Between the granting of self-government and its suspension, there would be significant others like schooling and jobs. They have been chosen because of their relevance to the topic of a pro-British press and the strong personal influence of Gerald Strickland. The character of a pro-British press sets the scene for the subsequent discussions on language, culture and national identity, where the English language started making fast inroads into the make-up of Maltese culture, precisely through a very effective press. The pro-British press also provides the appropriate backdrop for issues of religion, culture and national identity, where the medium of the English language itself, inevitably identified with the spread of Anglicisation and Protestantism, was Catholic in sentiment nonetheless. Finally, both to keep in perspective with the real issues that touched the people and even to reflect the reality that the pro-British press was socially conscious, a discussion on the main social issues has been included. In examining the newspapers of the years of self-government, the pro-British press was close enough to the living soul of the Maltese to influence radical improvement at a time when the working class was not yet a politically acknowledged category and the Labour Party was still in its infancy. Each of these chapters deserves a more in-depth analysis in its own right and this work does not claim to have covered the area comprehensively. Given as wide a span as fifteen eventful years, 1919 to 1933, in such a few pages it cannot be that ambitious, but hopefully it serves to focus on a singular aspect which was a significant contributor, the pro-British press. For this reason, relevant quotes have been taken down exactly to bring out not only the message but also the feeling of passion and sentiment of the journalistic pieces as they would have been read by contemporaries. The main primary sources used have been the newspapers, mainly of the pro- British variety, other primary sources such as the Secret Dispatches to the Secretary of State have been broadly consulted as have other official publications for back up statistics. Luckily a good number of private letters have been published through secondary sources and they have been quoted as necessary and duly credited. Two of such biographies which this short work has drawn upon for the more personal character of Gerald Strickland are Lord Strickland, Servant of the Crown (1986) by Harrison Smith and Adrianus Koster and Mabel Strickland (1996) by Joan Alexander. Publications in the years in question like Edwin Vassallo's Strickland (1932) and the more unflattering writings about him such as Benvenuto Cellini's Malta e La Politica Stricklandiana (1931) have not been ignored. The main drift will always be obtained from the daily press, where the reports, comments and opinions remain actual. After all it is the impact of the Pro-British press in a British colony that is under discussion here. It is in fact important to try to imagine, from the very words of the press that describes them, the social makeup of the folk of the inter war period who would have actually opened the newspaper to take a look at its contents. Apart from a literate or semi-literate reading public, the people were consciously or unconsciously kept in a state of ignorance which retarded their political development and their social and national consciousness.4 Most were so illiterate they could not read the newspaper or write a personal letter on their own, let alone to correspond with the editor. For this reason, there were a good number of newspapers in the vernacular after 1921 and if these were not read directly by the public, the Maltese idiom and its style was certainly intelligible to those who had it read to them. The advent of radio broadcasts in the time under discussion facilitated the message through the transmitted spoken word. With newscasters the like of Miss Edwina Mountbatten around 1935, it leaves little to the imagination as to which side of the political divide reaped most benefit. In spite of the substantial body of historical literature that has been penned in the last few years covering the inter-war period in Malta, it remains as interesting to look up and research original material and to discover newer information. To the enthusiast of Maltese modem history, it remains one of the most exciting periods of the island's political formation.