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Patrick Staines: Essays on Governing Malta 1813-1835. 2015, 626 pp.

A new book has just come out that should be of particular notice to those who entertain a developed interest in Maltese history.

Patrick Staines, who specialises in systems of government that were in force in the early years of British rule, published a book in 2007 entitled Essays on Governing Malta 1800-1813.

He has now produced a second book that takes the narrative a stage further, introducing in close detail, the first couple of decades of Britain’s tenure of Malta as a sovereign possession (1813-1835).

The first book had focused on the salient features of Britain’s occupation of Malta when Britain was in control of the Maltese islands in war-related circumstances, but without formal title.

The phase witnessed the first stirrings of Maltese political awareness, and it was also a time when Malta enjoyed unprecedented prosperity through its role as the coordinating hub of Britain’s efforts to break Napoleon’s continental blockade.

Most significantly, however, in terms of Malta’s future, it was a period during which Britain came to a determination to acquire a permanent title to the Maltese islands.

A Royal Commission was sent out in 1812 to assess the state of affairs in Malta and to examine too the case for the political demands and clamours that the Maltese were putting forth.

Britain declared its sovereignty over Malta quite unilaterally on Thomas Maitland’s arrival in October 1813. This, despite the continuing historical rights which, at the time, remained vested in the Kingdom of Naples. Effectively, the Crown’s title was only legitimised by the Treaty of Paris in 1814.

The decision to assume sovereignty over the Mediterranean outpost-cum-entrepot coincided with the outbreak of a virulent form of plague in May 1813 that decimated the population of Malta. The contagion descended with the coming to an end of the battle with France which, with its freeing up of the maritime trade routes along the Mediterranean, had a most unsettling effect on the archipelago’s economic well-being.

The new book introduces Maitland as Malta’s first British Governor and witnesses in detail the drastic reforms which he brought about in the systems of Malta’s government, notwithstanding the relatively short time he spent on the Maltese soil.

It goes into analytical detail respecting the judicial, financial and municipal changes that formed the core features of his administration, in part the outcome of the Royal Commission Report of 1812, and in other respects, his own con-struction, founded on his earlier Ceylon experience.

Maitland foresaw the decline in Malta’s maritime interest, which the coming of peace would bring about, early on. The book witnesses his strenuous efforts to keep Malta in the mainstream of British marine activity across the Mediterranean after 1814.

It testifies as well to his efforts to promote avenues for direct trade from Malta, as further afield as the West Indies.

His efforts failed to bear fruit, essentially because of an obstructive Board of Trade in London which ruled heavily against the fortress-colony’s pursuits. Another reason was the departure from Malta of virtually all the major traders who had earlier operated through Malta.

A hive of data not commonly available in the public domain

Malta’s participation in seaborne activity thereafter was relegated to a secondary plane of transshipment that functioned on marginal returns and generated poor levels of employment.

Protracted disputes ensued between the merchant community in Malta and the Maitland government over tariffs and other issues.

Litigations eventually led to the submission of the 1821 petition by the merchants’ community, effectively a challenge directed not only at Sir Thomas’s judgment but surely at his authority.

On the one hand, the book reflects on the measures that Maitland promoted to further the interests of ship-building at Malta. It also gives prominence to the measure he introduced to stem, to the extent possible, the decline after 1814 of Malta’s cotton related agricultural sector.

It likewise credits Maitland with an early awareness that, in Malta’s circumstances, the administration should look into the possibilities of industrialisation and, in fact, some instances of small beginnings in the area did emerge.

On the other hand, the book recognises that Maitland did not do anything to promote education at grassroots level, or really identify himself with the Maltese welfare interest in quite the same way as his successor governors did, particularly in matters relating to the alleviation of poverty.

On the strength of the evidence of his administrative record, and his personal relationships with the senior members of his staff, there is little, the book argues, to support the view that Maitland was the bullying autocrat which some historians have made him out to be.

Indeed, what the record does show is that he was a powerful leader who led from the front and had a good relationship, premised on trust and total integrity, with virtually all the senior officials with whom he would normally have dealt.

No doubt, the book is a wonderful pen portrait of Maitland the man. The latter’s insistence on the quintessential integrity of public service is well brought forth in the interesting cases (rehearsed in detail in the book) of disciplinary procedures taken against three highly placed British employees, who were dismissed from office for irregular practices.

The book treats concisely on Hastings’ governorship that was short but of considerable interest because he did make it an object of policy that the Government should, through its expenditure, promote employment.

It was a time when the first venture in organised emigration was undertaken, and it was also a period when Malta’s currency system began its conversion to a sterling base, both in Government accounting and in the metallic medium of exchange in circulation.

The book reaches out to the middle of the mid-1830s in several important respects. It speaks of the revival of Maltese political awareness, spearheaded by Mitrovich and Sceberras.

This revival led to the appointment of the 1835 Council of Government, and influenced the nomination of the 1836-1838 Royal Commission which, in its reports, impacted strongly and beneficially on a number of areas of Maltese concern.

Within the administrative province, the commission deplored the Government’s poor record generally in the management of its educational responsibilities and triggered off the subsequent powerful drive to develop both primary and secondary education.

Undoubtedly, the commission exercised a strong influence as well in enlisting Lord Glenelg’s support to prevail on the Governing authorities in Malta to accept that Maltese talent and suitability for appointment to the most senior posts within the public sector should be given due and, in some respects, even preferred, recognition.

The book also sheds light on the forms of local authority then in practice and on the roles of the district lord lieutenants, the deputy lieutenants and, later, the district officers in their respective administrative and judicial functions.

It is a little known fact that, as from the early 1820s, the Governors of Malta were subject to control by London in virtually anything they did of any importance.

Such a restriction on the governors’ discretion was compounded by the severe financial constraints under which the governments of Malta were obliged to operate as a result of encroachments by the British government on its revenue resources.

The author traces the flourescence of the civil service since the earliest days of British rule, takes stock of the sort of service it was (an aggregation of departmental units rather than a unified organisation) and the terms and conditions governing tenure of office, recruitment, retirement and political involvement that related to it.

Employment was then held ‘during pleasure’ but was effectively a tenure for working life, subject to good behaviour.

An appendix to the book gives in the composition of the civil establishment in 1821, which is of considerable utility, as it gives a snapshot of who was doing what in the public service and who was serving in what capacity, almost a couple of centuries ago.

The final essay relates to the controversial term of office of chief justice John Stoddart from 1826 to 1838. Stoddart was a man of appreciable talent who could have achieved a lot but for his oversized ego, his tendency to take umbrage too swiftly and his inclination to sweep aside government policy decisions.

For all these reasons, his views were often not espoused. He succeeded in antagonising even royal commissioners John Austin and George Cornewall Lewis and he himself no doubt contributed to their finding his post redundant.

Abolition of his office at the start of 1838 was facilitated and accelerated by the fact that, owing to a circumstance which the book fully explains, his appointment had been made out according to his superiors’ pleasure and not to performance.

The text is a hive of information not commonly available in the public domain, and should not fail to be of interest to devotees of Melitensia. Unquestionably, it makes one travel back in time to become acquainted not only with the main events but with the central characters of 19th-century Malta, now the ghosts of an era long since gone, by getting access to their minds through their writings.