“King George V is confident that the old loyal spirit still prevails, and that (Malta’s) people will so administer their affairs as not only to advance the welfare of their own community but to further the interests of the British Empire.”

This pivotal message was conveyed by the Prince of Wales on November 1, 1921, to elected members of Malta’s Senate and Legislative Assembly in their inaugural session at the Palace in Valletta following the election after the granting of the island’s first self-governing constitution, which was promulgated on April 30, 1921, a century ago this month.

The Prince of Wales (the future King Edward VIII) opened Malta’s first parliament in 1921. He is here seen coming out of St John’s Co-Cathedral accompanied by Bishop Sir Mauro Caruana.

The 1921 constitution was meant to sow the seeds of a new Maltese society following the grim events of Sette Giugno two years earlier when six citizens were killed by British soldiers during a national civil demonstration in Valletta in 1919. After World War I, many felt cheated, having served England and the Empire to win the war and then having to face a worsening of their social condition.

After a public outcry, the British governor was immediately replaced. A National Assembly, including most civil, religious and political elements of society led by Filippo Sciberras, had started meeting in February 1919 to pressure the metropole to negotiate a new constitution which for the first time would allow elected legislative members exercise “full political and administrative autonomy in affairs of local nature and interest”. The Assembly publicly recognised that imperial interests in defence and foreign affairs would remain securely safeguarded by the coloniser.

Malta considered a fortress

The 1921 constitution marked a change of British political policy towards Malta. Since 1835 the island had been primarily considered a fortress colony, thus granted less power over local affairs than other colonies, including Canada, which at the same time was given more representative rights. In 1838, Governor Henry Bouverie had criticised the Maltese liberals’ demand to hold public office. He considered such a move to be “fraught with inconvenience and difficulty and not impossibly with danger… so long as Malta is considered as a fortress”.

Letters Patent, providing for the constitution of responsible government in Malta, promulgated April 1921. Photo: courtesy OF National Archives

The 1921 diarchical system of governance, which had been already tried successfully in India, mitigated fears in London of any possible anti-imperial sentiments taking control on the island. On the other hand, the Maltese acknowledged that the only way forward towards self-rule was to accept the metropole’s ‘safe’ principle. As decades passed, and WWII was fought shoulder to shoulder with the British forces, inevitably the colonial consciousness was strengthened; the locals believed it was in Malta’s economic and security interest to appease London if constitutional progress was to be registered.

Furthermore, the new colonial constitution devised an electoral system of proportional representation so as to weaken the possibility of having a strong majority by one party in parliament.

There were other cautious guidelines which differed from what was happening in the metropole. While in Britain the suffragettes were calling for women’s full suffrage after having already obtained the vote for over 30-year-olds by 1918 (lowered to 21 like men in 1928), in Malta only men over 21 years of age who could read and write or who derived an income of at least £5 annually from property or capital, were eligible to vote or contest an election.

The Legislative Assembly was to have 32 members and the Senate 17, with a maximum life of three and six years respectively. Universal suffrage was introduced in Malta in 1947.

The island’s national religion

The new constitution brought a number of advantages to Maltese subjects. It certainly served as a watershed for the founding of political parties striving to establish identity and remove doubts in voters’ minds regarding, among other things, religion and the parties’ political foreign allegiances. Parties campaigned to become responsible for civil legislation, public education, the finances and local affairs.

Since the metropole refused to include a clause on Malta’s religion, all parties guaranteed that once elected they would declare Catholicism as the country’s national religion.

As regards adherences, some of the parties, in particular the Anglo-Maltese Party and the Maltese Constitutional Party, were generally considered more than just loyalist; they were imperialist. They defended their stand by affirming that imperialism was not an attempt at denationalisation.

One long century of constitutional evolution produced the credence, certainly by Maltese carrot people, that colonialism had offered an identity grander than their own

During the campaign they equated the English language with loyalty, accusing opposite parties, including the Unione Politica Maltese (UPM) and the Partito Democratico Nazionalista (PDN) with disloyalty. Both UPM and PDN vehemently refuted charges of disloyalty to the Crown as they were promoting Italian, the language of the literati and the courts for centuries, as a rampart against denationalisation and Anglicisation.

The newly-constituted Labour Party did not show excessive pro-English or pro-Italian feelings, but since most of its supporters were employed by British entities, it wanted to maintain the best relations with the authorities. The party also promoted the teaching of English as a way to facilitate employment and better access emigration opportunities in other British colonies, even though the latter was robbing the island of its male trained labour force.

An impressive crowd in front of the Palace awaiting the governor’s proclamation of the Letters Patent on April 30, 1921, granting responsible government to Malta, with insets of the two main protagonists, Lord Plumer and Dr Filippo Sciberras. Photo: Chretien & Co, 1921, courtesy of National Archives

The language question

The language question – featured in all previous elections held under illusory constitutions – not only lingered on through the 1921 election campaign but practically marked it.

Maltese was acknowledged as the language of the populace but only promoted as a tool to learn English. Imperialist intentions were perceived as promoting the native language to disguise a ploy through which English would be disseminated instead of Italian, as in fact happened after 1934 with the declaration of il-Malti as the official language of the island.

All this was happening in a world context wherein, following the end of World War I, the British Empire was facing a series of intense remonstrations in several of its colonies, including India, where 379 civilians were gunned down, but also in Egypt and Ireland. In the spring of 1921, martial law was imposed across the southern half of Ireland followed in December by the creation of the Irish Free State as a self-governing dominion.

In Malta, the new ‘liberal’ constitution was also significantly accommodating British rule: Malta’s economic and social problems were now to become the sole responsibility of Maltese legislators. Furthermore, some Maltese politicians expressed hesitation for the ‘reserved matters’ clause, wherein the governor still had the last word.

Imperial interests first

While in 1921 Malta had progressed substantially regarding self-rule, British imperial interests continued to take precedence. In fact, when the situation threatened these interests in 1936, the constitution was superciliously retracted.

Other complications facing Malta’s first parliament included the teetering education system. British Governor Lord Plumer attributed the main obstacle to financing, although he claimed that instruction would have functioned better had there not been continued disputes over language.

While tragic anti-British protestations in Ireland, India and Egypt in 1919 led to bumpy political pathways towards early independence, Malta’s conciliatory politicians, having largely embraced Englishness mostly for economic improvement, were granted independence as late as 1964, additionally retaining the British monarch as head of state until 1974.

The vastness of the British Empire as seen on a seaman’s booklet displaying the crests of British colonies at the start of the 20th century. Malta’s crest with the eight-pointed cross (right) symbolising Maltese identity. Photo: Wellcome Library, London

Conceivably as a consequence, most of the island’s independent citizens ended up perpetuating a false self-perception wherein emulating the English remained an ambiguous way of upholding some superior consciousness. One long century of constitutional evolution produced the credence, certainly by Maltese carrot people, that colonialism had offered an identity grander than their own.

Such a perception of British benevolent paternalism – which in actual fact turned out to be more of benign despotism – took deep root in the 1920s and was nurtured in later decades by apt strategic loyalty conditioning. Several Maltese politicians consolidated this mentality, strengthened after World War II, to such an extent that it also won over former Italianate politics.

Although after 1974 the new republic did away with the colonial head of state, so many other links to the older ‘British way’ of doing things survive. These include an ubiquitous colonial heritage in Valletta conspicuously crowned by Queen Victoria in Republic Square and the George Cross on the flag; public unctuousness towards Malta’s national language, often switching to English, reinforced as the planet’s lingua franca;  projecting a colonial identity in tourism; and investing millions of euros in a former monarch’s derelict house when British tourists continue to decline and the future of British royalty is dismally beleaguered.

Are colonialism scholar Albert Memmi’s words – “many learn how to turn a blind eye and forget their identities in order to survive” – an elucidation to Malta’s story?

Charles Xuereb, lecturer on identity and memory