Seychelles
p. 69 · Read in the full issue
What Has Happened to a Little Known ‘Paradise’
THE following is from a private letter to the editor: I know something of Islands life, for I have resided in the Seychelles Archi pelago (Indian Ocean) and I would be there now were it not for the sabotage and vandalism of the present British “Labour” Government.
Creech Jones and company are white anting local charm and character, and meddling with languages, customs, modes of living and traditions. A swarm of “weliarers” and superfluous officials, be having like fish out of water and bulls in china shops, have intensified inferiority complexes, and hatred and contempt for everything Anglo-Saxon and Celt is grow ing rapidly.
The Seychelles natives, who vary greatly in appearance—being white, light-brown, dark brown and black—are daily becom ing more insolently offensive, familiar and disagreeable. They never did have any sexual morals whatsoever, but their redeeming virtues —including hospitality and generosity—are giving way to low cunning, cynicism, unscrupulousness and disloyalty.
The full story is too long and compli cated to relate here. But the late Attorney-General, a black Seychellois, exercising almost dictatorial powers given to him by the Governor, created friction everywhere and tried to ruin the planters, for which he received many pats on the back from Downing Street. English Con servative members of Parliament were appealed to by the Seychelles Taxpayers Association, a KC was imported from Mauritius, and High Court judgments in connection with alleged income tax eva sions were reversed.
However, irreparable damage has been done and British prestige and justice are now ridiculed. The midget colony, that was once a paradise, has changed to a bureaucracy and is rapidly becoming standardised and drab.
A big drawback to Seychelles is the pressure of many dirty, miserly Indians, who monopolise trading and money-lend ing, and resort to every possible shady and paltry trick to add to their savings.
If they ever wriggle into Australia, then ring down the curtain.