“Now, in regard to this matter of a free press in Malta… what is Malta? It is a fortress and a seaport ‒ it is a great naval and military arsenal for our shipping and forces in the Mediterranean. We hold it by conquest, and by treaty after conquest. We hold it as an important post, as a great military and naval arsenal, and as nothing more. My Lords, if these are the facts, we might as well think of planting a free press on the fore deck of the admiral’s flag ship in the Mediterranean…”
(Excerpt from a speech given in the House of Lords on Thursday, May 3, 1838 by the Duke of Wellington in a debate on whether Malta should be granted liberty of the press).
During the Maltese insurrection against the French, Lord Nelson had written on April 6, 1799 that “The poor Islanders have been so grievously oppressed by the Order (of St John) that many times we have been pressed to accept of the Island for Great Britain...”
Sir Ralph Abercromby, the commander in chief of all the British Forces in the Mediterranean, wrote on December 9, 1800 that the Maltese had been “very ill governed” and the “knights were bad masters”.
Great Britain was to rule the Maltese for the next 164 years. Did it rule them well and were the British good masters? Did Great Britain rule Malta for the good of the Maltese or in the interests of the British Empire?
In June 1803, Lord Nelson told British prime minister Henry Addington: “I now declare that I consider Malta as a most important outwork to India, that it will give us great influence in the Levant and indeed all the southern parts of Italy. In this view, I hope we shall never give it up.”
In 1880, Maltese doctor Charles Casolani criticised the British Imperial government for neglecting the welfare of the Maltese people: “… it would appear difficult to deny that the blame is entirely due to the government if after 80 years of British dominion these islands are in such an unsatisfactory sanitary condition.”
In his book on Sir Temi Zammit, Zammit of Malta, His times, life and achievements, Roger Ellul Micallef concludes that: “Social conditions in Malta throughout most of the 19th and early 20th centuries were poor and starvation for many was never far away.”
Apart from quoting extensively from Casolani’s different reports on Malta, he also carries the observations of several British visitors to Malta. In 1832, Anglican clergyman Richard Hurrel Froude said the Maltese were being held in a “wretched state, almost starving”. He also said that England held Malta “by a very precarious tenure” and “govern it most oppressively”.
We still need to have good relations with as many different countries as possible and neutrality should help us do that- Evarist Bartolo
Another protestant clergyman, Charles Rockwell, stopping briefly in Malta in 1842, said how impressed he was with “so much squalor, wretchedness, beggary and woe, as everywhere meets one in Malta”. Politician and social reformer Samuel Plimsoll, after visiting Malta, said in his pamphlet ‘Condition of Malta’ (1879) that the ‘Manderaggio’ in Valletta was “a public scandal in a town under British dominion”.
Casolani had said this was “disgraceful for a Christian population and for a wise government to drive them (working classes and the poor) into unhealthy, narrow and dingy lodgings – such as underground cellars, overcrowded common lodging-houses, or in musty and unclean dwellings at the Manderaggio”.
Becoming a colony again
During 164 years of British rule, thousands of our people, deprived of a future in their homeland, had to emigrate to all corners of the world to find a job and build a decent life. In around 194 countries in the world today we can find around 120,000 first- generation and 300,000 second- and third-generation Maltese and Gozitans. We have a diaspora of about 420,000, as many Maltese and Gozitans live in our islands.
As a colony, the political rights and the social and economic conditions of the Maltese were completely subordinated to British imperial interests. It was only when the Maltese took their destiny into their own hands that they started running Malta as if the Maltese people mattered and the life of the Maltese started to improve.
We have been able to develop our country economically, socially and politically only since we started making our own decisions.
As we celebrate today the 44th anniversary since the closure of the British bases in Malta on March 31, 1979, we must not shy away from asking all the necessary questions about the best way to protect our security and prosperity in the new geopolitical global landscape that is emerging.
Since we incorporated our policy on neutrality and non-alignment into our constitution 36 years ago, the world has changed. But does that mean that we should now abandon our constitutional voluntary and unilateral commitment not “to participate in any military alliance” and to continue ensuring that “no foreign military base will be permitted on Maltese territory” and that “no military facilities in Malta will be allowed to be used by any foreign forces”?
As we consider all these issues soberly and rigorously, we must keep in mind that neutrality is not just a constitutional undertaking but also has geopolitical and economic implications. We should not rush and simply imitate what other countries are doing for their own legitimate reasons.
We should think with our own heads on how to best to promote our security, prosperity and values. We can lose control of our destiny without being invaded and occupied militarily by any of those powers that still consider us to be in their sphere of influence if we sheepishly obey their orders even when they go against our national interest.
In the highly polarised world that is emerging after the Ukraine war, we still need to have good relations with as many different countries as possible and neutrality should help us do that.
Evarist Bartolo is a former Labour education and foreign minister.