Malta's chequered history goes back to the hoary day of antiquity until it is lost in the mists of time. Right up to 1964, when Malta attained independence, the Maltese people were under one form of foreign domination or another but, tenaciously, they preserved their national identity.

The mortar that gave solidity to Maltese national independence was a mix that has stood the test of time and included our religious faith, our language and the imperatives of co-existence with the occupying masters.

Some of these masters were benevolent, others tyrannical. In many cases, ultimate decisions were taken in far-away capitals over the heads of the Maltese people.

Historians have been, very often, hard put to it to penetrate the wall that separated the Maltese people from the decision-makers.

During the 160-odd years of British rule, for example, the inhabitants of these islands were conceded the right of limited self-government, intermittently suspended by the imperial authorities.

The prevailing, but unbending, Westminster view, encapsulated by the Duke of Wellington, held that "Malta was a seaport and fortress, a great arsenal in the Mediterranean. To treat it in any manner but as subservient to its naval and military uses is preposterous."

Malta's legitimate aspirations to exercise the right of self-determination was therefore ruled out particularly with regards to foreign policy and defence. These powers were reserved to London, whose authorised representative in Malta was the Governor and Commander-in-Chief.

Throughout the years of British rule, there were no less than 40 governors of Malta, all of whom communicated directly, and often secretly, with London, from where they took their instructions. That wall of secrecy was invisible. It was as impenetrable as an iron curtain.

Thanks to the 26th governor, general Sir Charles Bonham-Carter, we can now see, through a chink in that wall, and peep into the goings-on during four of those years, namely 1936-1940.

The governor kept a diary in which he recorded his activities, as well as his frank opinion, on people and events.

His military background and his liberal views blend well. So do his astute views and disarming openness.

Extensive extracts from this diary, edited with discretion have now been published by John Manduca, 60 years after the event. His comprehensive introduction is preceded by a preface under the signature of Professor Victor Griffiths.

This is first-degree, witness evidence.

Sir Charles Bonham-Carter took office at a time when the Malta constitution was suspended, when the Spanish civil war was raging, Mussolini was claiming the Mediterranean as Italy's Mare Nostrum and Hitler was aggressively throwing his weight in Central Europe.

In Malta, the clouds of war were gathering. Fascist activity muddied the political waters. Local politics were simmering up. Bonham-Carter found himself immersed in the complexities of the "language question," the divisive confrontational politics, the insistent clamour for the restoration of local self-government, and the routine, day-to-day management of the administration.

He set about to win "the heart and minds" of the people by getting close to them through visits to their towns and villages, where he spoke to their parish priests, called at the band clubs and met citizens in their own private homes.

He inspected government departments and gave equal attention to the views of departmental heads and their subordinates.

His views on politicians and prelates, aristocrats and functionaries, high an low, are candid, sometimes indiscreet, without regard to rank or status. As such, they will sugar many a cup of tea.

Opinions are opinions and could be off the mark, whether they come from Sir Charles Bonham-Carter or the readers of this diary.

Not so the facts and the circumstances of the Bonham-Carter days.

Here you have a seasoned and experienced military man with liberal views coming to an Island fortress which happens to be home to a population, that had its deeply-entrenched aristocracy and accomplished professional and civil service class living cheek by jowl with a relatively impoverished working class.

The indigenous population totalled about 260,000 of whom only some 50,000 had the right to vote and the franchise did not include women.

Shop employees worked a 60 hour day. The wage of bus drivers was four shillings a day (bus conductors, three shillings) for a six day week of 14 hours each day.

Social conditions in the health and education sectors were sparse and minimal. Working class housing conditions were primitive and provisions for unemployment, which stood at about 10,000 in 1937 were practically non-existent. Bonham Carter involved himself in raising awareness to these problems.

He considered the tax systems iniquitous and recorded that "It will, I expect, be necessary to do a certain amount of preaching and preparing the minds of the public as far as we can for changes and had no doubt that the well-off will squeal like a 100 baby elephants when they have got to pay more and the poor less. Unfortunately, they are vocal and the poor largely uneducated."

Even more striking were Bonham-Carter's repeated insistence, with his superiors in London and with the most senior officers in the Garrison, on "the immense importance of realising that Malta is a colony inhabited by white people, and that it would be not only sound and wise but remunerative to treat the Maltese exactly in the same way as Australians and Canadians."

These sentiments are peppered repeatedly over many of his diary pages and the fact that they needed insistent repetition relected a state of affairs that must have fanned the embers of resentment in Maltese quarters.

All this is valuable raw material unearthed late in the day, which now measures the distance travelled by progressive Maltese quarters that militated for progress and above all, social justice.

The task of mobilising workers in their respective trade unions, the introduction of trade union legislation and social service benefits, compulsory education and universal suffrage was no joyride. It called for struggle against the serried forces of reaction, who are still conducting a rearguard campaign.

It is one thing for general Bonham-Carter to identify the ayatollah-driven forces of old. It is another to eradicate them altogether.