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The West Indies: Improbable Federation?*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Elisabeth Wallace
Elisabeth Wallace*
Affiliation:
University of Toronto
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Extract

Political opponents of Mr. Norman Manley, Jamaica's able chief minister, whose party has supported federation, once quoted against him a speech in which he referred to The West Indies as “the most improbable federation ever conceived.” Even its friends must admit that the original federal agreement lent colour to his description, by establishing a central authority which the Prime Minister, Sir Grantley Adams, recently characterized as both weak and poor. The constitution of 1958 gave the national government very limited jurisdiction and no power to tax. Its main sources of income were contributions from the unit governments, which produced an annual revenue of some nine million West Indian dollars—less than one-fifteenth of that in Trinidad or Jamaica. Profits on the currency issue yielded an additional three million dollars.

Thus the political framework of The West Indies resembled the American Articles of Confederation or the Federal Council of Australasia far more closely than that of a genuinely federal state. West Indians have sometimes said that their constitution was modelled on the Australian, because each assigned residual powers to the units. This view, however, is misleading, since in Australia as in Canada the national government has paramount power to tax and thus authority has inevitably gravitated to the centre.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science/Revue canadienne de economiques et science politique , Volume 27 , Issue 4 , November 1961 , pp. 444 - 459
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association 1961

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Footnotes

*

This is a slightly revised version of a paper read on June 8, 1961, at the meetings of the Canadian Political Science Association in Montreal.

References

1 In a speech broadcast on April 23, 1961.

2 Mr. Joseph Bousquet of St. Lucia, reported in the Daily Gleaner (Kingston, Jamaica), 11 19, 1960.Google Scholar

3 Sears, Dudley, “Federation of the British West Indies: the Economic and Financial Aspects,” Social and Economic Studies, VI, 06, 1957, 204.Google Scholar Of the federation's total population of 3,115,000, some 1,500,000 are Jamaicans.

4 In a speech at the annual conference of the Jamaica Labour party, Daily Gleaner, Jan., 23, 1961.

5 These incentives have been criticized by the West Indian Economist (August, 1960) on the ground that “the politicians must drop the idea that the best way to make a nation is to proceed on completely anti-national lines in economic policy. To tax your nationals heavily while offering tax concessions to the foreign investor is to deny the reality of the nation from the outset.”

6 Parchment, Clinton, “Federation-Jamaica's Safeguard,” Daily Gleaner, 06 26, 1961.Google Scholar

7 The Times (London), 06 1, 1961.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., May 27, 1961.

9 “The habit of the cult,” a Jamaican journalist complained, “is childish and catching, and quite unnecessary to civilized people. It also tends to be unselective, and is therefore dangerous.” Wright, Thomas, Daily Gleaner, 04 18, 1961.Google Scholar

10 Daily Gleaner, March 3 and June 8, 1961.

11 Ibid., May 12, 1961.

12 Wright, Thomas, Daily Gleaner, 05 18, 1961.Google Scholar “Mr. Manley,” he added, “at once anxious for a federation and apprehensive of its effects on Jamaica, has decided to eat his cake and have it too.”

13 The Times, June 1 and 2, 1961; Daily Gleaner, June 9, 1961.

14 The Times, May 18 and 29, 1961. West Indians themselves have sometimes made harsher assessments. Clinton Parchment, in the Daily Gleaner of June 26, 1961, maintained that “the innate threat of relapse into disorder and tyranny menaces all the West Indies, but particularly Jamaica and Trinidad.” It might be argued, he added, that “the West Indies, with their selfish and violent politics, untaught and inflammable masses, and severe economic and other stresses, are unpromising material for the creation of stable and democratic independent states … Federation, and membership of the Federation in the Commonwealth, are the available framework, which offers a readymade and potent safeguard against deviation from the democratic system and tradition.”

15 The Times, June 2, 1961, reporting comments by Mr. F. L. Charles.

16 Thomas Wright, June 8, 1961.

17 June 3, 1961.

18 Daily Gleaner, May 10, 1961.

19 Report of the West Indies Constitutional Conference, 1961, Cmd. 1417 (London, 1961).Google Scholar

20 Daily Gleaner, Oct. 18, 1960.

21 Ibid., Feb. 7, 1961.

22 The West Indies and the Spanish Main (London, 1859).Google Scholar

23 East Indians form just over half the population of British Guiana, a fact which is one among several reasons why it has not yet joined The West Indies.

24 In 1959 these amounted to almost three million pounds in Jamaica alone. West Indies Federal Review (11-Dec., 1960), 19.Google Scholar

25 See The Times, June 1, 1961, for the views of Sir Grantley Adams. In 1960 ten per cent of the population of St. Kitts emigrated, mostly to Great Britain.

26 The Hon. Ivan Lloyd, quoted in the Daily Gleaner, Nov. 12, 1960. In Jamaica alone the population is increasing by 40,000 a year, the labour force by 24,000, and new openings in industry by only some 2,700.

27 The Times, June 2, 1961, report of Mr. E. T. Joshua's speech; Daily Gleaner, June 7, 1961.

28 Wright, Thomas, Daily Gleaner, 06 8, 1961.Google Scholar

29 Mr.Bradshaw, Robert, reported in the Daily Gleaner, 04 17, 1961.Google Scholar

30 During 1960 a branch was established at Trinidad, and the famous Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture, founded in 1902, was transferred by the British government to the University College of the West Indies.

31 In a speech on October 12, 1960, at a ceremony marking the merger of the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture and the University College of the West Indies.

32 During his remarks at the constitutional conference in London, May 31, 1961.

33 In an address at Trinidad, Oct. 12, 1960.

34 Speech at Sheffield, England, June 4, 1961, reported in the Daily Gleaner, June 5, 1961.

35 256, 261 electors, or 54.11 per cent, voted for secession; 217,319, or 45.89 per cent, voted to remain in the federation. In the capital city of Kingston those in favour of federation out-numbered those against it by four to one.

36 The Times (London), September 21, 1961. As this article goes to press within a week of the Jamaican referendum, no more can here be said about the future prospects of the federation. They hinge on the attitude of Trinidad and Tobago, on whether Dr. Eric Williams can be persuaded to reconsider his decision that if Jamaica seceded, his territory would follow. A firm believer in strong central government (like most public men in Barbados and the smaller islands), in the vain hope of conciliating Jamaica he had acquiesced reluctantly in the weak federation proposed in June, 1961. Without Jamaica, the East Caribbean islands of Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, and the Leewards and Windwards form a much more natural geographical entity, and may be able to agree on a revised federal constitution giving reasonable powers to the national government.

37 This was forcibly argued in a publication of The West Indies Federal Information Service, The Federal Principle (Port-of-Spain, 1959).Google Scholar