Chapter VII

FOR the past ten years the major political question in British Guiana has been how to transfer power from the British Crown and government to a responsible and representative local government. Views on the difficulty or ease of solving this question vary according to the position and interests of the holder though there is now fairly general agreement that the final resolution of the question cannot be delayed much longer. British Guiana, like other colonies and ex-colonies, faces the most difficult task of trying to bring about rapid economic and social change while creating the requisite political consensus and stability to make this possible, a task made even more difficult than usual by the small size and ethnic diversity of the population.

The constitutional reforms of 1928, which have already been described in Chapter III, marked the beginning of a new and more widespread interest in politics though this interest was to remain disorganized until much later. During the 1930’s there were two elections held under the new 1928 constitution, and the composition of the legislature did not change very much. There was evidence of increased interest on the part of East Indians and four Indian members, all professional or business men, were returned in the 1935 elections. In 1931 another commission from Britain visited the colony to report on the financial situation. As a result of their visit it was decided to give a series of grants-in-aid from the British Treasury to enable the country to regain financial stability and to liquidate some of the debts incurred during the 1920’s for work on sea-defence, drainage, sanitation, and pure-water supply. This involved a measure of Treasury control over colony finance which did not end until 1943.

In 1938 the West India Royal Commission was appointed to carry out a comprehensive investigation of the social and economic condition of all the British territories in the Caribbean following a series of disturbances and labour troubles which swept through the area. The full findings of the commission were not published until 1945 but their main recommendations for reform were, and an immediate start was made upon their implementation. The British government decided to make substantial increases in the amount of money available for colonial development. In 1943 there were further changes in the British Guiana constitution, reducing the property qualifications for candidates for the Legislative Council, removing the bar on women and clergymen, reducing the property or income qualifications for voters, and increasing the number of elected members to give them a majority in the Legislative Council. The Governor retained control of the Executive Council and the right to disallow or pass legislation against the wishes of the Legislative Council. Owing to delays occasioned by the war no general elections were held after 1935 until November 1947, by which time new political forces were beginning to emerge and the beginnings of political party organization could be faintly discerned.

The next major revision took place in 1953 following upon the recommendations of the Constitutional Commission of 1950-1, and this inaugurated the final phase of constitutional and political development to be dealt with in this book. The main outlines of the 1953 constitution are presented here and the events leading up to its suspension and partial restoration dealt with in the next section, on political party organization.

On the recommendation of a three-member commission substantial changes were made in the constitution bringing it into line with changes being made in other West Indian territories. The idea behind the commissioners’ recommendations was to place British Guiana on the road to eventual self-government by permitting elected representatives to take a major share in the running of the country. At the same time they were of the opinion that the Governor should still take an important part in the determination of policy and that he should retain reserve powers. To this end it was decided that:

1. The franchise should be altered and that universal adult suffrage should obtain at the age of 21 years.

2. A bicameral legislature should be set up consisting of a House of Assembly of 24 elected members and three ex-ofhcio members, the Chief Secretary, the Financial Secretary and the Attorney-General, and an upper Chamber, the State Council, with limited revisionary powers, consisting of 6 members nominated by the Governor, 2 nominated by the majority group and one by the minority group in the House of Assembly.

3. Elected members need no longer possess any property or income qualification, but must be literate in English.

4. An executive body called the Court of Policy was to be established consisting of the Governor, Chief Secretary, Financial Secretary, Attorney-General, and seven ministers, six of them elected members of the House of Assembly and one minister without portfolio to be chosen by the State Council. Each minister was to be individually responsible to the Governor.

These are the main features of the changes of 1953, and although the commissioners stressed the desirability of the growth of political parties it is clear from their recommendations that they did not envisage the emergence of strong parties for some time.

At various times during British Guiana’s history associations of leading citizens had been formed for the purpose of pressing some particular point of view or furthering some interest. These groupings were sometimes referred to as political parties, as in the case of the Reform Association, which agitated for the constitutional reforms of 1891, or the Popular Party that was active in the 1920’s. Since the constitution did not provide for any group of elected persons taking office there was little incentive for such parties to develop strong internal organization. Nor was such a development encouraged by the narrow franchise and the prevalent practice of buying votes. None of these early political alliances survived for very long, and all were ridden with internal factional dissension. Formed for the attainment of short-term goals they were likewise short-lived.

After the Second World War when it became evident that far-reaching changes in the status and political organization of colonies was inevitable, a few of the more politically conscious Guianese started to prepare for the new deal that had been suggested by the Royal Commission of 1938 and had been announced in the new British policy of colonial development. What they saw ahead of them was a struggle against colonialism for national independence and higher standards of living. They were by no means unique and were in fact lagging behind other West Indian territories such as Jamaica, Barbados, and Trinidad where popular political parties appealing to the labouring class had already been formed. As far back as 1922 the first trade union in British Guiana (and in the British colonies), had been formed by H.N. Critchlow, who was at that time a waterfront worker. The British Guiana Labour Union, as it was called, represented the interests of mainly Negro workers in Georgetown and its most important offices were filled by men who were not ‘workers’ but professional and business men who were prominent in the politics of the 1920’s. In 1937 the first union to cater specially to the needs of East Indian sugar workers, the ‘Man-Power Citizens Association’ was formed by Ayube M. Edun. The rather odd title of this trade union derives from a scheme devised by its founder for the reorganization of the British Empire, and set out at some length in a book he published following a visit to England in 1928.[1] An alternative to Communism, Fascism, Ghandism, and sundry other ‘isms’, it involved Britain in becoming the centre of a world order based on what its inventor called Rational-Practical Idealism. In this new state there would be a number of divisions to which persons would be allotted on the basis of ‘accurate scientific statistics’. These should be the ‘Supreme Council of Intelligensia,—Intelligensia—Transitionary Intelligensia—Man-Power Citizens (man-power of Brain and Hands—Women-Citizens—Children of the R.P.I. State—Disabled Citizens of Mental, Physical, Social Disabilities—Retired Citizens, and Essential Division of Functions’. As a start towards the inauguration of the British Renaissance, Mr Edun launched a weekly newspaper, the Guiana Review, and then started the Man-Power Citizens Association which had the immediate and less ambitious object of bettering the conditions of work on sugar estates. In 1939 the Sugar Producers’ Association recognized the union and various agreements as to wages and working conditions were subsequently concluded between the two bodies.

By 1947 there were no less than 23 unions of workers, 6 employers’ organizations, and 5 associations of independent tradesmen, most of them formed within the previous two years, and none of them except the MPCA (Man-Power Citizens Association) claiming more than 600 members. Whilst these unions represented the beginnings of a real demand for improved standards of living and for a better society for the ordinary people of the country, they tended to be ridden with factionalism and were ill equipped to launch a political campaign. This is not to say that they were not involved in politics; the unions have always had a strong political involvement, a not surprising state of affairs considering the size of the population, the dearth of leadership, and the necessity for aspiring politicians to demonstrate their interest in the cause of the enfranchised classes. As soon as the franchise was extended beyond the very narrow confines of the small upper and middle classes the politician had to appeal to a class that was relatively homogeneous in regard to its economic depression no matter how internally divided in terms of race.

With the first elections in twelve years due to be held in 1947, prospective candidates began to survey the situation and some attempts were made to organize political parties. The British Guiana Labour Party was formed in June 1946, and at its inaugural public meeting the President, Dr J. B. Singh, declared: ‘Tonight I am introducing to you a Political Amalgam of our Racial groups in British Guiana.’ The party represented an attempt to form a coalition of different interest groups, East Indian, Negro, and various unions, to sponsor candidates for the election. It did not really succeed in uniting the different factions and as soon as the elections were over it broke up. The Man-Power Citizens Association officers all stood for election but all except one lost their deposits. The newest, and at that time perhaps the most feeble, quasi-party was a group formed by Dr Cheddi Jagan in 1946 and named the Political Affairs Committee.

Dr Jagan was a young dentist, the son of an East Indian estate ‘driver’, who had spent seven years working his way through college in Washington and Chicago, and had returned to British Guiana in 1943. Both he and the American girl he had married, were passionately interested in politics and both took a left-wing, Marxist view of the British Guiana situation, seeing it as part of a wider problem of colonialism and capitalist exploitation. They tried to find ways of making their views known, writing articles with a pronounced Marxist flavour in small papers such as Indian Opinion, the organ of the East Indian Association. Dr Jagan became treasurer of the MPCA. In 1946 the Political Affairs Committee was formed, mainly for the purpose of political education. Evening classes were organized and a monthly news-sheet produced. Dr Jagan stood for election in the sugar-estate area of East Demerara and was returned to the Legislative Council in 1947. Among the other elected members there was no party alignment and little likelihood of one until the question of new elections and further constitutional advance appeared on the horizon. In 1949 it was announced that an independent commission would soon be appointed to examine the franchise and the constitutional position and to make recommendations for reform.

In January 1950 the People’s Progressive Party was formed out of the old Political Affairs Committee and a part of the remnants of the now defunct British Guiana Labour Party. Since then the PPP has been the dominant force in Guianese politics; the pace-setter for all other political aspirants. The two main characteristics of the party were its programme of uncompromising reform and its ability to unite the major racial groups in a common party with aims transcending racial group interest. Much of this ability was due to the partnership between Dr Jagan and Mr L.F.S. Burnham, a young Negro barrister who returned to British Guiana from London in 1949, became President of the British Guiana Labour Union, and threw in his lot with the People’s Progressive Party when it was formed in 1950. The idealism and determination of the leaders of the PPP and their organizing ability soon began to make it into the first really operating political party the country had ever had. The aims of the party were clear. It stood for self-government, economic development, and the creation of a socialist society. Such aims implied a complete social revolution, were really incompatible with a declared British policy of gradual advance to self-government, and tended to neglect many of the problems of radically altering the economy of a poor, under-populated colony in the western hemisphere. From the beginning the party was labelled communist by the conservative press, and although this was mainly a device to discredit radicalism of any kind there is no doubt that many of the party leaders found inspiration in the writings of communist theoreticians and in the techniques of rapid economic development that they believed had been employed in countries such as Russia and China. The communist ethic of the brotherhood of all men, and the possibility of creating a just and prosperous society through the application of the supposedly basic laws of social and economic organization, provided just the kind of unifying force that could provide the way out of the tangle of petty preoccupations and factional struggle, or so it seemed to many young educated Guianese. Neither in the country at large nor in such intellectual circles as existed, was there any informed discussion of either Marxism or of economic development; the opposition merely seized upon the word ‘communism’ and attempted to equate it with evil, so that words such as ‘red’, ‘communist’, ‘imperialist’, and ‘exploitation’ became so many weapons hurled back and forth until they tended to obscure the real issues and to make rational action less easy for anyone.

Within the party itself there had been almost from the beginning a marked difference of opinion over strategy. The Jagans headed a faction that was extremely idealist, dedicated to the acceptance of a bitter fight which they believed should be carried on as part of a wider struggle against capitalism and colonialism. It seems unlikely that they were absolutely clear or consistent in their views but they maintained as many contacts as possible with world socialist and communist organizations and took a keen interest in the affairs of other colonies. The party weekly newspaper Thunder under the editorship of Mrs Jagan frequently printed articles sent out by the British Daily Worker and the Communist Party in Britain; Dr Jagan imported as much literature as possible on Marxism and on the progress of communist countries; and many members of the party, including Dr and Mrs Jagan, attended meetings, congresses, and rallies of communist and left-wing organizations in Europe. Other members of the party, while not necessarily considering these activities to be in any way sinister or wrong, thought them at least ill-advised in a situation where they could be seized upon as a possible means of proscribing the party or denying the country that political independence they all sought. This danger became particularly acute with the wave of anti-communist hysteria, launched by the now discredited Senator McCarthy, that was sweeping the United States in the early 1950’s. It was unfortunate that this difference of opinion over tactics should run partly along racial lines, and introduce a strain between Dr Jagan and Mr Burnham that was naturally aggravated by their very human competition for leadership of the party.

Despite these latent antagonisms the party held together and grew in popularity and membership. It made its first major public impression with a lengthy memorandum to the constitutional commission, and subsequently opposed the commission’s recommendations on the grounds that the substance of power was withheld from the people of the country and that it would be impossible for an elected government to bring about that complete social and economic revolution that was deemed necessary. Shortly before the elections in 1953 the anti-PPP campaign was greatly intensified by the daily newspapers (all of them controlled by the sugar and commercial interests), and by the president of the MPCA, which was by now the main union enjoying the confidence and co-operation of the sugar producers and the bauxite companies. The president of this union Mr Lionel Luckhoo, was a nominated member of the Legislative Council and he launched a campaign to prohibit the importation of ‘subversive’ literature into the country, meaning by this the various left-wing and communist propaganda tracts sold or distributed by the PPP. The passing of this bill gave the party a great fillip and made people much more interested in the now banned literature than they had ever been before. Mr Luckhoo’s final piece of assistance to the party took the form of a four-page supplement to the Sunday newspapers published a week before the elections, enlarging on the dangers of communism, the horrors of slave camps in Russia, the evil designs of the PPP on peasants’ land, and urging the electorate to vote for any candidate other than a PPP candidate. Since it was widely believed that this supplement must have been paid for by the sugar producers, the general reaction was—’if they are so much against the PPP it must be good for us’.

Before discussing the outcome of the elections and the subsequent fate of the People’s Progressive Party it is necessary to examine the other political parties which had been formed. The only one with any pretence at effective organization was the National Democratic Party. Originally an offshoot of the Negro League of Coloured Peoples it became a basically Negro party with a few Portuguese and East Indians on its executive. Anti-communist and anti-PPP, this party represented the nearest thing to a coalition of anti-PPP elements that could be achieved, and unfortunately this was about all that its leading members had in common. The party produced a programme that was sufficiently similar to that of the PPP to make it unconvincing. (It was much less adequately presented.)

The main support of the NDP was in Georgetown and New Amsterdam, both predominantly Negro, and in some of the more conservative rural Negro villages. The tendency to fragmentation which is characteristic of loose organizations with ill-defined goals produced a series of damaging splits in the fabric of the NDP before the elections. One important faction broke away to form the People’s National Party which put up eight candidates at the election, some of them standing against NDP candidates. The other two parties which contested the elections were of very recent growth and represented loose coalitions of aspiring individuals rather than being real political parties. They were the United Guiana Party and the United Farmers’ and Workers’ Party. The former put up four candidates, the latter only two.

When voting began at 6 a.m. on Monday 27 April 1953 for the first elections ever to be based on universal adult suffrage, there were 130 candidates contesting 24 seats. No less than 79 of these were independents. From a newly-prepared electoral roll of 208,939 persons, 152,429 valid votes were cast, 51 per cent of them for PPP candidates, who gained 18 out of the 24 seats. Seventy-eight candidates lost their deposits.

In view of the grave charges subsequently levelled against the People’s Progressive Party it is worth noting that the election campaigns and the election itself were absolutely free from violence or disorder. The order and discipline of the public reflected the responsible attitude of the party leaders. There was enormous public interest and enthusiasm; the country felt itself to be on the eve of a revolution, and yet the leaders of the PPP urged again and again that theirs was to be a constitutional and legal victory and they pledged themselves to attain the final goal of complete independence by the same means. On polling day the voters went to the polls with a quiet determination that had been unknown in previous elections. Despite all that has been subsequently said about the gullibility of the electorate, anyone who was in touch with the ordinary people of British Guiana in April 1953 knows that they had accepted the PPP as the instrument of a new deal for the country, and they voted for it as a party that would work for a better future for them and their children. For a brief moment sentiments of a national unity transcending race or class or religious affiliation predominated. It was a time of excitement and hope containing the promise of a release of new energy and purpose for the building of a better future. Before the end of the year British troops had been landed, many of the leaders of the PPP were in prison, civil liberties had been suspended, the old atmosphere of hopeless depression had returned, and the basic cleavages of race and class had begun to reassert themselves.

The full story of the events leading up to the suspension of the constitution on 8 October 1953 is a long one and at this distance of time it is impossible to appraise all the factors involved with anything like complete objectivity. Both the British Government’s White Paper setting out the reasons for the suspension of the constitution,[2] and the report of the commission subsequently appointed to recommend necessary constitutional changes[3] are primarily attempts to justify the action taken by the British Government. Michael Swan in his more recent Corona Library book, British Guiana: The Land of Six Peoples, takes much the same line, with the addition of a long eulogy on the sugar industry. Various publications by members of the deposed government give some idea of the aims and ideas of the party and are valuable on that account.[4]

Stated very briefly, the position taken by the Colonial Office, by the Robertson Commission (on the constitutional changes necessary following the suspension), and by unofficial spokesmen of the British case such as Mr Michael Swan, was that the suspension of the constitution became necessary in order to preserve law and order, to safeguard the economy and private property, and to prevent the establishment of a one-party communist regime. The official British view was that British Guiana had been given a liberal constitution which would permit locally elected politicians to take a large share of responsibility for the running of the country. Within the framework of the constitution they were expected to work harmoniously with the Governor and his appointed officials to implement the kind of policies and development programmes broadly approved of or suggested by the British Government, the United States of America (through such organizations as the World Bank), and the various United Nations agencies. They were expected not to tamper with British economic interests in the country and preferably to pursue a policy of attracting foreign capital for private investment. The principal task of government was felt to be the creation of a favourable climate for investment, the provision of social services, and the development of basic capital assets such as roads, drainage and irrigation, and so forth. It is not untrue to say that considerations such as these form the unwritten clauses of transitional colonial constitutions and the successful colonial politicians have been those like Bustamante and Manley in Jamaica, Grantley Adams in Barbados, and Nkrumah in Ghana, who have observed these unwritten clauses, for a time at least. In other words there was at that time a sort of unwritten code of behaviour expected of colonial politicians; it was assumed that they would take a radical, nationalist, and usually left-wing line, be swept into power under new constitutions and then, realizing the responsibility of office, become moderates in a partnership with British officials and foreign business men. This is the royal road to political independence and it could be argued that any sensible politician would take it no matter what his ultimate ends might be.

In British Guiana the leaders of the People’s Progressive Party did not accept, perhaps did not even understand, these unwritten clauses in the Colonial Office-drafted contract. Whether it be to their credit or their shame they tended to mean what they said in their election manifesto and attempted to implement their declared policies. To begin with they did not accept the Waddington constitution as the proper instrument for the independent government of the country, and therefore never ceased to oppose what they considered to be the real locus of power. They did not feel themselves to be the government of the country; their aim was complete self-government for British Guiana, and much of the action of the elected members between April and October of 1953 must be viewed in the light of these facts. Such powers as they had they often used to embarrass ‘the government’, meaning the representatives of the Crown, and to try to further the progress of the party as an instrument uniting Guianese in an opposition to outside forces. This has been recognized and deplored by all critics of the party. The alleged participation of ministers in trade union disputes, including the fomentation of strikes, must also be viewed in the light of these facts. This might be an improper course of action for a minister of the British Crown but not necessarily improper for a man who feels himself to be fighting on a broad front for freedom from foreign domination.

The declared aims of the party as set out in its manifesto are in no way exceptionable. The party announced its socialist character, and planned economic development with improved social services on a broad front with the ultimate goal of establishing a socialist state. This was exactly the kind of policy declared by other political parties in other colonies such as Jamaica, Barbados, and the Gold Coast. The leaders of the PPP realized that such a goal cannot be reached overnight from the situation obtaining in British Guiana, and although there does not seem to have been any very clear conception of what the steps in the process of economic development might be, there was a general feeling among the leadership of the party that the thing to do for the present was to encourage the inflow of capital from as many sources as possible. The sugar industry in general and Bookers’ in particular were bound to come under attack but there is no indication that any really drastic steps were to be taken immediately. Nationalization of the sugar industry has always been declared to be the ultimate goal of PPP policy but this was not stressed in 1953.

Before the elections the party executive did not expect to win such an overwhelming majority of seats; consequently they had not really prepared for the possibility of assuming ministerial office. The assumption had been that the party would have enough seats to make it into a very influential opposition able to expose what they regarded as the sham of the paternalistic constitution. If the Governor had been forced to appoint ministers from the other side of the house, the PPP could have settled down into the routine of political life while watching their opponents struggle with the task of working the new constitution. One possibility that was discussed was that of refusing to accept office anyway, despite the size of the majority, on the grounds that the constitution gave only the shadow and not the substance of power. Once the decision to take office had been made the leaders of the party had either to conform to the expected pattern and work with the Governor, prove their reasonableness and wait patiently for the next constitutional concessions from Westminster, or they could try to use the constitution as though it did give them the power to run the country as they saw fit. By doing this they would force the Governor to make explicit at every turn the fact that this was not a constitution designed to give complete power to the elected representatives of the Guianese people. In the event they chose the latter course and whilst working within the framework of legality they tried to show the limitations of the constitution and were only too ready to precipitate a constitutional crisis. This point is worth stressing because there was absolutely no occasion on which the elected ministers stepped outside the bounds of constitutional legality; the crisis they wished to provoke was one which showed what they considered to be the inherent weakness of the constitution and not one which would involve violence or illegal acts.

On 9 October 1953 the Governor resolved the conflict which had developed between his conception of the way the constitution should be worked and the demand of the leaders of the PPP to run it in the way they saw fit. He resolved it by getting the British Government to suspend the constitution, by declaring an emergency, taking over the government of the country himself, and by obtaining British troops from the Jamaica garrison to ensure that the news should not provoke disturbances that could not be dealt with. He made a speech over Radio Demerara on the same day explaining the presence of the troops, which had been landed overnight and were patrolling with guns at the ready, and giving the reasons for the suspension of the constitution. These were subsequently amplified in a British Government White Paper. The opening words of the first statement on the matter made by the British Government, a statement which was read before the Governor’s broadcast on 9 October, were: ‘Her Majesty’s Government have decided that the constitution of British Guiana must be suspended to prevent Communist subversion of the Government and a dangerous crisis both in public order and in economic affairs.’ The White Paper, which was not published until 20 October, listed eleven examples of the conduct of ministers which were held to justify the step that had been taken. They were

(iv) Introduction of a bill to repeal the Undesirable Publications Ordinance and the flooding of the territory with communist literature.

(vii) Plan to secularize Church schools and to rewrite textbooks to give them a political bias.

The case presented in this White Paper is a weak one and this was recognized by Mr Harold Macmillan (then Minister of Housing and Local Government), during the Commons debate on the British Guiana crisis when he said;

It may be true, and I think it is true, that none of these separate accusations against the People’s Progressive Party leaders could be held sufficient in itself to justify the serious course which Her Majesty’s Government have had to adopt; but surely, taken together, they are really conclusive.[5]

The Hansard reporter did not put an interrogation mark after this passage. Mr Macmillan went on to answer his own question in a resounding affirmative, but an element of doubt pervades this whole debate. The accusations of an arson plot (based on the evidence of informers who were subsequently unwilling to give evidence in court), that the party was attempting to undermine the Boy Scouts and the Girl Guides, the indignation at the attempt to repeal legislation banning the free entry of persons and literature, the accusation that ministers ‘specialized in vicious anti-British, anti-white propaganda’; all these charges lent weight to Mr Griffiths’s contention that ‘Some things have been brought into this White Paper which, quite frankly, I think give the impression of scraping the barrel for evidence.’[6]

When the troops arrived they found no sign of a crisis, the world’s journalists who soon descended upon the country were hard put to find a story, and on 9 October (the very day on which troops were landed with guns at the ready), the inter-colonial cricket match between British Guiana and Trinidad began in Georgetown and went off without incident before a capacity crowd. The editor of the Daily Argosy, who had been a leader of the anti-PPP campaign since 1950, was seriously thrown off balance by the news of the suspension and the landing of troops and he complained in his editorial that he had not been informed of the Governor’s intention and saw no reason for such drastic measures. It took him several days to adjust to the new policy. Once these extreme measures had been taken it became necessary for the Governor, with the backing of the British Government, to continue to act as though there had in fact been an imminent danger of violent revolution and economic collapse. ‘Experts’ on communism were imported and a widespread campaign of searches and raids on private homes and offices were carried out by security police. In their enthusiasm these ‘experts’ often confiscated well-known anti-communist classics merely because the title contained a reference to Marx or the Communist Party. Many members of the PPP including Dr and Mrs Jagan went to prison for technical breaches of the security regulations. Others were confined to certain areas and some were required to report to the police daily.

Seen in isolation the British Guiana constitutional crisis would be difficult to understand; seen against a background of the cold war of the early 1950’s and against the background of the methods chosen by the British Government to solve the Suez problem it becomes more explicable. A fundamental lack of communication between the leaders of the party and the main British officials aggravated the situation. In retrospect it is easy to see that some of the words and actions of the young extremists in the party were more the product of youthful rebellion than of disciplined dedication to a political ideal. But the real question is whether the action taken by the British government achieved its purpose. Dr Jagan would perhaps have begun to establish closer trade ties with countries from the communist bloc and Russia would have had a friend of sorts on the South American continent, though it is unlikely that there would have been any real turning away from the west. Even if there was a real danger of British Guiana eventually becoming completely dominated by the communist powers, the remedial action was so far in advance of the disease that it may have proved valueless. It is also clear that this drastic cure for a disease that had not fully developed has had severe side-effects. Dr Jagan (whose political philosophy and aims are unchanged) will soon be the Prime Minister of an independent British Guiana in any case, but the difference is that he is now the leader of a party which has ranged against it not only the old conservative elements but a large section of the original PPP which has split off under the leadership of Mr Burnham. This split may be pleasing to those who believe in a two-party system at any price; it must be regretted by those who fear conflict based upon differences of race. The problem of the cold war, spheres of influence, and political vacuums remains despite all that has been done, and it still remains to be seen whether the new situation in British Guiana is more conducive to the growth of democracy than that which existed in 1953.

It was mentioned earlier that a difference of opinion had existed within the party almost from its inception, principally over the kind of tactics appropriate to the attainment of political power and independence. Many of the professional men and government employees who had joined the party when it was formed or when they had returned from studies overseas found that the over-enthusiasm of some of the party members for the cruder forms of communist propaganda was becoming a source of embarrassment to them and they began to be worried about the communist label that was being ever more firmly attached to the party. Many of them resigned and attempted to persuade Mr Burnham to do the same. The majority of these men were Negro or Coloured and they would have liked to see a political party in British Guiana taking the path that was being followed by moderate socialists in other colonies. They were prepared to follow the gradualist policy favoured by the Colonial Office and considered that the implementation of any extreme socialist policies would be inexpedient in the Guianese situation. They did not fear the left-wing elements in the party as a group organizing to secure power and establish a totalitarian state; they considered that the actions of the extremists were stupid and ill informed. Mr Burnham saw quite clearly that Dr Jagan was not merely the leader of an extreme left-wing faction within the party but was also the leader of the majority of East Indians and of many sugar workers of other races as well. Any attempt to expel him from the party would mean the loss of the Indian vote and he would carry the more extreme Negro and Coloured group with him as well. He decided to stay in the party to preserve the solidarity of the left-wing anti-imperialist front. It was a sensible and realistic decision under the circumstances. Dr Jagan has never considered himself to be the leader of the East Indians as such and has consistently turned aside any questions on the ‘racial problem’ as being irrelevant to the Guianese situation; attempts to divide the working class on the basis of race he regards as playing into the hands of the colonial and capitalist powers. In this attitude he has always been consistent and his undeviating stand on an extreme socialist platform has won him support from members of the other racial groups. Being a realist he must know that many Indians do vote for him as a person rather than as the representative of a particular social philosophy and he has had to make many compromises with his expressed beliefs during the past years.

The team-work between Dr Jagan and Mr Burnham during the 1953 elections paid handsome dividends in terms of success at the polls. Racial preferences could be contained within the broad appeal of the multi-racial PPP. Mr Burnham appealed to the Negro voter, Dr Jagan to the Indian, but neither of them appealed directly or in terms of race. While the constituencies were divided among candidates on the basis of race in many cases, there was the very healthy spectacle of Mr Fred Bowman, a Negro, being elected by an overwhelmingly Indian electorate on the west coast of Demerara.

The first split in the party came at the beginning of 1955 when Mr Burnham, together with a section of the PPP leadership, contrived to hold a disputed annual general meeting in Georgetown, thereby getting himself and the other members of his faction elected into positions of control. For a long time afterwards each faction continued to call itself the PPP and each faction published a weekly news-sheet entitled Thunder. The break was by no means a clean racial split. The Burnhamites claimed to have got rid of the extremists who were using the party for their own advantage, and two of Mr Burnham’s main supporters were Indians, Dr Lachmansingh and Mr Jai Naraine Singh. Several Negroes and Coloured members of the original party executive stood by Dr Jagan. When plans were announced in 1956 for the introduction of a new constitution, under which there would be a return to elections and the resumption of a limited participation in government by elected representatives, an all-party conference was called and a large public meeting held in Georgetown. All parties were united in their condemnation of the proposals and demanded the return of the 1953 constitution as a minimum. There was still a basis for the expression of a united Guianese point of view.

In August 1957 the first elections since 1953 were held under a revised and extremely flexible constitution in which the form of the government depended a good deal upon the discretion of the Governor. Real power was firmly retained in the hands of the Colonial Office but it was a big advance from the sorry spectacle of ‘the interim government’ in which a wholly nominated legislature and nominated ministers put into effect a programme of legislation designed to raise living standards quickly and, it was hoped, to remove some of the discontents which enabled the PPP to win so many votes in 1953. Most of the men who accepted nomination to this interim government achieved office at the expense of any hope of future election. Under the circumstances it might have been more realistic for the Governor to administer the country directly for a time rather than to prejudice the political future of a large number of conservatives.

Both factions of the PPP contested the 1957 elections along with the United Democratic Party (now more than ever the political branch of the League of Coloured Peoples); the National Labour Front (an anti-federation party led by Mr Lionel Luckhoo and designed to win Indian votes from Dr Jagan); a weak party called the Guiana National Party, and a few independents. The Jagan faction won nine seats, practically all with substantial majorities and all in rural constituencies. The Burnhamite faction won three seats, all in Georgetown, and two of them (including Mr Burnham’s own) with very slender majorities. In two of these Georgetown constituencies the close runners-up were candidates of the National Labour Front—Mr Lionel Luckhoo and Mr John Fernandes, both wealthy conservatives. New Amsterdam once more elected its favourite son, Mr W. O. R. Kendall, despite his having been a member of the interim cabinet and irrespective of the fact that he was sponsored by the United Democratic Party. The Governor nominated enough members of Dr Jagan’s choosing to satisfy him and to give him a working majority and he took office. Five members of the Jaganite PPP have been acting as ministers since 1957, and further constitutional changes leading to complete self-government are planned with new elections to be held in 1961.

A constitutional conference was held in London in March 1960.[7] Presided over by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Mr Macleod, and attended by members of the British Guiana Legislative Council representing all the main political parties, it set a vague target date for the attainment of full independence by British Guiana. The most interesting feature of this target date was the fact that it was tied to the date on which the West Indies Federation should achieve independence, it being assumed that this event would create a new situation so far as British Guiana’s constitutional position is concerned. The new constitution, which was reluctantly agreed to by the chief members of the British Guiana delegation, is to come into effect in August 1961 and the first elections under it are to be held shortly thereafter. Its main features are that it accords a large measure of responsibility to the majority group in the Legislative Assembly but the control of law and order, defence and external affairs remains with the Governor. At the conclusion of the conference Dr Jagan declared that the British Guiana delegation was going back ‘still as Colonials with a Crown Colony status’. Certainly the new constitution falls far short of Guianese aspirations but it points a clear road to full independence within a very short time.

It is extremely difficult to foretell the future of political party organization in British Guiana, particularly as factional realignments take place with monotonous regularity. In October 1957 Mr Burnham’s faction of the old PPP changed its name to People’s National Congress and the name of its weekly paper to The New Nation. Mr Jai Naraine Singh, who had been elected member for Georgetown South as a representative of the Burnhamite PPP, resigned in January 1958 from the People’s National Congress to form his own Guianese Independence Movement. On 1 March 1959 it was announced that the People’s National Congress had merged with the United Democratic Party. Since the name was to remain as the People’s National Congress, the merger seems to have been more in the nature of an absorption, and it reflected Mr Burnham’s acceptance of a more racial basis for future electoral contests. Within the Jaganite PPP there was first of all a serious difference of opinion on ideology among the members of the party’s intellectual elite, leading to the resignation of many of the younger members. Very few of the people referred to as ‘communists’ in the 1953 upset are still in the party; as a matter of fact most of them are in highly respectable middle-class occupations and have withdrawn from active politics. Dr Jagan’s control of his faction and of the Indian vote has been challenged by one of his own ministers, Mr Edward Beharry, who was expelled from the party and obliged to relinquish his portfolio. This man represents a vocal but not very numerous element in Dr Jagan’s following—the Indian shop-keeper and medium-sized farmer group. Mr Fred Bowman, one of Dr Jagan’s most loyal Negro supporters in the old days, also left the party in May 1959 and joined with a Mr Shakoor Manraj to form a new party, the Progressive Liberal Party, in August of the same year.

Many of these party loyalty realignments represent a rearrangement along racial lines, while others are the result of the crystallization of minority-group economic and status interests. Since these sometimes overlap racial group differences, the exact basis of the alignments is not always easy to distinguish. It is clear though that the present polarization of leadership around Dr Jagan and Mr Burnham is fraught with dangers. In the absence of any serious ideological difference between them, and given the fact that Mr Burnham has broken away from the main party which is still the repository of socialist doctrine, Mr Burnham inevitably has to depend upon an appeal to the urban Negro electorate. The most serious problem of British Guiana politics is the fact that Mr Burnham’s party is becoming more and more purely Negro in character, and worse still, that many of his supporters are becoming more anti-Indian. There has been much talk about British Guiana being a plural society and it is not unlikely that someone will make a serious bid to get a system of proportional representation on the basis of race written into the final constitution. It is to be hoped that such a bid, if made, would be unsuccessful, for it would be a most seriously retrograde step from which the country might never recover. The whole trend has been in the direction of creating a unified society within which there is a high degree of religious and cultural freedom and racial tolerance. At this crucial stage in the country’s development not even open racial conflict and violence would justify a departure from the principle of a united society in which racial differences are ignored at the political and administrative levels. It would be an act of statesmanship on the part of British Guiana’s politicians if they could form some sort of coalition, of if a reunited party similar to the old People’s Progressive Party could be formed with the express intention of tackling the urgent problems of economic development. Quite apart from helping to counteract tendencies to racial division, such a coalition would be more likely to produce a leadership capable of exploiting all the available sources of economic aid without becoming over-dependent upon either east or west.

One of the main problems facing British Guiana, so far as the attainment of goals of ‘development’ is concerned, is the improvement of the administration and the expansion of governmental activity. The question of the relation between the PPP and the civil service has already been touched upon, but the problem is not simply one of human relations and differing attitudes. No matter whether the political philosophy of the party in power be conservative and ‘capitalist’ or radical and ‘socialist’, in a period of rapid development the government must take a leading part in the economic process even if its role is limited to creating conditions favourable to increased private capital investment. If the prevailing political philosophy is in favour of greatly increased government action in economic fields, then it becomes imperative that the bureaucratic machine should be both technically competent and sufficiently complex to carry out policy. It is not possible for politicians to carry out the whole range of administrative and development functions themselves and this is something that they sometimes have to learn the hard way.

British Guiana is a country with a small population and a very limited budget and the whole tradition of administration has been one of economy. Under pressure from the Colonial Office the civil service was transformed during the nineteenth century from a small patronage service dealing only with a minimum of administrative duties to a relatively efficient service carrying out a range of welfare activities as well as implementing policies more directly pleasing to the planter interest, such as the importation of immigrants and the enforcement of the laws governing the relation of master and servant. After 1840 the programme of activities in the fields of education, health and sanitation, and public works was fairly extensive though much of it was implemented by the Churches and the planters rather than by the government directly. Economic development was not considered to be a proper part of government activity until fairly recently, but there was some tradition of research into agricultural problems (much of which was connected with sugar agronomy and therefore of direct interest only to the planters), and gradually the government had been drawn into road maintenance, land settlement, and the provision of water control. Since 1940 the rate of growth in the size of the civil service has been high, and there has been expansion in the size of the staffs of such key departments as agriculture, public works, and geological survey.

Before the introduction of the new constitution in 1953 the public administration was highly centralized and under the direct control of the Governor working through the office of his second-in-command, the Colonial Secretary. The Colonial Secretariat was the central clearing house for all branches of government; no important decision could be made or implemented without approval from the Colonial Secretary and, if necessary, the Governor. All correspondence went through a central registry. The vigour with which policies leading to reform and development were implemented depended very largely upon the Governor and the Colonial Secretary, working within the broad policy framework laid down by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, though from time to time particular departments or individuals would come to prominence. This happened with the post of Immigration Agent- General in the nineteenth century because of the wide range of activities vested in the office under the laws relating to immigrants, and it happened to the post of Commissioner of Local Government in the 1940’s when this official became responsible for the implementation of much of the new legislation relating to welfare and labour. The establishment of a special Development Secretariat within the Colonial Secretary’s Office was useful, but as with most of the new activities broadly classed as ‘Development and Welfare’ this was regarded as something extra, tacked on to the administration rather than being an integral part of it. Professor Simey, in his book Welfare and Planning in the West Indies, pointed to the necessity for a completely new orientation in governmental activity rather than the mere addition of welfare departments to governmental machines designed primarily for the maintenance of an antiquated status quo.

During the 1940’s the then Governor, Sir Gordon Lethem, introduced the idea of getting the elected members of the legislature more intimately involved in the process of government by appointing them to departmental advisory committees. The logical extension of this was the introduction of a ministerial system under the 1953 constitution. The establishment of ministries involved considerable reorganization of the civil service, a fact which should be borne in mind when the charges of inefficiency levelled against the first ministers are considered. If the elected ministers were new to public office, it is equally true to say that the civil servants were quite new to the idea of working with and through ministers. The close control over all government action which had previously been exercised by the Colonial Secretariat was relinquished except for certain key matters. These were defence, police and internal security, and control of the civil service. Since the Financial Secretary also remained an appointed rather than an elected official, some degree of centralization at an administrative as well as a political level had to remain. It is in these matters of re-structuring the bureaucracy that the real problems of devolution of power from colonial officials to national politicians lie. Fortunately the system of ministries as a basic part of the administrative apparatus was retained in British Guiana even during the period of the interim government. Although the Governor appointed ministers directly, choosing men who would be prepared to work with him, the civil service was able to settle down in its new structure ready for the return to constitutional advance. This undoubted advantage of creating an interim government has to be set against the politically damaging effects it had upon the ministers themselves. Since 1957 elected ministers have been responsible for the following activities: trade and industry, education, local government, social welfare, community development, natural resources, labour, health, housing, communications and public works.

In 1953 it was realized that the problem of determining development policy and arranging for its execution would become more and more important as time went by. Accordingly an Economic Council was suggested, to consist of the Financial Secretary, the Minister of Labour, Industry, and Commerce, the Minister of Communications and Works, and the Minister of Agriculture. The Development Secretariat was to be attached to this body. This Secretariat has always been small and far less attention has been paid to the problem of development planning than is necessary in a country such as British Guiana. Its main task has been the preparation of the Development Plan, but so long as basic statistics are hard to come by the preparation of such a plan involves little more than listing all the desirable developments in what appear to be the most crucial fields and then preparing estimates for them. A small statistics section has been set up but the tendency is still to rely upon outside agencies such as the United Nations, the Colonial Office, or the University College of the West Indies to carry out even routine surveys to provide basic data. The question of whether British Guiana can afford a sizeable government Statistics Department and a Planning Unit is bound to arise, but it is certain that a stream of experts who come and stay for a short time is no substitute for a permanent organization which is constantly at work examining and re-examining proposals and testing them against reliable knowledge of the state of the society and economy. Such a body, working closely with the ministers, can seek outside advice and make sure that it is properly used instead of being filed away with all the other reports of ‘experts’. If British Guiana joins the West Indies Federation it would automatically share in the federal statistics and planning services, but it would still be highly desirable for there to be a local organization of high quality to assess British Guiana’s relation to federal policy.

Although the densely populated area of British Guiana is quite small and the total population of the country is less than that of a medium-sized European city, it is served by no less than ninety-four separate local authorities. These are all under the general supervision of a statutory board working through a department of the central government. This system of local government is inefficient, and although it gives some appearance of a democratic participation in local affairs, the village councils are too small and impoverished to be effective. The urgent necessity for reform is amply demonstrated by Dr A. H. Marshall’s recent report on local government.[8] The historical development of the local government system is admirably described in a study by Allan Young.[9]

Apart from the two towns of Georgetown and New Amsterdam, which have had a quite separate administrative history, the local government system as it exists today has grown out of the necessity for some kind of organization for the maintenance of sea-defences, drainage, irrigation, roads and bridges in the coastal region. Before 1838 practically all the settlements on the coast were on plantations, each of which formed a relatively autonomous and self-contained unit. During the first quarter of the nineteenth century the central government began to impose some restrictions upon the planters’ autonomy through laws regulating their treatment of slaves, providing for public health measures and requiring them to maintain the public roads and bridges on their property. Since then the number of laws bearing on the internal regulation of plantations has increased greatly but the nineteen present-day sugar plantations are still outside the local government system and their managements still provide a great many social services for residents. With a resident population of 90,000 this is a large responsibility.

With the final abolition of slavery and ‘apprenticeship’ in 1838 the ex-slaves began to think of acquiring some degree of independence from the plantations. Anticipating this move, yet desirous of retaining a pool of labour close at hand, many planters began to make small plots available for sale to the ex-slaves on which they could build their cottages and make small gardens. Villages were laid out at the front of the estate and each family bought, and held title to, its own lot. Young has distinguished this type of settlement as ‘Proprietary Villages’ in contrast to the ‘Communal Villages’ which were established shortly afterwards.[10] The Communal Villages resulted from the freedmen’s desire for agricultural land on which they thought they would be able to establish themselves as independent farmers growing cash crops as well as subsistence produce. In contrast to the Proprietary Villages, in which each villager bought his own plot of land, the Communal Villages were purchased on behalf of groups of as many as 130 persons by one or two of their number. The amount of money paid for some abandoned plantations to be converted into villages was remarkably high; New Orange Nassau, an abandoned cotton estate of 500 acres on the East Coast Demerara, was bought by 128 labourers for $50,000 in 1840.[11]

By 1850 the main impetus of the movement from plantations to villages was spent; there were 44,456 creoles settled in villages as opposed to 19,939 still resident on the sugar estates. Twenty-five Communal Villages had been established, there were 7,000 individuals owning land in the Proprietary Villages and thirteen settlements had been established on Crown Lands sold for the purpose. Having come into existence, the problem now was how these communities were to be administered, and by whom.

The nature of the coastlands was, and is, such that the maintenance of sea-defences, drainage and irrigation works is essential for beneficial and economic operation of the land. In the case of sugar plantations the upkeep of these essential works was a first charge on the planters’ resources. When a plantation had been bought co-operatively by as many as 100 people, some means had to be devised for apportioning responsibility and co-ordinating activity. Apart from the necessity of maintenance for agricultural purposes, the central government had an interest in seeing that the public roads running through the villages were properly maintained and that the sanitary conditions did not deteriorate to a point where they could threaten the whole colony with an outbreak of disease. While it would have been perfectly logical for the central government to have brought into existence a system of local administration including some form of taxation,[12] the situation was such that planters and Governor alike were reluctant to take any action which might have resulted in the labourers’ withdrawal from the vicinity of the plantations and perhaps from the coastlands altogether. In 1840 Governor Light issued a directive to the stipendiary magistrates in which he urged them to render assistance to the shareholders in the Communal Villages. At this time the villagers were attempting to run their plantations as co-operative enterprises, growing cash crops, marketing them, and sharing the profits. Light urged the magistrates to advise the villagers to secure contracts for supplying cane to the factories, to urge them to subdivide the land and acquire individual title-deeds, and to enter into contractual agreements among themselves for the internal administration of the villages. The idea of agreements was widely adopted by the villagers, who were assisted in drawing them up by the magistrates and the missionaries who were established among them. In 1951 the author discovered a written agreement of this kind, dated 1866, still in the possession of a villager.[13] Apart from providing for the election of officers to administer the affairs of the village, the agreements bound the shareholders to contribute to the upkeep of the village works by labour or cash, and usually empowered the elected officials to impose fines and other penalties for breach of the contract. Although this form of local government received a measure of support from the central government in the form of advice and limited supervision by the magistrates and other officials, it had no legal standing and depended for its success upon the voluntary submission of all the villagers to the elected officials. It can be confidently said that the voluntary agreement system never resulted in a really well-administered and developing village. At best it enabled the villagers to keep going and, with a strong committee or headman, to keep the drainage and irrigation works up to standard. At worst it resulted in chaos.

In 1845 the inhabitants of the Proprietary Village of Queenstown, Essequibo, found themselves unable to reach agreement on the apportioning of work for the maintenance of the public road through the village, and finding themselves in danger of losing their land in proceedings against them, they petitioned the Court of Policy to create a village council with powers of taxation backed by law. An ordinance was passed creating the ‘ Commissioners of the Public Road and Bridges of Queenstown’, a body consisting of a Justice of the Peace, the District Commissioner of Roads and Bridges (a post originally created under the Dutch), and four villagers elected by the proprietors. The Commissioners had to prepare an annual estimate for transmission to the Governor and the Court of Policy. Although the functions of the Queenstown local authority were limited to road and bridge maintenance, it bore many of the characteristics of all later local government arrangements in British Guiana. Except when the villagers were left completely outside the law there has always been some form of supervision or participation by District Commissioners and the central government; village authorities have rarely been expected to administer anything except essential services, such as maintenance of drainage and irrigation works and roads; they have always been relatively small and poor. From the very beginning the whole problem of local government was treated in a haphazard and piecemeal way. After Queenstown, several of the Communal Villages got into difficulties and petitioned for some sort of municipal government. Here the problems were greater on two counts; there was the problem of providing a legal basis for taxation through the establishment of individual legal title to lands. Lack of capital and of access to profitable markets soon resulted in the breakdown of the cooperative method of farming and in most of the Communal Villages subdivision or ‘partition’ into separate holdings took place. If taxes were to be imposed it was necessary to provide some method of granting legal title, and to this end cadastral surveys were carried out.[14] The other main difficulty was the need for maintenance of quite extensive drainage and irrigation works on lands that were not yielding substantial profits. As soon as a Communal Village was subdivided, it became extremely difficult to ensure that every proprietor would contribute his share of labour to the overall drainage and sea-defence system, especially as many villagers preferred to spend their time working for wages on the sugar estates. If even one villager wished to continue farming, the whole village lands had to be properly drained. This problem of providing sea-defence, drainage, and irrigation at the level of the individual village has never been solved satisfactorily and the trend is towards incorporating villages in much larger drainage and sea-defence areas where proper planning and execution can be carried out under trained engineers. As early as 1849 Governor Barkly had formulated proposals for a two-tier system of local government in which certain essential services such as roads, sea-defence, and public health would be entrusted to regional bodies standing half-way between the villages and the central government. These proposals were never put into effect though the idea of County Councils was frequently discussed during the next hundred years. Instead a mass of legislation was passed instituting ad hoc measures to meet particular situations. The gradual assumption of control of essential services by the central government eroded away the responsibilities of the local authorities. Practically the only responsibility left to the village councils was the raising of a rate to pay for internal drainage and irrigation works, and even here close control was exercised by the central government which has frequently had to make loans and grants to prevent a complete breakdown of the system.

At present plans are in hand for a complete reform of the local government system on the basis of the recommendations made by Dr A. H. Marshall. At the time of his visit to the country in 1955 the system was constituted in accordance with the provisions of the Local Government Ordinance of 1945, which may be regarded as the consolidated expression of many previous measures. Under this ordinance provision is made for dividing the colony, exclusive of the towns of Georgetown and New Amsterdam, into Village, Country, or Rural Districts. The distinction between these three types of district is based upon the type of local authority established. In a Village District, a village council (consisting of not more than nine persons, of which two-thirds are elected and one-third nominated by the Local Government Board),[15] is constituted as a corporate body to run the affairs of the village. A Country District has exactly the same functions as a Village District but the members of a country authority are all nominated by the Local Government Board and therefore it is considered to be less ‘advanced’. A Rural District is merely a district declared to fall within the limits of the local government system but in which all the functions of a rural authority could be performed by the District Commissioner. Despite the powers granted under the ordinance to incorporate any part of the country if it is considered necessary, in 1955 only 54.3 per cent of the total population was resident in areas having any kind of local government. A curious convention has been established whereby any particular locality can opt to ‘join’ the local government system provided that 51 per cent of the landowners desire it, but otherwise is free to remain outside. The sugar plantations have always been outside, providing a host of free services for their inhabitants.[16]

The other main feature of the Local Government Ordinance of 1945 is its provision of a Local Government Board constituted by the central government to supervise and control the local authorities. This Board was first established in l907, to replace various other organizations which had exercised a close supervision over the village councils. The Board is composed of ten members, the Commissioner of Local Government, the Director of Medical Services, the President of the Village Chairman’s Conference,[17] three members of the Legislative Council, two members of village councils or country authorities, one person nominated by the British Guiana Sugar Producers’ Association, and one other person. The Commissioner of Local Government, a civil servant in charge of district administration, is chairman of the Board, and the Board’s decisions are implemented through his department and his District Commissioners. Under the ordinance the powers given to the Local Government Board are so broad that it can not only create local authorities and supervise every aspect of their activities, but it can also assume complete control of them at any time. With the exception of some of the larger villages, it is no exaggeration to say that the councils could easily be abolished and not be missed under the present system. The actual administration of the villages, which consists in the collection of rates on the one hand and the disbursement of payment for village works on the other, is really carried out by the village overseers under the close supervision of the District Commissioner’s Office and the Local Government Board.

Dr Marshall has recommended that this present unsatisfactory and ineffective system should be abolished as soon as possible and replaced by a completely different one. He recommends the creation of not more than eighteen authorities which would cover the whole of the coastlands including the present unorganized areas and the sugar estates. These new authorities would be big enough and wealthy enough to afford to employ well-trained staffs, and he recommends that they take on a number of activities which are at present dealt with by the central government. Social welfare, certain health services, distribution of water and electricity, fire services education of all kinds, and the planning of village lay-out and amenities are among the more obvious services which local authorities could deal with. On the other hand he points out that their present responsibility for drainage and irrigation is far too great and these services are best provided by a special agency of the central government which can plan and execute projects on a large scale. A certain amount of internal drainage would be maintained by the new authorities and they would collect a special rate to pay for the drainage and sea-defence works done by central agencies. This is a complete reversal of the nineteenth-century trend of taking more welfare activities away from the local units and leaving them with the extremely difficult task of drainage and irrigation. The recommendation to include the sugar estates and bauxite mining settlements in the new local authorities, and to make them pay rates on land and buildings, is, in the Guianese context, a truly revolutionary suggestion though logical enough to an outsider. The sugar estates have become accustomed to providing welfare facilities as a part of their campaign of better industrial relations and may be expected to be reluctant to abandon this aspect of management. Even more difficult will be the task of introducing the resident estate populations to the idea of paying rates, though they are well able to do so. Special arrangements would have to be made if the owners of sugar plantations are not to be made to pay quite impossible amounts in rates, but as Dr Marshall points out, they must expect to have to make contributions in proportion to their wealth and not merely in proportion to the benefits they receive.

Other important aspects of the future of local government are dealt with in this report, including the establishment of a proper local government service in which officers could look forward to promotion and transfer from one authority to another. The central government would of course still have duties in relation to the local authorities, but the old Local Government Board would no longer be necessary and a Permanent Secretary working under a minister would deal with local government matters. The question of franchise for local government elections was somewhat obscure in 1955, but now that British Guiana is within sight of independence with a government elected on a universal adult suffrage, there is no doubt that the same plan will be applied to local government. Georgetown, New Amsterdam, and the interior all present special problems which are touched upon in the report. The general conclusion is very much the same as that in relation to the rural coastlands; more responsibilities could be taken on especially in relation to activities broadly classed as welfare. The necessity for introducing some sort of local government system to the more accessible Amerindian settlements in the interior is obvious if the policy of drawing these people into the general political and social life of the country is to be implemented.

Dr Marshall’s proposals are extremely realistic especially in terms of finance. Very little increase in either the burden of taxation or the expenditure of central government funds is involved, and there would be much more permanent benefit than from the various ad hoc community development and welfare schemes which now cost a fair amount of money. The main problem is one of reorganization, but it is the sort of reorganization which is absolutely essential if the country is to develop. In the preface to his report Dr Marshall expressed his fear that these proposals would go the way of so many others, and that such a mountain of difficulties and objections would be raised that little or nothing would be done. He correctly divined the massive resistance to change that has been characteristic of both local and central government in the past, and thought that it would be a hopeful sign for the future if the new system of local government could be in force by 1958. That year has long since passed, and although a number of Commissioners have been appointed to work out the detailed constitution of each local authority, nothing positive has been done. One of the Commissioners is said to have resigned because things were not moving fast enough. It is no doubt very difficult to impose a rational system of government in the face of long habituation to an irrational one, in the face of vested interests, in the face of prejudices about uniting with neighbours of different race, and in the face of deep-seated desires to remain dependent on ‘the government’ or ‘the estate’. But British Guiana cannot afford the luxury of a gradual evolution and the satisfaction of everybody’s wishes and desires if she is to attain the goals of economic development and a better life which she has set herself. Bold leadership and firm decision are not merely desirable; they are prerequisites of any real progress.

Despite its location on the South American mainland, British Guiana has been little influenced by its continental neighbours; the main outside influence during the last 200 years has come from Britain. Local ties with the British West Indian territories were established from a very early date and Barbados in particular has been a source of supply of both capital and labour at various times.[18] British Guiana has always been intimately involved in the discussions that have taken place from time to time on the desirability of closer relations between the British territories in the Caribbean area, and it was a matter of some disappointment when she decided to remain outside the political federation which was established in 1958. There is a possibility that she will join later but opinion tends to be sharply divided on the advisability of such a move.

Those who favour a positive political link point to the common language and cultural traditions of all the British Caribbean territories, to the potential benefits to be derived from belonging to a large economic unit, and to the fact that British Guiana will find it difficult to afford the full range of administration, development specialists, and defence required by a sovereign nation. Opposition to the idea comes from many different quarters and is based on a bewildering variety of reasons. A few argue that British Guiana has a ‘continental destiny’ and that her vast potential wealth will give her a place as an important nation on a rapidly developing continent. Some, less positive in their views, fear domination and exploitation by West Indians either through increased economic competition, through massive migration from the overcrowded islands, or through racial discrimination. The first group is mainly composed of the smaller merchants and import agents who fear an end to their privileged position. The second group is bigger and much more important. Obviously British Guiana must have a large increase in population if she is to become the great and highly developed nation that some of the anti-federationists wish, and yet there is considerable resistance to any schemes for immigration in view of the considerable unemployment which exists in the present underdeveloped state of the economy. If freedom of movement were permitted between all the territories of the present West Indian Federation and British Guiana, it is unlikely that there would be any large-scale movement to British Guiana. The territories with the most rapid rates of economic growth and the greatest employment opportunities are Trinidad and Jamaica, and these would probably attract the largest number of job-seekers. There would certainly be some movement into British Guiana, especially from the smaller islands of the Eastern Caribbean, but it would be far less than Guianese fear. It is almost certain that there would be just as much migration from British Guiana to Trinidad.

The question of racial discrimination is a difficult one. It is popularly supposed that the East Indians in British Guiana oppose federation because they fear that they would be transformed from a majority group in British Guiana to part of a minority in a predominantly Negro federation. The words and attitudes of some of the West Indian leaders has not reassured them on this point. However, Dr Jagan has not made any commitment one way or the other. He has taken the line that his party would not consider joining a federation that is not completely independent (that is with at least full Dominion status within the Commonwealth), and that a referendum should be held before a final decision is made. In recent years the Negro population of the country has become much more enthusiastic about federation and this in itself is enough to make the Indians suspicious. Pro-federation speakers are often jointly sponsored by the League of Coloured Peoples, the United Democratic Party, and the People’s National Congress, as the Burnhamite faction of the old PPP now calls itself. West Indian politicians such as Dr Williams, Sir Grantley Adams, and Mr Norman Manley are sensibly being cautious about making alliances with particular party groups in British Guiana since it is obvious that Dr Jagan is at the moment the only man who could lead the country into the federation.

The question naturally arises of whether British Guiana could not continue to associate with the other territories to their mutual advantage without actually joining a political federation. For many years now British Guiana has had functional ties with the other territories. She belongs to the Eastern Caribbean Currency Board, to the Associated Chambers of Commerce, she contributes to the cost of the University College of the West Indies and sends her quota of students there, and she still sells the bulk of her rice to the islands at a negotiated price. The tendency on the part of the other territories has been to take the line that British Guiana must soon make up her mind to join and bear a share of the burdens of maintaining a federal government or lose her place as a specially privileged outsider. For example she would have to take her chance for selling rice in competition with Far Eastern producers.

Since the West Indies Federation was established in 1958 it has had internal difficulties of its own, and Jamaica will hold a referendum in 1961 to decide whether she should secede or not. These difficulties have arisen over the extent to which the federal government shall be empowered to interfere in the economic affairs of the constituent territories. Whatever the outcome of the referendum, it does alter the situation somewhat so far as British Guiana is concerned. One school of opinion holds that it would be far more sensible if Jamaica were to go it alone or to be loosely allied to a strong Eastern Caribbean federation based on Trinidad. Such a federation might attract British Guiana more strongly since Trinidad has a large Indian minority.

The federation issue could become an irrational and explosive matter in British Guiana’s internal politics, especially as opinion now tends to split rather along racial lines. It would be foolish to let this happen and certainly West Indian politicians can do nothing but harm by trying to interfere one way or the other. Unless Dr Jagan is able to lead a united country into the federation, it would be statesmanlike on the part of the West Indian leaders to accept the difficulty and to permit British Guiana to participate in as much ‘functional federation’ as is reasonable. Attempts to coerce Guianese are likely to defeat their own purpose and ten years of co-operation is far preferable to ten years of conflict within the body of the federation itself.

[1] Ayube M. Edun, London’s Heart-Probe and Britain’s Destiny (London, n.d.).

[2] G.B., Colonial Office, British Guiana; Suspension of the Constitution, Cmd. 8980 (1953).

[3] British Guiana, Constitutional Commission, 1954, Report, Cmd. 92-4.

[4] Cheddi Jagan, Forbidden Freedom (1954); Ashton Chase, 133 Days Towards Freedom in Guiana (n.d.).

[5] H.C. Deb., vol. 518, Col. 2270.

[6] Ibid., col. 2187.

[7] Cmd. 998 (1960).

[8] See above.

[9] Allan Young, ‘The Approaches to Local Self-government in British Guiana (1958).

[10] Ibid., pp. 11-13.

[11] Young, p. 14.

[12] There was a good deal of correspondence between the Governors and the Colonial Office on this question in the 1840’s, and several detailed schemes were worked out. See Young, pp. 41-44. Various taxes were proposed as a means of ensuring that the Negroes would have to work for wages in order to pay them.

[13] See Smith, Negro Family, pp. 16-17.

[14] Some of the problems of keeping records of title up-to-date are discussed in R.T. Smith, ‘Land Tenure in Three Negro Villages in British Guiana’, Social and Economic Studies, iv/1 (1955).

[15] See below for a description of the Local Government Board.

[16] See below

[17] An annual conference organized by the chairman of local authorities, it has no official standing but passes resolutions for transmission to the central government.

[18] See Chapter II above.