Commonwealth an:I Foreign

THE WEST INDIAN PROBLEM

By W. L. BURN

THERE is no part of the British Empire upon which we can look with less satisfaction than upon the West Indies. Our conquest of them resulted, certainly, in our obtaining certain raw materials more cheaply than we could otherwise have obtained them. It resulted, too, in the creation of some considerable private fortunes and in the stimulation of our shipping trade. These results were obtained at the expense of a mass of human misery the contemplation of which (with exaggerations) roused the zeal of anti-slavery societies. In 1834 slavery ceased to exist in the West Indies : on August 1st, 1838,, apprenticeship, its successor, came to an end. A hundred years afterwards we are confronted with evidence, in the shape of sporadic rioting, that a century of Emancipation has only produced a society economically and, to some extent, morally stagnant.

The actual riots may not be serious. Riots in the West Indies are only too common and are by no means always based on economic causes. The " Portuguese Riots " in British Guiana in 1856 were caused by trouble between the negroes and Portuguese immigrants. The bloody riot at Montego Bay, Jamaica, in April, 1902, arose from the arrest by the police of a local " rowdy." One must recollect that there is, in almost every West Indian town of any size, a mass of brutalised, ignorant ferocity at the very bottom of the social scale. And on the credit side it is as well to remember that the problem of race relations, which so disturbs the Southern States of America, scarcely exists in the West Indies.

But although the riots themselves may not be serious, grave deductions can be drawn from them. One disturbing feature is the number of islands in which they have occurred, Barbados, Trinidad and now Jamaica. Another is that they have con- cerned two different classes of persons, labourers on the sugar estates (as in Westmoreland Parish, Jamaica) and the semi- skilled labour of the towns. When the actual disturbances are put an end to (a matter of no lasting difficulty, for the average West Indian negro is wonderfully law-abiding and sentimentally " loyal "), the panacea of public works will be employed. For a time it will be successful, but the policy of buying temporary peace by lavish additions to the public debt is not, by itself, sufficient.

We are here confronted with a society from which a great deal of natural wealth is produced, and with a people who, divorced irrevocably from their African background, look pathetically to British traditions for assistance. The majority of those people live in conditions of squalor ; not healthy squalor, for the death-rates are high and the medical services inadequate ; and not, we may judge, happy squalor.

The West Indian labourers can be divided into three classes. First, let us take those who work for large employers, such as the oil companies in Trinidad, the sugar companies in Barbados and the United Fruit, Tate and Lyle, &c., in Jamaica. It is significant that the worst riots have occurred in those islands where the biggest companies are operating. This does not mean that the conditions of their labourers are worse than those of labourers working for smaller employers else- where. It does mean, however, that the conditions are worse than those which large numbers of men, with oppor- tunities for discussion and open to the influence of agitators (both good and bad) are willing to bear. Unless the com- panies concerned are prepared to pay higher wages and to spend considerable sums in providing better quarters for their labourers this particular source of trouble can only grow more acute. The Barbadian commission, appointed after the late riots there, was of opinion that such improvements lay well within the range of the companies' power.

The second class of the West Indians consists of those engaged in producing a " money crop " on small-holdings. This system has its admirers and in some cases their admiration is justified. The small Jamaica banana-grower, for instance, can often find a ready market. But, on the whole, the small man growing " money crops " is in an exceedingly hazardous position in a world of fluctuating (and apparently uncon- trollable) commodity prices. The big companies, efficiently managed, in touch with world markets, may pay ; the small producer for those distant and sensitive markets can hardly survive, especially if (as is often the case) he had bought his holding at the high prices prevailing after the War.

Until quite lately there was a remedy of sorts to hand. The small producer who had been ruined by a fall in sugar, the estate labourer who judged himself underpaid, could migrate to the Canal region or to some other part of Central America and, by his physical prowess, not only earn good money but send back some to his relatives in the islands. Now these opportunities are largely denied to the British West Indians, and the population of the islands is mounting significantly. Between 1921 and 1936 that of Barbados rose from 156,312 to 188,294 ; that of Jamaica from 858,118 to 1,138,558.

Is there a remedy ? The big estates will, probably, employ no more labour than they do at present. If they pay higher wages and provide better quarters, they will try to offset the cost of these by using more machinery and less labour. No dramatic and sustained rise in commodity prices (failing a war) is likely to bring security to the small producer of money crops. If there is a remedy it is in the development of the small-holding aimed chiefly at the production of " food crops."

Of one thing at least there is enough in the West Indies— land. Not merely in Grenada, St. Lucia, Dominica, Jamaica, but in the neglected colonies of British Guiana and British Honduras there are millions of acres available. The source of our remedy lies there.

But it is not an easy remedy. An improvident government can easily buy land, especially if it pays well for it. It can easily find tenants or purchasers for it, especially if it lets or sells it cheaply. It can easily get such tenants or purchasers to promise that they will grow " food crops," if such a promise is a condition of letting or selling. But much more is needed than this easy way to bankruptcy. It is to be observed, in the first place, that the West Indians themselves cannot be entrusted with a scheme of such magnitude as the writer has in mind. That they cannot is perhaps more to our shame than theirs, but the fact is that not merely the lead but the administration must come from this country.

Can we not call into being something equivalent to Balfour's " Congested Districts Board " to deal with the West Indies as a whole and to deal with nothing else ? Part of its activities would be devoted to the development of British Guiana and Honduras, most of it to the purchase of land for the production of food crops and the settlement on it of suitable workers. It must be made a condition of tenancy or ownership that a stated proportion of such land is used for the growing of food crops before any money crops are grown.

No one familiar with the West Indies will underestimate the difficulties involved. The first would be the raising of the necessary loan. The second would be the jealousies of the various colonies and the lethargic nature of West Indian society. The third would be the difficulty of keeping the new settlers to the terms of their leases, without either exploiting them on the one hand or pampering them on the other. A fourth would be the difficulty of providing elementary social services, the provision of medical assistance and of religious instruction in the innumerable scattered villages which would be created.

Difficulties, of which these are only a fraction, abound. In the West Indies today energies and hope are frittered away in the routine of tiny communities. But it is fair to hope that such a West Indian Board as the writer has suggested would attract, from the breadth and importance of its work, material which is at present scarcely available. The task outlined might take two generations. It would make the highest demands upon those engaged in it. But can we, who cling jealously to our colonial possessions, afford to continue our present West Indian policy ? At the moment those lovely and neglected lands present to us a striking and urgent challenge. From the

way in which we accept it or ignore it, the world will be apt to judge whether we are still an imperial people or mere routers of colonies.