HAPPY HONDURAS A corresponded writes : Simultaneously with the Colonial
Secretary's announce- ment this week of generous new grants from Colonial De- velopment Funds to British Honduras, the Colonial Office has now published its annual report on the progress of the colony in 1953. Although it has taken a long time to appear, it has an exceptional interest as giving the background which lay behind last year's constitutional upheaval. If the impres- sion gained ground at the time that British Honduras was just another British Guiana ravaged by political strife, chafing against British rule, ruined by British mismanagement, and under the spell of Communist bewitchment, this report gives quite a different picture. The colony beat all records in its long history for commercial prosperity. During the year every industry in the colony showed an upward trend, enforced unemployment was almost non-existent, and there were no major strikes at all—in a country where the right to strike and trade unionism are protected by law. On the public amenities side, indicating the growth of prosperity and welfare-con- sciousness, the colony grew almost out of recognition. Thirty- seven public parks and children's playgrounds were made up and down the country; a new broadcasting service was started, resulting in the appearance of wireless aerials in the most remote villages; and much was done for education, including a wide range of university expansion lectures from Jamaica. This Colonial report makes it quite clear that the sudden demand for more popular representation in the Honduran Government, and the irresistible rise to power of the People's United Party last spring, came on a rising, not a broken. market, and as a result not of disaffection to the British Com- monwealth, but of a buoyant and increasing self-confidence in the Colony itself. One or two voices may have been raised in favour of annexation by the quasi-Communist Arbenz Government in neighbouring Guatemala, and certainly some money passed from Arbenz to the PUP candidates at the election, but since most of the candidates were devout Roman Catholics, their affection for Communism can hardly have been very deep-seated. Actually the PUP delegation to the Colonial Office last autumn returned to Belize confirmed in their loyalty and gratified by the considerate attention paid over a period of three weeks to their appeals for still more generous grants from the Colonial Development Fund. Nothing but shortage of capital' Can now hold up the progress of the colony towards the day when both economically and politically it can stand on its own feet, and qualify, probably within the framework of a West Indian Federation, for some- thing like Dominion status. The additional grants of £1,250,000 announced by Mr. Lennox-Boyd will give encouragement.
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