THE PRESS AND THE ST. VINCENT LABOR DISTURBANCES OF 1935 Edward L.Cox Department of History Rice University Paper Presented at CSA Annual Conference, Merida, Mexico, May 23-28, 1994. (Please do not quote or cite without the written permission of the author).
22
Embed
TH PR ND TH T. VNNT LBR DTRBN F - University of Floridaufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/CA/00/40/01/60/00001/PDF.pdfTH PR ND TH T. VNNT LBR DTRBN F 1935 drd L.x Dprtnt f Htr R nvrt Ppr Prntd
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
THE PRESS AND THE ST. VINCENT LABOR DISTURBANCES OF1935
Edward L.CoxDepartment of History
Rice University
Paper Presented at CSA Annual Conference, Merida,Mexico, May 23-28, 1994.
(Please do not quote or cite without the writtenpermission of the author).
From the middle of the seventeenth century, the
plantation economies of the British Caribbean had been firmly
wedded to that of Great Britain and other Imperial countries
which imported tobacco, sugar, and sugar products from the
colonies while supplying them with slaves and manufactured
goods. In 1808, the slave trade was abolished as the first
step toward the eventual advent of general emancipation of
slaves between 1834 and 1838, a process which theoretically
permitted ex-slaves full enjoyment of their freedom. But the
continuance of a sugar-based plantation economy in most
islands meant that planters generally were able to curtail
severely the degree of autonomy which ex-slaves enjoyed. In
St. Vincent, for example, so entrenched was the plantation
system that the wages of ex-slaves remained virtually
unchanged for almost 100 years after emancipation. Despite
constant complaints by planters that there existed a shortage
of laborers for the effective conduct of plantation
agriculture, as evidenced for example by the various schemes
to introduce Portuguese and Indian laborers in the island and
efforts to halt migration of workers to neighboring islands,
planter control over laborers remained severe. Denied any
meaningful alternative to working on the estates, the workers
were increasingly dependent on wages from the plantations for
their existence.'
This situation was aggravated from the mid nineteenth
century onwards in which the participation of Afro Caribbean
peoples in the political process was effectively stifled
2
through the introduction of a Crown Colony system of
government, the major tenets of which were that the governor
appointed an advisory council drawn almost exclusively from
the ranks of the white population. Even when some successful
non-whites were grudgingly afforded membership to the
council, invariably they tended to support the interests of
the entrenched aristocracy rather than championing the cause
of the masses. Signs of change appeared on the horizon
however hesitantly in the early twentieth century through the
emergence of Workingman's Associations, Representative
Government Associations, and other organizations which
articulated working class concerns and dissatisfaction with
their exclusion from the political process. Coming as these
did at the very time that the Pan African Movement and
Garvey's United Negro Improvement Association were achieving
a certain amount of following, colonial administrators were
becoming increasingly fearful lest this increase in Black and
worker consciousness might be a prelude to decolonization. 2
The worldwide depression of the 1920s and 1930s had
tremendous impact on the export oriented economies of St.
Vincent and all the other Caribbean colonies. With shrinking
demand for sugar and arrowroot--which had been traditionally
exported to Great Britain--prices fell. This in turn had a
negative impact on government's revenues, which ultimately
led to the adoption of austere fiscal measures. Not only was
government forced to reduce the salary paid to its civil
servants, but estate owners likewise reduced the wages paid
3
to workers. Unemployment grew, as did underemployment.
Amidst the fall in their standard of living, particularly for
workers who were heavily dependent on plantation wages for
their livelihood--discontent increased as workers linked
their worsening economic and social situation with their
disenfranchisement. As Franklin Knight has observed, "The
Depression hit hard at the local export economies. Sugar
prices fell. Wages almost disappeared; and the usual escape
valves of emigrating to work rapidly closed as Panama, Cuba,
and the United States suddenly found black Caribbean laborers
dispensable and undesirable. Between 1935 and 1938 labor
unrest raced throughout the Caribbean like fire on a windy
day. In 1935 the sugar workers in St. Kitts and British
Guiana went on strike, followed by a coal strike in St.
Lucia, and a strike against an increase in customs duties in
St. Vincent. In 1937 the oilfield workers in Trinidad went
on a strike that widened into a general strike, and
eventually merged into widespread labor unrest in Barbados,
St. Lucia, British Guiana, and Jamaica. In 1938 Jamaican
dock workers refused to work without better pay and better
working conditions. The colonial authorities panicked.
Military reinforcements rushed to the colonies to support the
local law enforcement officers. Order was restored at a cost
of 115 wounded, 29 dead, and considerable property damage." 3
While it would probably be disingenuous to suggest that
there existed of necessity a direct linkage between all these
labor disturbances, few would deny that the root cause was to
4
be found in the bankruptcy of outmoded economic, social, and
political systems. This paper provides a brief overview of
the St. Vincent disturbances of 1935 and then examines the
relationship between the Administrator and one newspaper in
that island, "The Times," in the months preceding the
disturbances. It argues that by exposing the flawed policies
of government and their negative impact on the working class,
"The Times" was relegated to an adversarial relationship with
the authorities. Rather than accepting the criticisms as a
means of changing course, government unwittingly created a
situation where disturbances became much more likely. The
declaration of a State of Emergency during the disturbances
provided the ideal opportunity for government to muzzle "The
Times" through its censorship of local newspapers, and
finally the passing of a Seditious Publications Act after
normalcy was restored. In the immediate wake of the
disturbances, publications critical of governemnt came not
from within St. Vincent but from neighboring islands.
The disturbances started about 11.30 A.M on Monday,
October 21st, 1935, when a crowd assembled outside the Court
House during a sitting of the Legislative Council. At that
time, the legislature was giving second reading to two
ordinances. The first ordinance eventually reduced the
license fees of motor vehicles for 1936, while the second
raised the duties on a number of articles which government
regarded "as luxuries and not as necessities. The sole
5
exception was in the case of matches where the Grenada rate
of duty was adopted, and it was assumed that, in spite of
this increase of import duty, matches could be sold
throughout St. Vincent at 1/2 d. a box which is the standard
price in Grenada." 4
About 12.15 P.M., a crowd estimated at about 300,
carrying sticks and reportedly some with cutlasses,
approached the governor on the steps of the Court House and
organization of the working class, and a breaking down of the
barriers which separate one class from the other." If, he
argued, there is a "solid core of education and discipline in
the working class," whatever differences might arise could
eventually be settled without violence. 22
Recognizing how unreliable the information available
through Canapress and filtered through the watchful eyes of
the censors might be, Wickham decided to journey to St.
Vincent on the morning of October 23rd to evaluate the
situation for himself. While deprecating the frequency with
which disturbances had been occuring recently, Wickham felt
that a serious examination of the root causes were in order.
"The West Indian is on the whole a patient, good humored sort
of fellow. The labouring class manages to smile under
conditions which would try the patience of Mark Tapley. When
trouble arises there should be a close and searching scrutiny
to find out whether there is not some grievance which the
ignorant and misguided people sought to remedy by wrong
measures." Recognizing that the disturbances in St. Vincent
could not be undone, he recommended that Governor Grier
impress on the Colonial Office some of the facts he had
gleaned through the past few months. "That forceful and
downright method which he adopted in receiving a deputation
of the St. Vincent Representative Government Association
recently might be adopted with equal force and apositeness in
his reminders to the Colonial Office. If any of these Crown
Colonies are on the rocks or near them, it is not the fault
18
of the people. They have had no responsibility for
Government, and it is unfair to throw it in their teeth. But
the Colonial Office might be invited to enquire into the
conditions of living, the wage scale, the pressure of
taxation, and the cost of administration. These are pressing
questions but they are ignored and anybody who seeks to bring
them home is looked upon as an agitator....These general
reflections are in no way intended to prejudice the St.
Vincent issue. But they might be of value in other
communities in the vicinity of our unhappy neighbour." 23
Wickham's insightful analysis of some of the issues
pertinent to the St. Vincent disturbances assume added
poignancy in light of subsequent Colonial Office policies.
For, rather than dismissing the various outbreaks of labor
disturbances as being highly localized incidents which could
be treated with band aid type remedies, the Colonial Office
ultimately decided to appoint a high powered Commission of
enquiry under the chairmanship of Lord Moyne to make an
overall assessment of the state of affairs in the Caribbean
and to offer recommendations for their improvement. Their
findings, and the testimony of the various witnesses
throughout the Caribbean or resident in Britain while
maintaining an interest in the Caribbean, provided
compellingly useful information which British policy makers
utilized in charting a hesitantly new course for the
Caribbean from the 1940s onwards.
19
At no time did either Grimble or Grier admit that the
St. Vincent situation had deteriorated to the point that it
did because of the confrontational relationship which existed
between Grimble and "The Times." To do so would have called
into serious question Grimble's ability as an administrator.
Removing him before his tour of duty ended would undoubtedly
have appeared as caving in to the wishes of the "Times" and
would have enhanced the stature and following of both that
newspaper and the representative Government Association.
Rather, they argued that the root cause of the disturbances
was to be found in the activities of outside agitators who
were manipulating the working class. Constant references
were made to a visit which T. Albert Marryshow had made to
St. Vincent the week before the disturbances and the impact
of his public address sponsored by the Representative
Government Association. They also invoked the Italian
invasion of Abyaiinia as being the catalyst for all
individuals of African ancestry to rise in arms against
whites. 24 While both of these positions may have some merit,
it is equally true that had Grimble and other colonial
authorities heeded the concerns articulated by the "Times,"
the situation may never have deteriorated to the point of
bloodshed.
1 As late as 1938, for example, one writer speaking on the lack of change in thelandholding and laboring classes throughout the Caribbean noted that "acentury of British rule has created a local bourgeoisie without changing theposition of the laborer. In Trinidad in 1931, just over one percent of thepopulation owned over half the area under cultivation, while in St. Vincentless than one percent owned two thirds of the cultivated land." C.O. 950/30,"Memorandum on the Economic, Political, and Social Conditions in the West
20
Indies and British Guiana, Presented By the International African ServiceBureau, the League of Coloured Peoples, and the Negro Welfare Association,"September 9, 1938.2 On this, see for example, Tony Martin, The Pan African Connection
3 Franklin W. Knight, The Caribbean: The Genesis of a Fragmented Nationalism, (New York, 1978), 179.
4 C.O. 321/363/64320, Gov. Selwyn Grier to The Right Honourable MalcolmMacDonald, M.P., Nov. 12, 1935.5 The Order in Council announcing of the State of Emergency was printed inthe St. Vincent Government Gazette (Extraordinary), Tuesday Oct. 22, 1935.Copies were also posted at various strategic points in the island.6 Speech of Mr A.M. Punnet. Minutes of Legislative Council, Oct. 28, 1935, in St.Vincent Government Gazette, Nov. 15, 1935.7 "The Times," Thursday, Dec. 11, 1935, p.3.8 "Recommendation of George Augustus McIntosh for O.B.E. Civil Division,"(Confidential) Kings' Birthday Honours, 1948, in Archives at GovernorGeneral's Office, Grenada.9 "The Times," 18th April. 1935.10Ibid. Because of complaints of the inaccuracy of some meters, the Authorityhad earlier determined that the meters should be tested periodically. To meetthe cost incurred, a fee of ten shillings had been imposed. At a later stage, theAuthority- considered these fees to be exorbitant and recommended to Grimblethat they be reduced to two shillings. Grimble disallowed the amendedregulation and after consultation with the Chief Electrician who suggested afee of five shillings, amended it further in keeping with the ChiefElectrician's recommendation and published it in the Government Gazette asthough it had come from the Authority. See "The Times," 20th June, 1935.11 "The Times," 6th June, 1935 and 20th June, 1935.12 "The Times," 20th June. 1935, and 23rd May, 1935.13 "The Times," 13th June. 1935.14 "The Times," 30th May. 1935.15 Robert M. Anderson, the newspaper's editor, dedicated his Notes and Reflections on St. Vincent. With Chronology from 1409-1937, (Kingstown, St.Vincent; 1937) "To His Excellency Arthur Francis Grimble, C.M.G., (Governor ofthe Seychelles) In Appreciation of His Services as Administrator of theColony of St. Vincent."16 "The Times," 6th June, 1935. Grimble had apparently written an article bouthis experiences with and observations of natives in the Gilbert and EllisIslands. He later published A Pattern of Islands,which was used as an Englishtext in secondary schools in Grenada at least.17 "The Times," 26th September, 1935.18 Ibid.19 "The Times," October 31, 1935, carrying summary of minutes of LegislativeCouncil on 18th October.20 "The Times," October 31, 1935.21 C.O. 321/369/64333, Grier to Thomas, December 14, 1935.22 "The West Indian," Wednesday, Oct. 23, 1935.23 "The West Indian," Thursday, October 24, 1935.
21
24 See, for example, "The Times," October 17, 1935; Grier to MacDonald, Nov. 12,1935,C.0.321/363/64320.