Capitalism in the Caribbean - Part 3 (1962)

From the August 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 2.

The First World War gave the West Indies sugar industry a real fillip, but the slumps which followed caused the sugar owners to amalgamate and look for ways of cutting costs—as always, their first thought was to lower wages. Sugar workers were forced to form trade unions to resist the attempts of the sugar owners to depress their already very low standard of living and in 1935 the sugar workers of Antigua went on strike.

Trade unions had already been formed in other industries, notably the oil industry in Trinidad. Blood was shed during riots in the oilfields in 1937. The Trinidad oilworkers’ union is strong and well-disciplined: a well-planned strike in 1960 forced some notable concessions from the oil companies in the face of a recession in the oil industry.

There were disorders in other islands, and governments soon realised that it was wise to encourage rather than to hinder the formation of trade unions. To meet the challenge, both from their workers and from rival capitalist groups in other parts of the world, West Indian capitalists joined together in strong amalgamations. Thus were formed the various cane-growers associations, the Banana Producers’ Association of Jamaica, the Trinidad and Tobago Co-operative Citrus Growers’ Association, etc.

West Indian leaders on the economic field eventually became political leaders: men like Bradshaw in St. Kitts, Bird in Antigua, Grantley Adams in Barbados, Bustamante and Manley in Jamaica, and Tubal Uriah “Buzz” Butler (who was behind the 1937 oilfield riots) in Trinidad. Economic struggles, therefore, formed the basis for political struggles, fought mainly on a racial platform with special emphasis on anti-colonialism. These political movements were supported by the utterances of men like Marcus Garvey (a Negro from Jamaica who served his apprenticeship with Booker T. Washington) who eloquently and powerfully advocated during the thirties a Negro “Back to Africa” movement.

Through the energetic action of politicians such as Bustamante, Manley, and Marryshow of Grenada the British Government conceded constitutional reforms, culminating in the formation of the West Indies Federation in 1958. This meant full internal self-government based on universal suffrage in certain islands, the British Government retaining control of defence.

The identification of trade unions with newly emerged governments is fraught with danger for the West Indian working class. During the recent Trinidad elections, for example, one or two quite large trade-unions held demonstration marches in support of Dr. Williams’ Peoples’ National Movement party. It may be. however that West Indian workers are too politically sophisticated to be completely taken in by demagogic politicians to the point of surrendering trade union and political advantages won after so many years of struggle.

The wind of change has blown through the West Indies as it has through the African continent; the eagerness with which the Colonial Office has fanned this wind in the British Caribbean towards the formation of the West Indies Federation indicates that the British ruling class would rather deal with a single West Indian Government than with several. But West Indians have apparently proved to be too nationalistic. In a referendum held towards the end of 1961, Jamaica seceded from the Federation, and thus set off the collapse which quickly followed. Now, a looser federation of eight of the islands, including Barbados and the Leeward and Windward Islands, is in prospect. The present tendency is for unit governments (at least in the British islands and British Guiana) to try to go it alone. Political leaders in the larger islands such as Jamaica and Trinidad, the only really economically viable island in the Federation, are reluctant for sizeable proportions of taxes realised in their islands to be utilised by a Federal Government to assist the poorer, smaller, islands’ economy, when the money could be used in development projects in their own countries.

Whatever the ultimate outcome, whether it be in terms of a host of small units trying to go it alone or of varying degrees of federation, the problems of the West Indian worker wherever he is will be basically the same as those of his fellows in other parts of the world. He is, unfortunately, no more seized with the ideas of Socialism than his counterparts elsewhere, but sooner or later he will find that these ideas are the only ones worth considering in his search for an end to his present poverty and insecurity and for a better and happier future.

Michael La Touche

                                                                               (Concluded)

Capitalism in the Caribbean - Part 2 (1962)

From the July 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

The economy of the West Indies underwent a transformation following the abolition of slavery—from a primitive form of capitalism with many feudal features to full capitalism based on wage labour.

With the loss of its tied labour force, the plantation system of agriculture broke down, and the sugar owners faced quick ruin. It was to prevent this sudden loss of their labourers that the sugar plantocracy in many islands introduced a transitory state between slavery and wage-labour—“apprenticeship”. Under slavery, of course, no wages were paid, the slave being kept by his owner and encouraged to grow his own food. Until the sugar owners could buy the labour-power of the “free'’ workers the ex-slaves were “apprenticed” to the estates. They had to work for their former owners for about three-quarters of the week without pay, and from their earnings for the remaining quarter they were able to buy their “freedom" when their apprenticeship ended.

In their efforts to reduce the cost of producing the sugar the owners were forced to introduce labour-saving machines; this became even more necessary in face of competition from sugar planters in other parts of the world, notably the East Indies and the U.S.A., and the introduction of beet-sugar farming in Europe and the U.S.A. To make matters worse for the West Indian sugar owners the British Government drastically cut the subsidy which it had long paid for West Indian sugar when it became apparent that cheaper sources of sugar were available elsewhere. In addition, West Indian cotton and tobacco were virtually eliminated from the world's markets during the middle of the nineteenth century by improved farming in the southern states of America and Eli Whitney's cotton saw-gin.

To combat the twin capitalist problems of the rising cost of labour-power and the falling price of sugar, the West Indian sugar owners were forced to re-organise their industry; apart from introducing mechanisation, absentee ownership was discouraged, immigration (especially of European skilled artisans) encouraged, and serious attempts were made to build up an adequate, dependable, labour force.

In the islands with a long history of slavery, like Barbados, Antigua, and St. Kitts, there was an adequate supply of labour-power but in fast developing countries with little history of slavery (especially Trinidad and British Guiana) the shortage of labourers was acute. To these two countries, therefore, came regular shiploads of peasants from Madeira and India—indentured labourers who signed contracts or bonds to work on the estates as “free" workers. The workers from Madeira did not measure up to the exacting working conditions on the sugar estates in the tropics, but the Indians were quite at home. These “East Indians" were largely responsible for the agricultural wealth of Trinidad and British Guiana, and now number about half the population of Trinidad.

Although sugar-cane farming is the “monoculture" of the West Indies, other agricultural crops in different islands are important sources of profit for sections of the owning class. The (American) United Fruit Co., of which Elders and Fyffes are a subsidiary company, usually lakes about half of Jamaica's large banana crop. Citrus fruit, coffee, and cocoa are also grown on a considerable scale in certain islands. Grenadian planters enjoy a virtual monopoly of the spice trade in the West Indies.

Timber was, and is, the main industry in British Honduras. Timber, including hard woods, is also grown in Jamaica. Trinidad and British Guiana. The tourist industry, catering mainly for vacationing Americans, has developed considerably especially in Jamaica and is now a major source of profit for hotel and shop keepers; on the Jamaican north coast prices are quoted first in U.S. dollars. Trinidad is unique among the West Indian territories in having two important mineral deposits. The famous Pitch Lake, discovered in Raleigh's day, is the only source of natural asphalt in the world; despite competition from synthetic pitches produced during the refinery of oil. profits of the Trinidad Lake Asphalt Co. still assure a comfortable income for its shareholders.

In addition, oil was found in Trinidad towards the end of the nineteenth century. Although production has increased phenomenally since then, Trinidad's contribution towards the world's total oil production is less than half of one per cent; and because of the unsatisfactory geological formation of the oil-bearing layers, the cost of producing oil in Trinidad is among the highest in the world. However, its geographical position plus its stable government gives its oil industry a special importance in the eyes of British and American capitalists. After the second world war, American capitalism entered the Trinidad oil industry by acquiring a large field and the largest refinery. To prevent further American economic invasion, British Petroleum (half-owned by the British Government on behalf of the British capitalist class) recently took over three “independent" oilfields.

The bauxite industry (in Jamaica and British Guiana) is an important recent addition to West Indian capitalism.

As capitalism improved its methods of production in the Caribbean, so also it improved its methods of administration, to control the growing working class and to assure profits for the owners. In British territories, Crown Colony government superseded the inefficient and self-interested rule of the sugar plantocracy. Crown Colony government which has lasted, with few modifications, until the present time of the “wind of change", was largely responsible for the introduction of organised health services, thereby virtually eliminating the two killing diseases cholera and yellow fever and providing a reasonably fit working class. It also built a greatly improved transport system, the British mode of law-making and enforcement and a rudimentary educational system.

The French islands had always been closely tied to France, the colonial assemblies (which were instituted in 1787) being only advisory in character. Following emancipation, attempts to decentralise the islands' administration were abandoned, and Martinique and Guadeloupe became departments of metropolitan France, which they are today.

The development of capitalism in the larger islands of Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico is inextricably bound up with the interests of United States capitalism: capital investment, trading rights, and military bases for the defence of the Panama Canal.

After abolition in the British islands, the British Government pressed for the end of slavery in Cuba, whose sugar was underselling Jamaican sugar. The United States opposed British intervention, and later took the opportunity to gain firm control of Cuban affairs by a decisive and speedy military victory. The excuse for this was the loss of American property in the Cuban civil war of 1895 and the sinking of the American warship Maine in Havana harbour. Although American forces withdrew in 1902, American governors had effectively made Cuba a "friendly" country, and the establishment of the naval base at Guantanamo left no doubts about United States interest in the island.

Despite the oft-stated “principle" of the American State Department in the "self-determination and self-government of small nations”, Cuba has never been free of the intervention of American capitalism, political and military. U.S. naval forces were sent to Cuba in 1912 to protect American property during a Negro revolt, and the U.S. marines were sent in 1917 by President Wilson, also “to protect American lives and property". This touching concern for Cuban affairs apparently paid off. because as a result of the boom in sugar after the first world war a greatly increased concentration of wealth fell into the hands of American capitalists.

The growth of Cuban nationalism brought, first, the dictatorial regime of Machado, then in 1933-4 the left-wing government of Batista. With a history of strong left-wing parties (Cuba is the only country in the Caribbean with a Communist Party of any influence, thought to be a result of Spanish immigration during the 1920's), Cuba was the natural birthplace of Fidel Castro and his followers who seized power in 1958 and have ruled the island since then with all the trappings of a police state.

The Dominican Republic and Haiti have been of minor importance to the United States, both as markets and sources of capital, and any American interference there has been largely because of the islands strategic value. Both states of the island of Hispaniola have developed with dictatorial governments, and are at an uneasy peace with each other. Haiti is economically poor: the country is governed by a mulatto élite and the rest of the population are illiterate Negro peasants. The Dominican Republic, which is largely populated by descendants of Spanish settlers, is richer by virtue of sugar farming and the modest influx of American capital. The dictatorial regime of General Trujillo, which had ruled the country with no pretences of democracy for almost thirty years recently lost its iron control and the Trujillos were deposed. It is still loo early to say whether more democratic institutions for ruling the working-class will emerge; in the meantime the country has been "de-Trujillo-ised ” to the extent of the capital of Ciudad Trujillo being renamed Santo Domingo, the name given it by Columbus.

After centuries of Spanish rule, Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in 1898 by the Treaty of Paris. America wished to gain control of the island (especially the fort of San Juan), not so much for her own use, but to prevent this strategic outpost failing into the hands of rival imperialist gangs. The sugar industry in Puerto Rico attracted American capital, and within a few years three or four American Corporations gained control of the industry and acquired more than half of the land suitable for cane growing. Although nominally American citizens. Puerto Rican workers soon discovered that, despite housing schemes, improved medical services, etc., they extracted little benefit from possessing American passports. It has been estimated that the average per capita income in Puerto Rico is less than one-fourth of that in the United States. In an attempt to relieve unemployment, the Puerto Rican government has encouraged emigration to the U.S.A., where, especially in New York, Puerto Rican immigrants meet similar problems that West Indian immigrants encounter in Great Britain.

No account of American capitalism's interference in the Caribbean would be complete without reference to the military bases in various West Indian islands granted to the United States during the early stages of World War Two by the British Government in return for fifty-odd old destroyers. The destroyers have all gone (some were reported to have sunk on their first Atlantic crossing), but the bases remain. They are a constant source of annoyance to West Indian politicians. especially Dr. Eric Williams. Premier of Trinidad and Tobago, who has apparently dedicated himself to the task of wresting the naval base of Chaguaramas in north-west Trinidad from the American Government.

Michael La Touche

(To be concluded)

From Trinidad (1965)

From the December 1965 issue of the Socialist Standard

Things in Trinidad are warming up. Elections are next year and so far we have four political parties in the fray. The P.N.M. (Peoples National Movement) under the leadership of Dr. Eric Williams, is still the hot favourite to continue, while the D.L.P. (Democratic Labour Party) is losing ground. Although still officially the Opposition, it is led by London-based Dr. Capildeo. A comparatively new party, the Liberals, led by Mr. Farquhar, is gaining what the D.L.P. is losing, and the last-formed party, the

Farmers and Workers Party, is led by Mr. C. L. R. James.

Earlier this year the Government passed a Bill aimed at curbing strikes. The Bill is known as the Industrial Stabilisation Act (I.S.A). The Prime Minister announced there were too many strikes in the country, which interfered with the economy and frightened away foreign or would-be investors, so therefore the Bill is justified. This Act has curtailed the functions of the Trade Unions, as all disputes must go to the Industrial Court for its ruling. There is no appeal against judgment and since all those taking part in strike action in any way can be jailed for long periods, five Trade Unions have got their tails between their legs. As a result the various Unions are divided on the issue, some for the Act, others against it. The trick of the capitalists to divide the working class is self-evident. On the scene at this time is Mr. C. L. R. James, who contends that the I.S.A. is a violation not only of the Constitution, but of the rights of the workers, who are reduced to nothing but slaves. He is joined by Mr. G. Weekes, President-General of the powerful oil workers’ Union, and slowly other Union leaders are following. The Unions have now obtained the services of Mr. Platt-Mills, Q.C., to challenge the validity of the I.S.A. in the light of the Constitution.

To a Socialist one thing is clear. Whatever the outcome—the workers will have nothing to gain.

Corbie, 

Trinidad.

The West Indies: What Next? (1962)

Book Review from the March 1962 issue of the Socialist Standard

The West Indies and their Future by Daniel Guérin (Dennis Dobson.)

This book is a serious attempt to consider the West Indies history and their future from a left wing viewpoint coloured very strongly by Negro nationalism. Now this is a change from the usual run of travel books and "histories" produced by well-meaning English writers who pass rapidly through the Caribbean on a no doubt pleasant working holiday. But the book's "left wing" angle (the words masses, plutocracy, and reactionary occur frequently) cannot excuse some basic defects.

Guérin states that he visited some of the islands in 1955, but the book was not published until 1961. There have been many constitutional and social changes in the West Indies since 1955: for instance, Guérin makes much of racial prejudice and singles out especially, the French islands and an oilfield in Trinidad. The behaviour of the white inhabitants of the French islands (known as Békés) is no doubt, even now, good for a sound beating from anyone whose ideas are not completely dominated by the doctrines of, say, the Navy League, circa 1910. Martinique and Guadeloupe are still very much French colonial possessions, and the outlook of their békés is probably no different from that of their counterparts in Algeria—small wonder that M. Guérin can enjoy himself at their expense. But to describe the behaviour of the békés as typical of social behaviour generally in the West Indies is like describing the behaviour and outlook of retired generals in Bournemouth and Cheltenham as being typical of the average British citizen. Rather, in the British islands at any rate, racial prejudice nowadays takes the form of Negro versus East Indian, or manifests itself in vague anti-white sentiments.

M. Guérin’s description of the segregation of workers in the Trinidad oilfields into whites ("with enormous material advantages") and coloured ("who must do with a minimal wage") both begs the question and is many years out of date. In the first place, the oil industry is highly technical and, until recently, the West Indies just could not provide men to fill certain skilled positions: hence the expatriates who had to be offered considerable inducements to live and work in the tropics. Secondly, oil companies, wishing to keep in with the Trinidad Government to ensure the continuation of the present, favourable, oil tax, have trained local men for senior posts with the companies. It is now common for coloured workers to occupy bungalows in the senior staff compounds and to rub shoulders with their white colleagues in the senior oilfield clubs on terms of social equality.

M. Guérin discusses some major problems of the West Indian (capitalist) economy—monoculture, the high cost of living, overpopulation, etc.—problems which have been described in greater detail if not with such “progressive" zeal by Parry and Sherlock in A Short History of the West Indies (incidentally, Parry and Sherlock's book, although written from the "establishment" angle, is an entertaining and comprehensive source of knowledge for workers interested in the West Indies).

Immigration
Of course, these problems are mainly problems for the Capitalist class. The really pressing problem facing the West Indian worker (and his fellow-workers in other parts of the world) is not overpopulation, monoculture, high cost of living, etc., but the fact that he is a member of the working class. Needless to say, solving the West Indies' worker's problem by ending his wage-slavery has never featured in the programmes of the Capitalist economists and politicians who have propounded various “solutions" to the peculiar predicament the West Indian section of the Capitalist class is in.

M. Guérin correctly pours scorn on those reformers who attempt to curb the birth-rates in the West Indian territories by programmes of birth-control. Then there is the safety-valve for the pressure of unemployment in the West Indies—emigration. West Indian governments, especially those with high levels of unemployment, have encouraged emigration to the United Kingdom: all other countries virtually prohibit West Indian immigration.

Now that the steady stream of West Indian immigrants is being curbed by United Kingdom legislation, politicians in the West Indies fulminate against the British Government for barring the door to commonwealth citizens on the grounds of their colour. These same politicians conveniently forget that coloured commonwealth citizens from, say, Grenada and St. Vincent are forbidden to enter Trinidad to live and work (so for that matter are citizens of the United Kingdom) as, for example, labourers or typists. The larger West Indian islands have strict immigration laws preventing the smaller islands shipping their unemployed to them

M. Guérin was apparently unable to study ‘the emancipation movements" in British Guiana and Cuba, a pity because an up-to-date “ left-wing” account of recent Caribbean history can hardly be considered complete without reference to Castro's regime. But recent developments in British Guiana are a good example of the wide difference between what a “left-wing" politician often says and what he does. Dr. Cheddi Jagan, the Chief Minister of British Guiana, has been long known as the leftist of left wing, and his frank admiration of Soviet Russia and Castro has been repudiated by other West Indian politicians, such as Trinidad's Dr. Eric Williams. Dr. Jagan hinted at nationalising industries in British Guiana, which alarmed business organisations with capital invested in British Guiana and potential investors. To prevent withdrawal of capital, and subsequent unemployment. Dr. Jagan was recently obliged to state that he had no intention of nationalising any industries. During 1961 Dr. Jagan went on a begging tour of the United States and Canada in search of substantial loans to bolster his country's economy and prevent the present level of unemployment getting any worse.

And what of the future? Here. M. Guérin becomes very pessimistic; one of the reasons for his pessimism is, without doubt, that most of the diverse peoples living in the West Indies have no real sense of "belonging," from a class and a purely patriotic point of view.

Go to any village in the Yorkshire dales: the people living in that village are ordinary working folk, but what is bound to strike the visitor most forcibly is the atmosphere of "belonging." The visitor will be a "foreigner" even if he has only come from Bradford, a few miles away, and the bearing, conversation, and relationships of the villagers will make it abundantly clear that they and their forebears have lived in the district for centuries; that they belong.

Not so in the West Indies. First, there is the barrier to common communication and understanding erected by the different languages spoken. Then there is the formidable barrier of the Caribbean Sea which separates and insulates the scattered islands. The Negroes, plucked from tribal life in Africa in the not-so-distant past, strive to acquire the manners, religion, and political and social institutions of their former European masters. The East Indians cling to religious and social customs based on centuries of village life in India. The Chinese, on the whole, remain aloof. British expatriates tend to look upon their West Indian existence as a period of purgatory before their return to a wealthy retirement in the mother country.

Social Classes

Colonial education programmes have ignored teaching any ideas of a “unified'' West Indies to past generations; as M. Guérin says: “. . . . in school the West Indian child is given a detailed account of the institutions and history of the faraway mother country, but his teachers refrain from talking to him about the Antilles and avoid stimulating any untoward notions of regional solidarity. It is no wonder that the feeling of Caribbean unity (similar, for example, to that which binds together Jews or Arabs, no matter where they live in the world) has been so slow to take root in the popular consciousness." It must be added that, again, M. Guérin is rather out of date as far as the British islands are concerned at any rate. Popularly elected governments have introduced history curricula in schools with a pronounced nationalist rather than colonialist bias.

Following “emancipation,” three distinct social classes emerged in West Indian society: the white aristocracy, the free person of colour, and the black ex-slave (the hewer of wood and drawer of water). Since then, although a Socialist could differentiate between workers and Capitalists (whatever their complexion), a non-Socialist West Indian has used, and continues to use, different criteria: colour of skin, shape of nose, colour of eyes, and even degree of kinkiness of hair. A Socialist would dismiss these apparent trivia as hangovers from colonial rule, but they have been part of the West Indian social consciousness since the times of slavery and are alive today. For instance in Trinidad it is considered a social advantage to marry a person with lighter skin than your own. For a person with light skin to marry someone with black skin, a negroid nose, and kinky (“bad") hair is considered a social degradation. M. Guérin quotes an English writer who accuses the Jamaican of knowing “less about the people than the English bourgeosie about its proletariat . . .  No one in the West Indies talks so glibly of the 'lazy' black as his coloured brother.”

Small wonder that sects have arisen in the West Indies, comprising people (usually of African origin and of the poorest section of the working class) whose creed is a semi-religious determination to leave the West Indies and return to some never-never land in Africa; such a sect are the bearded Rastafarians in Jamaica, who demand nothing of the island of their birth but the right to return to Africa, to the “King of Kings"—Haile Selassie.

This feeling of “non-belonging" either causes West Indian workers to opt out (as the Rastafarians do) or to form tight little racialist/nationalist groups. In neither case are they encouraging material for politicians advocating a Federation of the West Indies, or even national unity in territories like Trinidad and British Guiana, where Negro-versus-East Indian racial tensions seem to be as strong as ever. Nor, for that matter, are they likely to be sympathetic to Socialists endeavouring to inculcate ideas of the identity of interests of workers in the various territories of the West Indies with those of their fellow-workers in the rest of the world.

M. Guérin hopes for one large confederation of all the Caribbean islands and their population of 15 million people, including a Caribbean customs union. This, he claims, would relieve some islands from the dangers inherent in their monoculture, it would allow rationalisation of production and marketing of commodities, it would lend weight to the confederation’s bargaining power, it would permit the confederation to finance and plan economic development, and it would reduce the present heavy cost of administrative, customs, fiscal, police, and technical organisations. It is hardly necessary to observe that these “benefits” of confederation are of interest only to the rising West Indian Capitalist class.

Closer Identity

With the formation of the European Common Market and the regionalisation of trade in other parts of the world in mind, it is tempting to forecast the formation of a similar Caribbean common market, with trade and currency probably tied to the Americas rather than to Europe. This might mean closer identity of the different groups of workers with one another, easier means of communication, and more effective trade-union organisation.

M. Guérin ends his book on, for him, a pessimistic note: “The West Indian Confederation has slight chance of being born within the framework of the present capitalist and colonialist society.”

The truth is that M. Guérin is no Socialist and therefore mistakes Negro nationalist movements for Socialist parties, advocates “freedom” from colonial powers and, like so many “progressives” is almost paranoiac about “Yankee imperialism.”

Guérin appears to support the affirmation of the Caribbean Labour Congress in 1945 which was that “there is no hope for the West Indies unless they become a Socialist Commonwealth.” Unfortunately, the Socialist commonwealth envisaged by Guérin is no doubt a nationalist grouping of the West Indian islands under a “progressive” government on the lines of the British Labour Government.

If that is the kind of future M. Guérin has in mind for West Indian workers, there are ample grounds for pessimism. Even if confederation is achieved, even if a customs union is established, even if the whole of the West Indies becomes one large politico-economic bloc, the West Indian worker will still have to face the problems of working-class life under Capitalism; problems intensified by the uncertainty of the world market’s fickle demands for the staple commodities of the West Indies. At the time of writing, workers in Trinidad’s oilfields (considered to be reasonably safe places of employment) are being laid off because the world demand for oil is rapidly being satisfied.

"Native," popularly elected, politicians are powerless to influence the trends of the world's markets and the policies of the dominant Capitalist powers, however much they may pretend to their followers that they can. During the Second World War, the Jamaican banana industry was almost ruined, with severe unemployment among the banana-plantation workers, because the export of bananas to the United Kingdom was stopped. Similarly, there is today much hardship among the sugar workers in Cuba because, as a form of retaliation against the Castro regime, the Kennedy administration has cancelled the Cuban import quota of sugar to the United States.

As the crises of Capitalism intensify, it is a sure thing that the West Indian workers will as in the past, be well in the vanguard for receiving any blows that are being handed out in the form of unemployment, reduced wages, and so on.

After so much pessimism it would be fitting, in these closing passages, to report that there was support for the world Socialist parties among West Indian workers. Unfortunately, such is not the case: most politically-minded workers support nationalist parties with programmes which even the Conservative Party of twenty years ago might consider rather reactionary.

We have tried to show how the rapacious growth of Capitalism in the West Indies has drawn Negro slaves from Africa, indentured labourers from India, Madeira, and England, free labourers from Europe, and has left them in an alien, uncertain land, without roots, without strong ties, and with no sense of " belonging."

Rebellion against European exploiters produced native leaders who eventually assumed political control, but, as with other "ex-colonial" territories, the workers remain a subject class, at the mercy of their employers and changes in the world’s markets' demands for such commodities as sugar, and bananas, whether they live as citizens of a single island, citizens of a federation of British islands, or citizens of a Confederation of all the West Indian islands.

But Capitalism has forced into existence well-organised trade unions, it has made communication including air travel between the territories of the West Indies simple and reasonably cheap, and it has made West Indian workers think in terms of politics for their future. Therefore, although there is apparently little evidence. at present, of any growth of Socialist knowledge among West Indian workers, the ground into which Socialist ideas may be sown is being well prepared.

Michael La Touche