Station Road, London, N.3) indicate the severe effects of neo-colonialism on the small, usually single-crop, economic units of the West Indies. HE West Indies is sugar and sugar is crisis after crisis. The highly mechanised Australian sugar industry is the new threat to West Indian sugar. The previous threat (and crisis) came from Britain’s intention to join the European Common Market. Australia’s low production price threatens the price structure of the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement under which Commonwealth sugar producers negotiate the price year by year. The fall in the world market price of sugar presents this problem. About one-third of the production will be sold at approx. $135.00 (W.I.). Cost of production, though varying, is over $192.00 per ton according to sugar producers’ figures. The slogan of W.I. sugar pro. ducers (ie., Tate and Lyle principally) is mechanise or perish. British journals generally see the same alternatives. Follow Australia is the new slogan. But while Australia suffers from scarcity of labour supply and encourages immigration, the West Indies suffer from over-supply of labour and emigration doors are being closed. Unemployment ranges from 14% to nearly 25% of the
labour force in West Indian territories. Mechanisation in agriculture and industry is a major political and social problem in the West Indies and the politicians are realising this. Kirkwood, President of the British West Indies Sugar Association, has called on West Indian Governments to convene a conference of the Governments’ sugar producers, cane farmers, and trade unions. The Nutmeg Association of Grenada, one of the biggest producers of nutmegs in the world, has found it necessary to approach producers in Trinidad and St. Vincent to form some type of joint marketing arrangement in the Canadian market so as to protect the price of this agricultural raw material. Quite recently, the Jamaica All Island Banana Growers Association took similar steps to negotiate a joint marketing arrangement with the Windward Islands Banana Association so as to eliminate their price war in their principal market—Britain—and to avoid further price drops. The shippers and marketers for the Jamaica banana industry are Elders and Fyffe while it is Geest Industries (a U.S. subsidy) which ships and markets for the Windward Islands. Production in the Windward Islands has increased considerably. The price according to THE TIMES has been depressed below the price of £41 to £42 per ton which is the Jamaican cost of production. Trinidad Unions force take over
Bus Services in North and South Trinidad have been taken over by the Trinidad and Tobago Government. The take-over took effect as from Ist January, 1965. The Government alleged “‘mismanagement on a grand scale” and “constant operational deficits” by the Companies. The Government has had to pay subsidies totalling $4,545,819 (West Indian) to the companies. During the recent successful 58day strike led by the Transport and
Industrial Workers’ Union, the workers demanded the take-over of the company. It was after a similar four-month strike by the Telephone workers that the Government took over the Telephone Company. f Prior to the take-over, the Government appointed a working party to consider the implications of a takeover of the bus transport system. The T.1.W.U. had its own representatives on this working party.
Students
protest
During the opening session of the
Commonwealth Parliamentary Associ-
ation held in Jamaica recently,
students of the University of the West
Indies demonstrated against the
Southern Rhodesian Government’s
attempt to impose White Minority
rule on the Southern Rhodesia. The
students supported the call of the
Zimbabwe nationalists of “one man
one vote.”
The students also protested at the
presence of Southern Rhodesia in the
conference.
Union man sacked
Hugh Small, Barrister-at-law, legal
adviser in the National Workers’
Union in Jamaica and an active mem-
ber of the Young Socialist League
has been relieved of his Union duties.
His dismissal follows a strike of
the headquarters and field staff of the
N.W.U., the Trade Union wing of
the ruling People’s National Party, at
an emergency meeting of the Union’s
Executive.
Small was reported as saying that
“neither the N.W.U. nor the Busta-
mante Industrial Trade Union meant
the workers of Jamaica any good, and
the workers should take over and
create a full socialist state.”
When asked about Small’s dis-
missal, Thos. Kelly, dual president
of the N.W.U. and the Caribbean
Congress of Labour, said “he was
dismissed in the normal course of
events. The executives of the
N.W.U. decided that Small’s activi-
ties were not in the best interest of
the Union.”
Significant was the fact that cer-
tain persons who are simultaneously
members of the N.W.U. and P.N.P.
executive, sympathetic to Small’s
views, were not invited to the
N.W.U.’s emergency meeting, which
decided Small’s fate, thus reflecting
the split in the P.N.P., one faction
seeking the interest of the workers,
while the other remained predomin-
atly on the side of big business.
*One W.I. dollar equals 4s. 2d.