Sir Florizel Glasspole, left, and N.W. Manley
Louis Marriott, Contributor
This is the fourth in a series of articles reliving the years up to Independence by a journalist/broadcaster whose childhood and maturation coincided with Jamaica's.
DISTURBANCES SPREAD rapidly across Jamaica following the turmoil in Kingston in May 1938. Every day, there were reports of strikes, outbreaks of violence and various forms of civil disorder in divers places.
Typically, angry mobs throwing stones and wielding sticks, machetes and lengths of iron pipe were met by the rifles, bayonets and batons of the regular police, supplemented by soldiers from Up Park Camp and special constables recruited mainly from the middle and upper classes.
The most serious events occurred in Montego Bay, Mandeville, Spanish Town and Highgate and in Islington, where four persons were shot dead by police bullets.
The anger of the poor black masses of Jamaica had simply boiled over. Compounding the misery of their lives dating back to slavery were a series of events that adversely affected the economy, declining sugar prices due to oversupply on the world market, decimation of banana cultivations by leaf spot disease, and the ravages of the Great Depression in Europe and North America. Low wages, high prices, unemployment, poverty and disease were rife in Jamaica.
Daddy brought home a copy of an article in a conservative British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post, which read among other things: "A great deal is amiss with the economic and social conditions in Jamaica The truth is that we are now reaping the harvest of a century's neglect The time has come when it is incumbent upon Britain to apply herself earnestly to the task of redressing the
more fundamental causes of West Indian discontent."
HEADLINES
Daddy pointed out that this was not the first time that Jamaica and other British Caribbean colonies had made the headlines in Britain. He cited a former British Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, after whom my brother Lloyd George Marriott was named. Mr. George had labelled Jamaica and other British Caribbean colonies the "slums of the Empire". Commentators in Britain repeatedly contrasted the appalling socio-economic conditions of their Caribbean colonies with the enormous wealth that had accumulated in Britain through the proceeds of West Indian slavery and colonialism.
Daddy said that the revolt that had been taking place in Jamaica from the start of 1938 was an echo of earlier events in other British islands in the region.
While standing in the breach during the incarceration of Alexander Bustamante and St William Grant, Norman Manley had told the Kingston waterfront workers that they should form a trade union to represent their interests. Ken Hill, himself one of the founders of a transport workers union, had also advocated a waterfront workers union when he hosted a group of waterfront workers at a meeting of his National Reform Association (NRA). In addition to A.G.S. Coombs, Jamaica Workers, and Tradesmen's Union, there had also been a Jamaica United Clerks Association, for shop assistants, founded by Erasmus Campbell, Ernest Rae and Florizel Glasspole.
Now Bustamante, on his release from the General Penitentiary, was enlisting membership for five new trade unions. He got a kick-start in funding from unspent money from the Aggie Bernard-Edna Manley soup kitchen when the portworkers returned to work. There was a Maritime Union to include dockworkers, banana carriers, longshoremen and others working on the waterfront; a Transport Workers' Union for railway and tram workers, mechanics and chauffeurs; a Factory Workers' Union; a Municipal Workers' Union for Government workers; and the Bustamante Union, an umbrella body for the others. There was a general membership fee of three pence per week.
RURAL RECONSTRUCTION
Manley, meanwhile, had founded a Rural Reconstruction Committee to formulate proposals to the Government for a complete reorganisation of Jamaica's economy, with land settlement as the cornerstone. His objective was to settle thousands of unemployed people on the thousands of acres of good arable land that lay idle all over the island. The Rural Reconstruction Committee would also address issues such as the lack of access to credit, agricultural education and marketing facilities for small farmers on Government lands. The same would apply to small farmers working their own land. Manley and Bustamante travelled all over Jamaica, urging restraint, patience and discipline. They discouraged wildcat strikes and emphasised that the strike should be used only as a last resort.
Newspaper reports of their joint meetings were a bone of contention for Daddy, who told a dissenting Uncle Horace that Bustamante was always contriving ways to alienate Manley from the workers even while they shared platforms. Daddy challenged Uncle Horace to explain why Bustamante repeatedly told the workers that Manley could not be against capitalists because he worked for them.
There was a vigorous recruitment drive for the Bustamante unions throughout the island. Despite the efforts of Bustamante and Manley, widespread trouble continued all over the country, but particularly in the western parishes. There was an ugly rumour that there would be a revolution in the west in which white people would be killed.
In the height of the troubles, Governor Denham had requested security reinforcement from the imperial Government in London, which had responded by dispatching the HMS Ajax, sailing off the coast of Bermuda, to take up duties in Jamaica. Ironically, the first task that the Ajax performed in Jamaica was to transport Denham's body from Victoria Pier at the foot of King Street to the open Caribbean, where it was buried.
Denham was the first Governor of Jamaica in 150 years to die in office.
STRAIN
He had been suffering from diverticulitis. The strain of the past few weeks had proved too much for him. Experiencing severe abdominal pain, he was rushed to the Kingston General Hospital at the corner of North and Princess Streets. There he underwent an emergency operation announced as a success, but he suffered a relapse, and on the afternoon of Thursday June 2, 1938, he succumbed.
The Governor's deputy, Colonial Secretary Charles Woolley, carried on the administration pending the posting of Denham's successor. Woolley ordered Captain Woodhouse of the HMS Ajax to sail to Montego Bay to prepare for the expected uprising in the west but, to ensure the security of Kingston, he instructed Woodhouse first to offload two platoons of the Royal Marines to be stationed at Up Park Camp.
There was, in fact, ugly violence in the west, but the combination of regular police, soldiers of the imperial Sherwood Foresters, an islandwide total of 2,000 special constables, and Ajax marines proved enough to contain the troubles. The presence of the Ajax was a decisive factor, as its seaplanes, making dramatic swoops down on mobs broke up many threatening activities.
Woolley then threw in a tempting carrot with the big stick. He called a press conference to announce a "New Deal for Jamaica" which earned praise from both Bustamante and Manley. It was a land reform programme that fell short of the objectives of the Rural Reconstruction Committee, but was nevertheless embraced by Manley as "the best piece of news I have seen for the people of Jamaica since I was born."
Land was to be transferred to thousands of people in rural Jamaica. The land to be subdivided and transferred included government holdings and idle properties to be acquired from big landowners. The Government would also provide small farmers with agricultural implements, seeds, livestock and expert advice.
Daddy's involvement in civic affairs deepened. He attended more and more meetings of groups like the National Reform Association and the St. Andrew Literary and Debating Society, where public issues were discussed. He said that there were moves afoot to found a labour party in Jamaica.
Uncle Horace questioned the need for a party. He argued that the Bustamante unions were there to look after the interests of labour. Daddy contended that unions were limited to promoting the interests of their members. A wider political movement was necessary to give the people of Jamaica greater involvement in their governance. He pointed out that, resulting from a tax qualification, only one person out of every 20 in the population had the right to vote. And even where the local token legislature tried to flex its muscles, which it rarely did, the Governor could override it (and often did), simply by declaring the matter in question to be one of "paramount importance."
Daddy said that the system had to be changed, and a political movement was required to change it. He said that when that movement came he would be a part of it.
Louis Marriott is a journalist and broadcaster, a former BBC producer/presenter and Press Secretary to the Prime Minister of Jamaica.
