Caribbean Commission

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24610, 5 July 1945, Page 4

Caribbean Commission

The changes in the set-up of the Anglo-American Caribbean Commission announced this week by the two component Governments are of wide and promising meaning. Both Governments have agreed to increase the commission's membership from three to four on each side, and the British Government has ’ announced that this extension will permit the appointment of two British West Indians, representative of unofficial opinion. The establishment of the commission was dictated by strategic needs. In September, 1940, Britain had granted to the United States a 99 years lease of military and naval bases in the West Indies; and when intense Üboat activity developed in the Caribbean in the months after Pearl Harbour it became imperative to devise an all-embracing administrative machinery to maintain the islands’ economic structure. The commission was accordingly charged, in March, 1942, with the task of “ encouraging and strengthening “social and economic co-operation “ between the United States of “America and its possessions and “ bases in the area . . . and the “United Kingdom and the British “colonies in the same area”. The work to which the commission immediately applied itself was naturally such as the emergency specially required to strengthen Caribbean security and its contribution to the j wa; effort. But the problems it set before the commission were still * the familiar ones. of the area,

though aggravated by the war; and, as the commission observed in its first report, “the remedies in most “cases will be found only through “ long-term planning ”, Although the pressure imposed by the war has ceased, this experiment in colonial regionalism is being continued, and the international factor remains. This in itself is the less remarkable aspect of the changes now announced, although its profound significance emerges when it is recalled that in 1943 Britain’s Colonial Secretary held up the Caribbean Commission as a model of colonial regionalism and international co-operation that might well be followed elsewhere. The greater and more immediate interest in the changes is, rather, in the scope they offer “ for the closer co-operation of “unofficial opinion with the com- “ mission’s work ”, From the day the commission issued its first report it was clear that this was to be more than an instrument to strengthen co-operation between two sovereign Powers with adjoining colonial possessions, and more, too, than an instrument for the government and betterment of the Caribbean peoples. The two Governments had agreed, said the commission, “that the democratic ap- “ proach to the solution of the “ Caribbean problems must envis- “ age arrangements for conferences “ and consultation with local representatives of the territories and “ colonies ”. It was to be an instrument to help the Caribbean peoples to govern and better themselves. The people of the region have since had a . hand in this experiment. The arrangements of which the commission spoke have taken the form of a regular system of West Indian conferences, to which each territory sends two delegates. The first of those conferences was held in Barbados in March last year. According to the American Foreign Policy Association, it was “ the nearest “ thing to a democratic regional “ assembly that has yet been con- “ vened ”, though there were “ sharp “ limitations on its popular character”. The ,r Economist", which said much the same, considered that the method of selecting the delegates could not be regarded as “ en- “ tirely satisfactory ”, and that some means of popular selection’ would have to be found when the conference system was firmly established. Nevertheless, the “ Economist ” welcomed the fact that one of the two delegates from each of the colonies was an unofficial one, and it found the conference a “quite “genuine instance” of the people themselves participating in plans for their own betterment. Moreover, as the report of the conference showed, those people “ proved “ themselves capable of it". The process of consulting local opinion has now been carried a stage further. At the higher level of the parent body itself, room has been made to accommodate two British West Indian leaders representative of unofficial opinion. This orderly progress towards a real partnership between home government and dependency in the Caribbean region makes it much easier to believe that the machinery erected there can and will be applied for the benefit of dependent peoples all over the world. ..