THEBRITISH CARIBBEAN FEDERATION: THE WEST INDIAN BACKGROUND

Abstract

The new Federation of the British territories of the Caribbean area will come into being in 1957, with the first federal elections under the new constítutional arrangements probably being held early in 1956. In this article Professor Lewís sets out the general background of West Indian society wíthin which the Federal Government will operate. A short inítial historical background of the federal idea is followed by .a discussion of the varied factors that make Federation a logical step for these dispersed and poverty-stricken islands. This is followed, in turn, by two larger sections, The first of these deals in detail with the general socia'! and psychological conditions of West Indian society; with sorne particular reference being paid to social attitudes of the peasant and worker in that society; the relationship between them and the elements of West Indian government; the role of color in social and individual relationships; the problem of a superimposed British culture-pattern upon a colonial people; and the kind of public policy that will have to be pursued by imaginative government if a West Indian answer 1S to be provided to the West Indian question, The second larger section analyzes the character of politics and political parties in the British Caribbean. It includes a description of the pllesent forms of constitutional and political rule in the Crown Colonysystem and an analysis of the various factors that explain the comparative imrnaturity of disciplined and principled political partíes in the region. Note is taken of the recent rise of new party organizatíons which promise to replace the old forrns with new structures and new social and economic philosophies more attuned to the rising demand for responsible self-government in the area, possibly to end in Dominion Status of the region within the Cornrnonwealth. Note is likewise taken of those aspects of the proposed Federa'! Constitution which impíge upon these aspects of West Indian government. The final and shorter section of the article deals with the growth of a Caribbean national culture and consciousness within the British area. For the development of federal self-government is only one aspect of the rise of colonial nationalism within the Caribbean; one of the problems of the federal venture, in turn, will be that of adjusting its machinery and its outlook to the demands of that nationalist spirít. In this sense, the Caribbean reflects the larger spirit of racial and nationalist self-assertiveness that is to be seen in the Asian and African continents. The article closes by drawing attention to the fact that the stubborn anglophilism of the British Caribbean, along with its nearness to the United States, suggests that the region may become an experiment in the meeting and the mixture of the old and the new worlds in the twentieth century.