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230 seven Challenging Power and Facing the Consequences Despite the great heat in the Hall,” the Daily Gleaner reported, “men and women of all classes listened attentively for close over three hours.” The large crowd of some 2,000 persons had gathered in the St. George’s Hall in Kingston to protest against the government’s abuse of the power it acquired under the aegis of the Defense Regulations it had received from the Colonial Office. The meeting was presided over by the prominent attorney Leslie Ashenheim. He was the acting chairman of the recently founded Jamaica Council of Civil Liberties, which was modeled after its English counterpart, the National Council of Civil Liberties. Ashenheim said its raison d’etre was “to watch over and to guard over the civil liberties of the people of this country—not those of one class alone, but of every class.” Observing the size of the audience in St. George’s Hall on that June evening in 1941, Ashenheim characterized the meeting as “one of the historic occasions in the history of Jamaica.” He urged his listeners to “look around” and “observe the completely representative character of the people present here, the richest and the poorest joined together. And we are determined that for this evening we are Jamaicans and Jamaicans only.” The Gleaner listed the names of some of the “notables” in attendance. It included legislators, civic leaders, and members of the professions. There was no mention of anyone who was not a “notable,” of the people who were the fulcrum of the labor rebellion and the social movement in progress. Ashenheim had, however, celebrated the classless nature of those who had come to peacefully petition their monarch, to contest the colonial state’s incursions into the sanctuaries of their lives. H. M. Shirley, the acting president of the bitu and one of the speakers at the meeting, declared that he was representing “the greater portion of the inarticulate masses throughout the length and breadth of Jamaica.” Still, it was for the most part a gathering of elites who were nursing nationalist sentiments and suspicious of any expansion of the power of the state.1 “ Challenging Power and Facing the Consequences | 231 The colonial authorities, predictably, attempted to disparage those members of the elite who participated in the meeting or who were members of the Jamaica Council of Civil Liberties. Speaking in the Legislative Council , Colonial Secretary A. W. Grantham denounced what he considered to be their hypocrisy, charging: “What is more curious is to see some of the persons who are now donning the robes of the apostles of liberty—people whom we know are opposed to giving the elected members of the Council a majority of members in the Council, and who favour the most rigid form of Crown Colony Government—it being understood of course that they will have the ear of the Government—these people get up today and talk about the liberty of the subject.” The Gleaner was not pleased with this scathing assault on segments of the Jamaican elite, wondering why the colonial secretary “should so sweepingly and indiscriminately indulge in this sort of censure of others, of all and sundry, without justification.” The colonial secretary was clearly stung by the criticism of the Defense Regulations and the manner of their enforcement. But he had transgressed a colonial etiquette that looked askance at such rhetorical abuse of His Majesty’s subjects by the officers of the administration. The Gleaner’s editorial writer confessed that he read Grantham’s remarks “in sorrow.”2 The Defense Regulations that stirred such emotions on both sides had been promulgated in England, and were made applicable in the colonies, by the Neville Chamberlain government in 1938. In their original form, the regulations allowed the arrest and detention of individuals who allegedly engaged in acts prejudicial to public safety or the security of the realm. It also prescribed a similar treatment for enemy aliens. The press was subject to censorship, particularly in reference to its coverage of matters relating to the conduct of a military conflict. The government also imposed restrictions on the publication of “enemy propaganda” or anything that might damage public morale. The accused persons were denied the right to trial in the courts and could be detained indefinitely. Outraged by this flagrant violation of the right to a court trial afforded British citizens accused of crimes, the House of Commons repudiated some of the regulations...

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