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167 CHAPTER TWELVE WEBBER: A KEYNESIAN British Guiana alone cannot right the world’s under consumption; but it can see to it that it does not aggravate under consumption within its own borders. Let us stretch our vision. Let us look beyond the immediate horizon. Away with cringing fear which bids us shiver. The night must pass. Panic helps nobody. Let us greet the unseen with cheer. —A. R. F. WEBBER, “I Am an Economic Heretic” Look after unemployment and the Budget will look after itself. . . . We must save if spending is to be healthy, and we must spend if savings is to be healthy. —JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES, quoted in Robert Skidelsky, John Maynard Keynes Woman must have a high estimation of her sex and she must want the best of everything for her sex and the only way for that to be attained in British Guiana is for each woman in her own sphere to endeavour to do her best always remembering the brilliant members of her sex past and present who have striven and won. . . . We want British Guiana to be better, happier and godlier. Do you my sisters take each your part in the work? —GERTIE WOOD, “An Ideal Womanhood in British Guiana” WHEN THE NEW LEGISLATIVE TERM RESUMED, several issues about the social responsibility of the state were placed on the agenda for discussion. Webber, an acknowledged “student of constitutional practices” and the magnetic glue that held the Electives together, was reelected whip of the House.1 The Electives were determined to examine the Customs Tariff, to see “what steps could best be taken with regard to the British Preferential Tariff,”2 and to introduce measures such as old-age pension and workmen’s compensation. On October 23 Webber gave notice to the Legislative Council that he would introduce a workmen’s compensation act.3 The BGLU also wanted legislation for an eight-hour workday and better protection for sewing girls and shop assistants.4 In all of this, the Electives had not forgotten the oppressive nature of the constitution, a fight they would continue during the next year and which will be the subject of chapter 14. A KEYNESIAN 168 Webber’s concern also extended to the nation’s prisoners. It was a sign that he realized that a society is judged sometimes by how well it treats its prisoners. On November 7, 1930, prison reform was debated in the Legislative Council. Prior to the debate, he had visited Georgetown Prison. He observed that the prisoners’ meals were not nutritious and urged that they be provided with local products. Webber objected to the conditions under which the prisoners were accommodated and noted that the prison was run more like a penal settlement. It was a demoralizing and debasing place. Prisoners slept on the floor and were not even provided with a box to sit on. “There was poor ventilation and no light in the cells. Prisoners were locked up in their cells in solitary confinement from 2 p.m. on Saturday until Monday morning with nothing to read and all they do was to brood over their crime.” He recommended that every cell be lit so that the prisoners could “read the Bible in their cells; it was a forbidden book.”5 The governor intervened to say that he had given instructions to install lights in the cells, and the prisoners would be able to read until 10:30 p.m. The colonial secretary added that “all the prisoners were now supplied with cots and they were now making stools” to accommodate them.6 Webber’s intervention had helped even the most demeaned (some would call them “the dregs”) of the society. Webber’s last symbolic act by way of postelection maneuvers revolved around a simple question that he raised in the Legislative Council in the dying days of 1930. He wanted to know if the government had received any communication from the West Indian Press Association with regard to the Newspaper Ordinance of 1839, “which still encumbers the Statute Books of the Colony,”7 and if the government would appoint a committee to look into the matter. The acting colonial secretary said he did not believe that the ordinance was archaic (Webber had called it archaic ) or that it encumbered the statute books of the colony. He assured Webber that it “occupies but six and a half pages of the Statute Book and compares favorably with similar legislation in other colonies. In recent proceedings...

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