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21 Chapter 2 Tentative Anticolonialism Implications for Decolonization under Globalization, 1940–1970 The Social Structure of Colonial St. Lucia and the Challenge of Working-Class Nationalism The period surrounding the publication of the reports of the Wood and Moyne commissions of inquiry into West Indian social and economic conditions in 1922 and 1938, respectively (see Cmnd. 1679 [1922]; Cmnd. 6607 [1945]), provides a useful context in which to examine the internal colonial relations of St. Lucia. This period coincides with a phase of economic and social upheaval that sparked the popular nationalist movements in the West Indies. It is in response to these upheavals that the Wood and Moyne commissions were activated and resultant shifts in colonial policy, culminating in eventual decolonization, can be identified .1 The period therefore provides a useful platform from which to explore the political and economic objectives of working-class nationalism. In this period, St. Lucia was “not only one of the poorest areas of the West Indies but was regarded as one of the slums of the Commonwealth and among the most poverty stricken areas of the new world” (O’Loughlin 1968, 46).2 The Moyne Commission (Cmnd. 6607 [1945], 410) noted the existence of a large urban, unemployed, slum-dwelling class reliant on the coaling trade as its main source of employment, but whose plight was exacerbated by the decline of the steamship (see Annual Colonial Report [St. Lucia] 1931).3 This urban unemployment problem was aggravated by the existence of an economy of “notorious artificiality,” associated with the availability of high-paying, short-term employment opportunities (see Lewis 1968, 149–150). This was seen, for example, in the period of the construction of U.S. military bases in the south of the island during World War II and the reconstruction of the city of Castries after a disastrous fire in 1948 (ibid.). The urban unemployed were therefore largely averse to Implications for Decolonization under Globalization, 1940–1970 22 agricultural labor, which was low paying and highly seasonal in nature due to the rhythms of the dominant sugar industry. The sugar plantation dominated the St. Lucian economy in this period, and the main challenges to the colonial order emerged there. A commission investigating the West Indian sugar economy in 1930 noted prophetically that “sugar can no longer be produced except at a loss . . . ; serious distress may result among large numbers of the population, and that Governments of certain colonies may experience great financial difficulty in maintaining essential services” (Cmnd. 3517 [1930], 3). While the report observed that the sugar industry was not as critical to St. Lucia as it was to other territories,4 with sugar exports contributing to as much as 45 percent of the territory’s export revenues, it was believed that any shortfall would lead to severe social crises. Out of a population of about 56,917, 6,900 people were estimated to be employed directly in the sugar industry (ibid., 85–86). Wages in the sugar industry were extremely low, ranging between one to two shillings per day for men, but nevertheless represented the highest-paying section of the agricultural sector. These economic conditions were reflected in the social conditions of the majority of the population. Rural society during this “prebanana” period was described as “brutally feudal” and marked primarily “by an oppressed peasant proprietary class fighting to maintain its precarious existence within a hostile environment” (Lewis 1968, 160).5 Housing conditions were described as being “of a primitive character” (see Annual Colonial Report 1932, 7) in which “it was typical to find the entire family living in a single room” (Lewis 1977, 16). Many plantation workers lived in these “primitive conditions” in plantation-owned barracks, and as late as the mid-1960s there was a high incidence of diseases such as bilharzia and hookworm (O’Loughlin 1963, 89) and an estimated illiteracy rate of 70 percent (Romalis 1968, 30). St. Lucia’s social problems were described as being more urgent than its economic problems (O’Loughlin 1968, 43, 72). These social problems were exacerbated by a marked rural-urban socioeconomic disparity fostered by the colonial government’s failure to extend its administration and social services to the rural sector (Lewis 1968, 150). The society’s internal class relations reflected its historical evolution as a slavebased plantation society. A small European element, largely French in ancestry, dominated the society economically, politically, and culturally. While this group had significant commercial interests in the Castries capital, its hegemony was most apparent...

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