The 1955-1959 Administration

• Author: Trevor Munroe/Arnold Bertram
• Profession: Rhodes Scholar and Fulbright Fellow, political scientist, labour activist and politician, is Professor of Government and Politics at the University of the West Indies, Mona/Distinguished commentator on Jamaican Social History and Political Development is a former Legislator in both houses of the Jamaican Parliament and a former Minister of ...
• Pages: 170-222

170 / Pre-Independence Administrations

The 1955 Elections: Background and Results

Bustamante’s second consecutive victory in the elections of 1949

confirmed his place as a master tactician in the art of politics, and

assigned him the role of exercising the major influence on the

development of Jamaica in the first decade of Universal Adult Suffrage.

It was in this same general election that the PNP confirmed its arrival

as a major political force. Its campaign for self-government and

articulation of a clear alternative to Bustamante’s laissez-faire capitalism

had strengthened its hold on the middle classes, won over substantial

sections of organized labour, and in the process made urban Jamaica

undisputed PNP territory. Despite losing the elections, the PNP won

the popular vote, taking 43.5 per cent to the JLP’s 42.7 per cent, and

demonstrated its urban strength by winning all three seats in Kingston,

the capital city. Ominously for the JLP, Norman Manley’s presence in

the new House of Representatives created a far more formidable

opposition.

Among the new JLP members in the House of Representatives which

met in January 1950, was Donald Burns Sangster, who had run as an

Independent in 1944, finishing second behind B.B. Coke in a field of

five. Sangster, born on October 22, 1911, had been educated at Munro

College, and at age 21 won a seat on the St. Elizabeth Parochial Board.

In 1949, after completing his first term as Chairman, Sangster, running

on a JLP ticket, defeated B.B. Coke by 48 votes for the Southern St.

Elizabeth seat.

The 1955–1959 Administration

Chapter 5

The 1955–1959 Administration / 171

Having taken his place in the Legislature, Manley immediately picked

up where his colleague Ivan Lloyd had left off, with the demand for real

advances towards self-government. In July 1950, he invited the House

of Representatives ‘to accept as a basic principle for constitutional reform

… that Jamaica is fit for complete self-government in local affairs’.1

The process of constitutional decolonization was considerably

energized with the arrival of Governor Hugh Foot in April 1951. Foot

had previously served as Colonial Secretary in Jamaica between 1945

and 1947. It was he who, early in 1952, submitted proposals to amend

the constitution to introduce the ministerial system, by which the

Jamaican elected members would be empowered to initiate policy and

be effectively responsible for the departments under their new ministries.

On July 2, 1952 Norman Manley, speaking in the House of

Representatives, expressed the view that the Governor’s proposals fell

short of self-government and were inadequate to Jamaica’s needs. He

therefore put a motion that ‘this House declares itself in favour of self-

government for Jamaica and appoints a committee of seven members of

the House forthwith to prepare a constitution providing for self-

government to be submitted for approval to the Secretary of State for

the Colonies at the earliest possible date.’

It was during this debate that Bustamante for the first time joined in

the call for self-government, and informed the House of Representatives

that

one of the revised planks of the Jamaica Labour Party is to work

incessantly and consistently for the freedom that is ours by right,

and this is what it says: to work towards self-government in

Jamaica with a view to achieving federation in the British

Caribbean area and dominion status within the framework of

the British Commonwealth of Nations.2

These proposals were finally implemented in May 1953. Speaking

in the House of Representatives on June 8 on the Estimates of

Expenditure, Manley not only expressed satisfaction that for the first

time the Budget was being presented by an elected member, Sir Harold

172 / Pre-Independence Administrations

Allan, but also used the opportunity to chide the JLP for its tardiness in

supporting the campaign for self-government.

There is no single member of the majority party who lifted a

little finger to win the new constitution of 1944. There is not one

that even spoke a word in favour of self-government — not one.

Not one that even stood on a platform and advocated a ministerial

system. There is not one that advocated Universal Adult Suffrage.

There is not one that advocated an all-elected body — not one

single one.3

Despite the constitutional advances, the British Crown, through the

Governor, continued to exercise jurisdiction over matters of justice and

defence. The clear implication was that Jamaicans could not yet be

trusted to take decisions on matters related to the police and military.

Bustamante began his second term with the objective of ‘preventing

the rising unemployment, to reduce it, and to do things others have not

done before’. However, such were the financial restraints that

implementation lagged far behind his most sincere intentions. His hopes

of improving the quality of life for the Jamaican working people received

a major setback with the devastation caused by Hurricane Charlie on

August 17, 1951.

Four ships were sunk with sixteen seamen in them drowned,

and three ships blown onto the land. In the city – and most of all

in the slum areas – buildings collapsed, thousands of trees were

blown down in a tangled network of high-tension cables and

telephone poles and wires.

Fifty-four people in the city died in that night’s nightmare.

The ancient pirate city of Port Royal at the entrance to Kingston

Harbour was entirely destroyed except for the church and the

17th century Fort Charles and the shell of the old naval hospital

where a thousand people sought shelter. Property damage in

Kingston was estimated at well over twelve million pounds.