The Vision of an Economic Community

• Author: Anthony J. Payne
• Profession: Professor of Politics, University of Sheffield, UK. He is the author of several books on Caribbean politics and international relations
• Pages: 3-33

The Vision of an Economic Community | 3

As the result of the Jamaican referendum gradually emerged in

September 1961, the prevailing response amongst supporters of the

regional idea throughout the West Indies was a mixture of despair and

uncertainty. The economist Norman Girvan, who at the time was an

undergraduate at the University of the West Indies (UWI), has talked of

the ‘sense of shock’ he experienced upon hearing the news, ‘the feeling

that a whole world had collapsed’.1 Others tried to conceal their

disappointment as much as possible by a display of bombast and bravado.

The Chief Minister of Saint Lucia, George Charles, prophesied at a public

meeting in Castries that, one day, Jamaica would ‘come crawling at the

feet of the Big Little Eight, begging to be let into the Federation’.2 Not

many, though, can have found that a very realistic prospect as they read

reports of bells being rung throughout Jamaica — ‘from Negril Point

to Morant Point’,3 in celebration of the crushing defeat which the federal

cause had clearly suffered. To most federalists, the referendum looked

like the end of a long road.

There were, however, some hardened optimists, who professed to

see the referendum result as a blessing in disguise, which offered an

unexpected opportunity to rebuild a strongly centralised federation,

unencumbered by the restraining influence of Jamaica. They

immediately turned their attention to the exploitation of this possibility

and, in particular, to the question of Trinidad’s attitude, for Trinidad,

easily the largest and wealthiest of the remaining units, would be required

to sustain any new federation virtually single-handed. The chances of

her agreeing to undertake this role were at best unpromising: during

CHAPTER ONE

The Vision of an

Economic Community

4 | The Political History of CARICOM

the previous year Williams had said on a number of occasions that, if

Jamaica seceded from the Federation, Trinidad would have to seriously

consider following suit.4 There seemed, moreover, little chance that he

would change his mind given that, during the latter part of the life of

the Federation, verbal communication had virtually broken down

between the region’s leaders.

Nevertheless, on the night of the referendum Professor Arthur Lewis,

then Principal of the University of the West Indies and an old friend of

the Trinidad Premier, hurried to see Williams in the hope of persuading

him to keep Trinidad within the federal fold. He later recalled the

meeting:

Dr Williams was in a very bad mood ... [and] ... was absolutely

fed up with most of the principal characters. Fortunately he

had already decided to lie low, and say nothing for the time

being. It was clear that if forced to speak, he would simply

announce that Trinidad too was coming out of the Federation

and seeking its independence.... He would have nothing whatever

to do with the Grantley Adams Federation; that must pack up

and its leaders disappear.5

Williams, however, did affirm that he still stood by the principles of

The Economics of Nationhood, and agreed that Lewis should embark

upon a tour of the other West Indian islands to test out the ground for

a continuation of the Federation on those lines. At Williams’s bidding,

the governing party in Trinidad, the People’s National Movement

(PNM), announced that no decision would be taken on the future of

the Federation until after the general elections due in Trinidad that

December: the question would not even be discussed during the

forthcoming campaign.6 Having thus neatly sidestepped the danger of

losing votes from small islanders resident in Trinidad, Williams was

prepared, for the moment, to leave the federal question in the air and to

concentrate his efforts upon the task of defeating the electoral challenge

of the opposition Democratic Labour Party.

Since all the other governments in the Eastern Caribbean were

extremely anxious not to precipitate Trinidad’s secession whilst Lewis’s