Early Articles by Cheddi Jagan
Jagan Advocates: FEDERATION ALONG SOCIAL1ST LINES
Guiana’s Premier in a forthright statement on the results of the Jamaica referendum has reminded Guianese and WI politicians of his old stand on the issue of committing the territories to federation. He has also called upon Eric Williams and Grantley Adams, the Federal Prime Minister, to set up a federation with a strong centre which they advocated and to refashion the federal economy along real socialist lines.
Premier Jagan said:
The withdrawal of Jamaica provides both a challenge and an opportunity for the people of the West Indies. It is a pity that Jamaica has now voted to come out of the WI Federation. I have always maintained that the question of Federation should have been subjected to the test of a referendum in each territory well in advance of the setting up of the Federation As is well known, this has been for long my stand in British Guiana, and if this course had been followed the present unfortunate situation would not have arisen.
At this point some may tend to gloat; others to despair. I can well imagine the degree of anxiety of the peoples, particularly of the smaller units who have tied their hopes and aspirations to Federation. But this is a time neither for gloating nor despairing.
It is rather unfortunate in these days when there is a distinct trend for separate countries to get together politically and or economically for a regional unity, however tenuous, to be broken up.
One must realise, however, that the proposed independent federal constitution was so emasculated that it was hardly likely that the objectives of the WI peoples — economic well-being and higher living standards — could have been achieved. A weak federal Government would hardly have been able to go in for effective overall planning and balanced development for the region as a whole.
Sir Grantley Adams and Dr. Williams have always been in favour of a federal government with strong powers at the centre. They now have an opportunity to re-write the constitution and head a strong Eastern Caribbean group. But this obviously will not be enough. Jamaica’s exit will leave a big financial hole. The only way to raise living standards is to re-fashion the economy along real socialist lines and drastically slash the overgrown and expensive superstructure of the present Federation.
It should nevertheless be possible in spite of the projected political separation for wise statesmanship to work towards economic cooperation by formulating an economic plan for the area to include all Caribbean territories such as is envisaged by the Caribbean Organisation. In any event, we in Guiana will continue to regard with the same goodwill the peoples of Jamaica and the West Indies.
(Thunder 30 September 1961)
PPP ECONOMIC POLICY –
REALISTIC PLAN FOR PROSPEROUS FUTURE
Straight Talk by Cheddi Jagan
Some people say that we don’t have an economic plan, that we don’t know where we are going, that we have no policy. This is certainly not true.
We have definite objectives. We are dedicated to the goal of socialism. The primary aim of our economic policy is to raise living standards, to end the scourge of unemployment and to provide for a more equitable distribution of the national income.
How will we achieve this goal? We will not follow in the footsteps of the Interim Government whose policy and programme the World Bank severely criticised — what the late Mr. Raatgever dubbed mere show pieces. We will not squander money.
We will formulate a sound programme, carefully balancing the economic and social aspects of development. Where will our emphasis be? Will we give priority to agriculture or to heavy industry?
Some say that we should concentrate on heavy industry. They criticise us for spending two much money on agriculture. We are accused of doing so for political reasons. These persons charge that we are doing so because our supporters live in the rural areas. This is obviously foolish. Did not Mr. Adler, the World Bank economist, say that we had correctly assessed priorities in our development plan?
Let me say this to our critics. We are fully aware as they are that industries generate wealth more rapidly, that industrialisation results in faster economic growth.
But we are equally aware that heavy industries are highly capital-intensive; that is, they employ fewer people per unit of capital invested.
For instance, the recently built alumina plant cost $65 million, about $162,000 per person employed. Compare this with about $9,000 per family for land settlement schemes like Black Bush Polder.
More than any other, we are terribly conscious of the need for a balanced industrial-agricultural development. But however much we desire industrialisation, we could not proceed faster because of several factors. Almost nothing by way of exact plans, blue prints and feasibility studies were made by previous governments. We assumed office with a huge and growing unemployment and under-employment problem. We were not building from scratch. We had to build on a base we inherited.
It should be noted that our economy like that of almost every underdeveloped country is based on agriculture. For a backward country, therefore, agriculture must play a leading role in the short term period. Every country which is today highly developed and industrialised has done so by first building an agricultural base. This was their jumping off ground. And it must be ours also.
Our opponents in the Legislature and elsewhere who criticise us for concentrating on agriculture must not forget three facts. Firstly, unemployment in the towns is aggravated by the influx of people from the rural areas because of land hunger and ravages of floods and droughts.
Secondly, for every family employed directly in agriculture, three or four others gain indirect employment in different fields – in transport and shipping on the steamers, railways, on the waterfront, in commerce, in stores and in banks; and also in marketing organisations — the Rice Marketing Board, the produce department, the milk plant, etc.
Thirdly, our agricultural policy has led to a more plentiful and cheap supply of foods — rice, ground provisions, milk, beef, pork, etc., resulting in our population being the best fed in the British Caribbean area. It has also kept the cost of living relatively stable. The West Indian Economist of April 1961 shows an increase in the cost of living in the three-year period 1957 to 1960 of 13 points in Jamaica, 16 points in Trinidad and only 4 points in British Guiana. Had our food index risen to the same extent since 1957 as Jamaica and Trinidad we would have had to spend nearly an additional $1 million each year to feed ourselves. This means nearly $3 million for the last three years — quite a substantial saving for this country and the urban people too.
(Printed in Thunder, 5 August 1961)
© Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2000
EQUALITY – THE BASIS OF POLICY
Straight Talk by Cheddi Jagan
The Evening Post in the issue of Thursday, June 1. 1961 carried an article by one Juan Gonsalves, head lined "Cuban Negroes Find Castro’s Communism Costly".
We are all aware of the stream of propaganda now being directed against the Revolutionary Cuban Government, This propaganda was so intense that it fooled its own authors and disseminators into believing that the Cuban people were going to turn against their Government and join the invaders. When is this lying propaganda going to stop?
It is a great pity that the Evening Post joins in spreading such wicked propaganda particularly on this question of treatment of Negroes. Negro-White unity has been basic to the Cuban Revolutionary efforts. And the Castro Government is dedicated to and has accomplished much in wiping out all discrimination.
It has set itself as one of its most urgent duties the utter extermination of all segregation and racialism. Negroes hold important posts at all levels. Joseph North in his book, Cuba, Hope of a Hemisphere, says that "the bead of the air force was a Negro; the Head of the Army is Negro, the Chief of the Oriente ontingents of the armed forces, a Negro."
The editor should publish what some more important people saw and had to say. Professor Paul Baran, economics professor at Stanford University in his pamphlet Reflections on the Cuban Revolution says that he is thrilled by "the leaps that the Cubans are making in education, health, culture standard of living and dignity."
Professor C. Wright Mills, of Columbia University, author of important books such as Power Elite, in his book on Cuba, Listen Yankee, announces himself as for the Cuban Revolution and as recognising that anti-communism is counter revolution. This is important as Mills himself is not a communist. He explains in great detail in direct interviews with Cubans about what’s happening there, and leaves no one in doubt that it was monopoly capitalism which kept Cuba enslaved.
There is Professor Douglas R. Dowd of Cornell University. Rejecting the monstrous picture of a "communist Cuba" that is peddled all over the world, he says:
"Why should there not be Communists participating in Cuban public affairs, as there are in most countries of the world, including most countries of the NATO alliance? The Cold War extends throughout the world, but not all countries have seen fit to follow the American example summed up in the term McCarthyism, annoying though such sentimentality must be to J. Edgar Hoover and Senator Dodd."
Every Cuban, as every nationalist leader everywhere, recognises the imperative need for the broadest possible unity. Che Guevara writes: "For the old, the very old imperial maxim of ‘divide and conquer’ remains today the basis of imperialist strategy."
Bias Roca, General Secretary of the Popular Socialist Party in Cuba, says: "The motto of the imperialists, of the sell-out governing class, of the reactionaries and exploiters of every kind
is: Divide and Rule. In logical contradiction, the maxim of the revolutionaries, of the representatives of the workers, peasants, and the people generally, the maxim of the Marxist Leninist is: Unite to triumph over the enemies of the nation, the people and the toiling masses. The maxim guided all our activity against the tyranny and has guided and guides today all our activity in the course of the revolution, its triumph and its development."
Cuba is not fat from here. The editor of the Evening Post should send an observer to make an on-the-spot assessment. It’s important for us.
Mr. Hurbert Matthews of the New York Times says that in all his 30 years of reporting he has never seen a situation more misunderstood and misinterpreted than the Cuban Revolution. Let’s not just dish out the daily doses of propaganda sod venom put out against the Cuban Government and people.
One last quotation. It’s another one from Professor Dowd of Cornell University. He says:
"I do not believe that Castro and his supporters are angels, nor that their revolution is flawless or without serious problems, nor do I believe that Americans actions and attitudes have been those of devils. But I do believe that American values, and American needs, taken in conjunction with the past and present Cuban situation, point to a position sharply opposed to the one we presently hold."
(Printed in Thunder, 8 July 1961)
© Nadira Jagan-Brancier 2000
