UWI L ibr ari es /)AA/(, , ()(.e.,,,,,_ ()_LT ~ A _y,.., ' _ Wte,;,,_, ~{t, b~ i 0:!i -.. M) . 9 ~'- (UL -~J vt" t,tlJA., ,t,t., -? 1Jv.-f' ~ - ----- //, • 4 BRA VE MEN MEET THE HORSES / l f ~ OF THE MORNING _/' /dv f lP'jZJ Norman Washington Manley? Q.C ; , /ijf 1,, ,11_f National Hero / 1 Vl C.!' ~ is about a complex, brilliant, unusual man. He was a star athlete, but the book is not about record runs . ·· ' "· , • 1" '-l and leaps~ JHe was a war-hero, but the book is not about battle-smoke and exploits. He was a lawyer, superbly so, but his case does not rest on his surgical cross-examinations nor the magic in his jury addresses. He was the elected head of a country, but the concern, although present, is not on ordinances raised nor opponents politically buried. ~ is • ' "~~ _J,,tf s /)~ ~ i. he s e., insofar as they created _ the man ., or reflected the role he served with such fidelity and ,, excellence as to cause the birth of a nation. ~ Mk is a search for the man he became 11 ~ o in losing, won; in falling, :2' stood. Whose integrity got in the .way of politic:\ expedience, . ~. and raised a flag of decency, and made us see giant~ in,(ae-2~ fJ2EL • ·rri1v}) f/4ckv;j___ t \ -=-~ ¥ UWI L ibr ari es O~f # pnf_!J - ~ f tEFf/C€ (["¥ ...,.i, ,..,,,ti c,_ri) Victor ,?.~ a, one of the Caribbean's most sensitive M and engaged literary artists, has given to West Indian writing the seminal New Day and The Jamaicans - both sensitively drawn accounts of his people's historical commitment to redemp­ tion and hope, the raison d'etre of his own artistic efforts, if not of all of the art produced by the people of Jamaica arid the Caribbean. For whether his protagonist is the Maroon warrior Juan de Bolas under the conquering Spaniards or Paul Bogle, the peasant rebel defying British colonialism, the irreducible kernel of his thought rests on the conviction that the making of his society, and the creative achievements of his people in giving meaning and value to their own exis­ tence, are the direct result of the efforts of "all those black and white, slave and free,llived, worked , fought and * / who died" in the Caribbean . Such achievements are not for -- (hG- /&;d., -;;::, ~ a gift of charity from the colonising, 'civilising' Powers which first settled and then exploited the land and peoples they forced or enticed there . It is logical, then, that Norman Washington Manley, nation-builder, creative thinker, political visionary and statesman who is so closely identified with the birth of modern Jamaica, should be the protagonist of this book which may in­ deed read as yet another parable on Vic Reid's enduring theme of self-discovery, self-reliance, self-definition and self- * See "The Pleasure of West Indian Writing" by Eugene V. Mohr • C 'bb R • Vol. XI No. 4, p. 33 . • •• / 2 in ar1 ean eview, UWI L ibr ari es I '- • lA. • , . • l \ Part 1 THE DAY OF THE BROOM ( 1) When the incredible day ended on the _ _. ___ _ notion that the incumbents were losing the election, s ome said it was caused by the hidden Cossacks who had at last takento the streets. Streets d,,a't: iflH:> t3;;e11 ~ f ore1\denied th em by the adversary's bullyboys. And that, stirred by a force cumulative, the former closet Uhlans C::::- - --~~who used to s hout threats from the safety of their uptown 'Zo verandah~c:::::::::::::::::::::::::::.::=:=:::.:::::;::=-:=i:::::::;::::;;:;~ were stung into action~at last~ come whooping down from the i teppes of uburbia. Squa- necktie drons of collar-&--c.:)Adragoons. Raking the skies with their brooms. The unl~kely guidons of a strangely moved proletariat who swung the balance of power by voting for a dream. © ,.,. .. ~o the wonders of this Election Day were making believable this night of the count. Changing dream into certainty. 0 "fu. Manley supporters, buffeted in the past and wrenched with losing , now waited restively to celebrate. A bust-out now of the new achievers who had smashed through a decade of frustration, a .. loss of two elections, and ..., ~e d a festival. For the feeling was ., UWI L ibr ari es lB. I strong that ther heel ' had turned. That at last their day had come. This January night of the poll-count, the half-million people who had voted earlier were now huddled at radios and before newspaper boards, in frosty mountain villages and coastal towns, to stalk the ever-shifting count, to acclaim a gain or sweat a defeat. History being up to its old trick of crunching some of its makers. But come carnival or grief, history already had decided that tomorrow was the Day of the Broom. UWI L ibr ari es 2. A festival of straw for a tromping man who had walked a hard road for his glory. Some small confusion hangs over the way the brooms began. O.T.Fairclough, the plump, tough publisher of PUBLIC OPINION, the weekly newspaper that supported the People's National Party,thought it may have come out of a Party Executive meeting one night at Drurnblair, the old Manley residence on Old Church Road. Vivian Blake, Q.C., who would become a Cabinet Minister in the PNP Govern­ ment, recalls that Party Secretary Sydney Veitch, an indefatigable joker, had suggested that upon Norman Manley's return from the United Kingdom (he was attending a constitution conference), he should be welcomed at the airport by a broom-bearing crowd - as a symbol of a promise to sweep the Jamaica Labour Party out of office at the next general elections. The proposal, it is reported, was met with strained grins. But the truth is that before the idea arrived at the Executive meeting, the broom had been carried in a newspaper cartoon by a * young artist named Bill Reid who was drawing for PUBLIC OPINION. It was briefed by the Author, then Editor of the paper, and John Maxwell, then Senior Writer, who together worked out the idea. The cartoon, showing a broom-wielder at work swishing out the UWI L ibr ari es 3. "corrupt" JLP government, had an instant impact. \ 1,T' $oon became A. a kind of logo cult that overrode the old Bustamante magic. The broom was a compelling symbol. YLs there were issues enough which should have roasted the incum­ bents. Recurring scandals had sent two Cabinet Ministers to jail. Moreover, having been ruled for a decade by faces turned familiar, a volatile, often fractious electorate, was ready to collide with the lawmakers who in the course of human frailty had made their errors. Bustamante had been in power since 1944 when the struggle for home rule won through to full adult suffrage; Manley's PNP had not only been battered into near oblivion by the Jamaica Labour Party (23 to 4, with 4 independents) but the patrician Manley had himself been roundly trounced by a folksy campaigner named Edward Fagan. The following 1949 polling (which the PNP had expected to win) had not changed House rulers, although this time Manley won his seat and the PNP's pitiful four places were increased to 13. As it proved, a respectable fulcrum on which to rest the feisty 1954 notion to Sweep Them Out! G The slogan slammed shockingly into the vitals of the JLP. For the first time in the island's 460 years' history, brooms were at premium value. Household brooms of St.Elizabeth rush, "yard brooms" of thicker straw, the sidewalk-pounding imported "bass" UWI L ibr ari es 4 . brooms .of the sanitation gangs, long-handled chimney instruments like hatted deacons, brand-new ones still aromatic of mountain streams and the knuckled ancient ones already worked down to the nub, all were brought out to carry the notion of Sweep Them Out! One enterprising entrepreneur produced an elegant 'broom' for lapels, a little item eminently suited to Party Leader Norman Manley, who was an inveterate wearer of buttonholes. quiet (i. f pet<~(! t e brooms also swept in the closet partisans. Hithertof , /v\tl:J of the PNP, long silent in the JLP-dominated streets, view as brooms appeared in improbable places. Fisher- men stepped them to the masts of their boats. Automobiles had them rampant on the hoods. Even that bastion of travel respectn.bility, the railway engine, was hustled into carrying the message. Geared as they were to penetrate into the heartlands of mountains and valleys hardly reached by the Party orators, the sight of crossed brooms on the cab front of the 10.45 a.m. to Montego Bay was of more value than a dozen political stumpers. By nightfall of the incredible day, when the counting of votes commenced, old election heads among the PNP were cautiously talking of victoryJ but the steady losings of 16 years since the revolts of 1938 had organised into political resolves, still gave them worry. At PNP headquarters that evening, upstairs Magnol House, UWI L ibr ari es 5. 12a Slipe Road, the Party faithfuls gathered for the vigil. Some were sombre. Twice in previous years, the vigil had turned into agony. Now they were daring to hope. Norman and Edna Manley sat among supporters on the small raised dais at the northern end of the room. He was showing little sign of the bone-tiring campaign just ended, smiling in easy repose, that air of quiet-in-commotion he had made his own. A big Phillips receiver somebody had set up, boomed the count as it was received at the radio station. The room was rumpled and overheated; boil- CVv--.cl ing with loud talkl of relief ;,good cheer, now that it was over. A hard won elation. The campaign had been long and roughly fought. They had, to the dismay of their opponents, done well in the country. And if it had been satisfying in the rurals, it had been downright spectacular in the city. Large, responsive audiences surging on the candidates, singing the song of raillery at Busta huddling in his Clarendon constituency, Where is the Leader?,the _,t1.,yt'l,£.) labourites cry. BustaAafraid to venture forth. For C.B.Murray, an inspired PNP choice, native born to the constituency, had run a bone-in-the-throat campaign that did what the PNP hoped: it pinned down the JLP chief. They had sung it with a strut and swagger that sent home the big aftermeeting crCW"ds swinging in a triumph they could already feel. In a turgid, emotional, epochal support for the man who would do the impossible: dislodge the living legend of Bustamantef . UWI L ibr ari es 6. who had once seemed immovable. And now, they said softly, it was done. They could feel it. Manley had won his election. By, among the issues and artifices, a symbol; a bloomin' broom. The 1952 purge of the Four H's (the Hill brothers, Ken and Frank, Richard Hart and Arthur Henry), undoubtedly wiped the Red smear laid on the Party by the Bustamante propaganda. It had made them acceptable to the fearful undecided. -The Commies would not come. The cows could return to the front grass. And priests lose neither flock nor frock7fHaving lost the support of the Trade Union Congress (TUC, the PNP labour arm which went into exile with the purged Four), the Party had quickly formed a new union, the National Workers' Union (NWU). The strategy triumphed as the NWU, in a furious burst of energy and dazzling skills in structuring workers locals, by the experienced Noel Nethersole, Thossy Kelly and Secre­ tary F. A. Glasspole, drove a wedge into the sugar workers' ranks of the BITU and (with a young trade unionist named Michael Manley at its front edge) won the bauxite workers to the fold. And so on this incredible day, the count would show that the hitherto "middle­ class" Party had dug into the grassroots and claimed a 51'1, of the popular vote (to the JLP ' s 39%) and taken 18 of the 32 seats to the JLP's 14. UWI L ibr ari es 7. Towards the end of the campaign, the general speculation had been that both parties were close in probable wins. The PNP had its issues, but it sorely needed some magic to tilt the balance in its favour. It was hurting for more exposure on the streets, so often denied them by Busta' s strongarm squads. They needed a little more plume to feather and shake at the fence-sitting voters before polling day. And then the brooms came out in a psychological cavalry charge and the battle was turned. Suddenly, there was plume. And a great strength was released into the PNP campaign. New energy flooded in, and new certainty, more bravery in the voices that spoke up for the Party in hostile territory; clearer malice in the voices singing the sly Where is the leader? a fuller throated roaring of Manley's own There were ninety-and-nine at the corner street meetings as he appeared on the fringe of the crowd and strode forward into the platform lights, one lean brown fist upward and clenched in the Party's symbolic avowal to stay the course. A rush was released in the final days, a battering r am of words, and brooms, and a hunger raw for the seat of power they were sure they could better occupy than Bustamante. Who was not so good, since he had dawdled a decade, they said. And mismanaged and ruled corruptly, they said. And old at 71• ~o UWI L ibr ari es 8. the rhythm mounted in the last weeks and broke into the incredible day. 0 When the day waned and the polls closed, there was a lull; and the streets went slack as the tired troopers, weary with bring­ ing out the votes, and hawk-eyeing the polling booths for enemy skullduggery, and yelling to hoarse the battle slogans, gathered at the counting places, waiting for the scriveners to say who had won. rv o P.. rn AAJ Some went to Magnol House. Among them, and Edna. ''- They were all old hands at waiting. Twice before, in 1944 and 1949, the vigil had ended in agony. But this year was c1 good year, they felt. A day like this required a good end. And gradually, they knew it was true. One by one, the names were spoken. Glasspole in East Kingston. ~y;(! Wills o. Isaacs in Central. N.N.Nethersole infl + 11 St.Andrew. From the foothills, the word came down: N.W.Manley was in. There were 32 seats for the House. They counted heads. They went up to ten. Eleven. Fourteen. The projections were worked out. The PNP would win not less than 18 or 19. And when those inside Magnol House listened to the streets outside, they knew that the streets had counted heads too. For all hell broke loose out­ side. The PNP was in. UWI L ibr ari es 9 . All the eyes in Magnol House turned to him. He held their gaze and a curious silence slipped into the room. He spoke to those nearest to him and rose, laughing gently as he broke the spell. For he was not a spellbinder. He was a cool and rational man who had an awesome capacity for work and thought; and an in­ tegrity strong and unshakable as the mountains surrounding Guanaboa. The vale he grew up in. It was a long road he had come from,Guanaboa Vale. UWI L ibr ari es PART 2 GUANABOA ) ' UWI L ibr ari es 10. Part 2 GUANABOA As in other seasons, it was a good year for a few, an average one for most. They were closing out a century that had canted the colony from an economy supported by slavery, into a society in which skill and sweat could be converted into gain - not much for the lower layer, i.e., the ex-slaves and descendants, but better than their ancestors had known. The year was 1893. Politically, they were in a half-way house. They were work­ ing a Crown Colony salted with democracy in its nine elected mem­ bers but whose rhetorical flow broke harmlessly against the final powers of His Excellency the Governor. The Governor was appointed by England. And, in any case, not many islanders had the vote. The island's 700 1 000 people lived under a government chosen by just six percent of their peers. Usually the white, and cer­ tainly the richest, peers. The money economy seemed innocently fetching - until you looked closer. You could buy new potatoes at two cents a pound at a city market. Butter from Hanover (homemade, creamy) cost 25 cents a pound. Easy walking it seemed to be, except that the UWI L ibr ari es 11. walkers had no legs. A farm worker would have had to work a week to buy , a pound of butte·r. A cut-rate Sunday suit off Nathan & Company's peg was a backbreaker: he must uproot 500 hardwood sturrps, or weed six acres of grass. Socially, the government he had no hand in selecting, had no anxiety to please him. For example, the primary purpose of the 25-year-old Lands Department was not, as today, to settle the land­ less, but to eject black peasants from the highlands, the area most "suited to the labour of white men in the open air," as one news­ paper writer wrote. But if the wealthy straddled the ridges, the boldest among the poor were coming out and filling the roads. True, the urban Anglicans, the "nob's church", were Established, of the political hierarchy; but the old rural "slave church" of the Moravians was also moving to town. Increasingly, each year, a rising class of small artisans had been knocking for notice. Cobblers were lobby­ ingfor closing the door to the flow of India-rubber footwear. Carpenters were assailing the McKinly Act which put a tariff on timber while letting in tax-free prefabs. And tailors were demon­ strating for a cut-back in the off-the-peg readymades. Even more far-reaching, taking their cue from an English enactment which made masters and servants equal before the law, UWI L ibr ari es 12. one Jamaican newspaper was asking, in a carefully small voice, whether a way could be found to "give workers more rights." f) That year 1893 was a good year for purveyors. Henderson & Company's elegant leather carriages (of "mail coach axles and steel tyres"} were going well. At Louis B. Winkler's Music Store located at No. 18 King Street, Mrs. Corinaldi was successfully plugging her latest schmaltz, La Premiere Pensee to a downtown flow of uptown ladies accoutred in French sateens and shot surah silks. A steam­ boat named Britannia docked with a full load of determined American tourists who rode in horsedrawn hackneys through the corduroy road to Bog Walk Gorge and lunched at the Rio Cobre hotel in an histori­ cal inauguration of that lucrative sub-tribe of the tourist indus­ try, the one-day tripper off the cruise ships. In spite of an un­ easily growing frequency of bankruptcies - and a certain graveyard humour which made the Theatre Royal on North Parade open its season with the farce "Ready Money" - there was plenty of cash in circula­ tion, made up of Mexican and Spanish doubloons, U.S. double eagles and British golden sovereigns. 1893 was also an election year and the head-rolling season opened early. -"{be St.Catherine parochial board UWI L ibr ari es 13. I 1,J( (./.) ..._ being dissolved "for persistent default in their duties." I\ The voters, all six percent of them, were being urged by the five daily newspapers in the country, to show up on polling day, and to oust, as one Editor wrenchingly put it, the "meddling, muddling, tinkering, tentative legislature of the last eight years." As the times were not particular for reticence, so were the entrepre­ neurs not for h o nesty : shopkeepers who slipped "hickory in coffee, sand in sugar and stones in currants," were being crushingly exposed in the Press. G 1893 was also a year of high fettle for the lively .islanders of all races. Under the "Big Tree" on South Parade, Kingston, black youths were single-sticking their Turnbull & Company's "pimentos" with bone-cracking skill. Highbooted white boys were brawling with the Mandeville Town constables in Mr.Palache's lunch room. Fighting Chinese dicemen sometimes tumbled out of Barry Street's Chinatown doors and into the police Black Maria. In the . Hussein festivals of Vere, Savanna-la-mar and St.Mary, East Indian factions locked in doughty battles for the passage of their cele­ bratory shrines. Yet, lively or not, it took some luck to survive if you were born in the 1890s. These were the lethal years for babies. UWI L ibr ari es 14. Staying alive past childhood was a statistical coup. -Some of the random samples numb. Almost any month, fatalities ran to just about half the births. The determined helplessness of the period today savages the mind. Once, upon the approach of a cholera epidemic, one community leader could offer no stronger hope than to exhort all * "like brave men and brave women, be prepared for the worst." The English governor of the period, Sir Henry Blake, of stouter stuff, took hope, because, unlike the outbreak of 40 years before, the streets of Kingston were "no longer being paved with horse manure." And even if your infant durability proved enough to take you past the fifty-fifty fatality curve, there were other hazards like the fury of the law courts which could send a nine-year-old girl to the reformatory for seven years for stealing three halfpennies. In fact, 1893 was like any other year in that age of our past - funny, harsh, good, bad, heatwave and all. UWI L ibr ari es 15. CHAPTER ONE • The heatwave was a blanket over the island in the first days of July, drooping damp, hot and low over the plains and lower valleys and hanging lightly in the high country about Mandeville. July Fourth, the American Independence holiday, was not legally observed in Jamaica but the huge gross of shipping between the U.S. and the island provided for the country to be served by eleven American * Consulates in eleven port towns. And so July Fourth was noticed * In Kingston, Falmouth, Montego Bay, St.Ann's Bay, Savanna-la- mar, Port Antonio, Milk River, Port Morant, Port Maria, Old Harbour, Black River. by "dressing" ship and firing cannon salutes. Away from the ports, as in the mountains of Manchester, it was life as usual. The heat had been mild in Manchester parish, where the coffee and pimento crops were promising. Welcome evening showers cooled the night about Old England and Richmond. Lying on the broa d height between Old England and Richmond is the property o f Roxburgh. 'llleref late Tuesday, July born on such a day Norman Washington. Fourth, N.W.Manley was born. Naturally for . being ·-tft.e l~~c.ii..d. _1;,rc: .. teJ that truly belonged to DmDII•• they named him I\ Roxburgh is four miles up a slow, rocky ascent from the quaint roadside village of Royal Flat, near Williamsfield. The road works up past some rolling pastureland and the stonewalls which are a feature of the parish. The air is exceptionally clear, with long UWI L ibr ari es 16. views over the tableland. At Jones Depot, a narrow parish road leads off to the right, · to Roxburgh gate. The house is some 500 yards in from the gate, raised above a cellar, and mildly well-to­ do. It is surrounded by pimento barbecues. It sports that symbol of the above average Manchester farmer, great water tanks for dom­ estic and pasture use. The house was owned by N.W.Manley's father, T.A.S.Manley. Thomas Albert Samuel Manley was born in Porus, the son of an English commercial traveller whose beat of Black River, through Porus to Kingston, resulted in sons in the three places and a dauglter in St .Elizabeth. .-, The Porus son of the amot,rous salesman was T.A.S. Manley who became a produce dealer and married Margaret Shearer and bought Roxburgh. Margaret Shearer was a daughter of Alexander Shearer, the Irish potato farmer who fled a famine to Jamaica and settled in Hanover. He married the widow of an overseer named Clarke, in Hanover. She had been left with a large family, the eldest a boy named Alexander. Shearer sired four daughters and a son. The re- -Cl~ markable Clarke/Shearer progeny was to include among them, I of the national leaders into the third decade of the new Jamaican nation: Alexander (Clarke) Bustamante, N.W.Manley, and Michael Manley - and N.W's wife, Edna, whose mother, Ellie, was one of Alexander Shearer's daughters. Alexander Shearer was not rich but he was white. His daughter, Margaret, lost some status when UWI L ibr ari es 17. she married the dark-skinned T.A.S.Manley. "She lost nea r ly all her friends when she married a negro, 11 her son..J Norman..) said years later. By all accounts, T.A.S.M. was a ·successful produce dealer . He kept an office in Pqrus to which he commuted. He wa s an aggr es ­ sive young businessman, unusually farsighte d for h is d.:i.y. llc be- came a pioneer in citrus export and was known to gamble on a one-man lease of a ship to move his fruit to America. Sometimes he l ost. Hot suns and calm seas sabotaged the unrefrigerated voyages o f the schooner-rigged. He was a man of great personal charm and hospitality The house at Roxburgh was on occasions overnight host to American importers on trade missions for fruits and spices. But he h a d a drawback. The father of the man who would become the most famous lawyer of the land, had a fatal love for litigation. Just be f ore his death, one of his lawsuits took its ruinous course all the way to the London Privy Council before it financially felled him. As a result, and aggravated by a blight which eliminated the pimento on Roxburgh, the fiscal affairs of the family were in conside rable' discomfort when he died. Fortunately for them all, Margare t Shearer Manley was an indomitable woman. A while before , when the blight bega n its r a mpa ge through Roxburgh, Thomas Manley had, with his father-in-law, Ale xande r Cl. Shearer, acquired a 2,000 acre property at Gunaboa Vale calle d . A * Belmont. Grandpa Shearer moved from his farm at Blenheim, Hanover *One source r e members it as a 1,600 acre holding. UWI L ibr ari es 1 8 . to Belmont to manage the property. At Thomas' death, his widow and the children joined Alexander Shearer at Belmont. By then he was ailing and partially blind. Margaret Manley was a small woman of tremendous will. She set to work with axe and courage to make Belmont pay. Its logwood groves would raise her family. There were four children: Vera, Muriel, Norman and Roy, born in that order. N.W.Manley was six years old when they moved to Guanaboa. Guanaboa Vale is as rich in beauty as it is in history. Many of the 17th and 18th century campaigns by the English against the Maroons, were mounted from here. An officer-led mutiny which broke out in the Occupation Army at Guanaboa was put down here and the two leaders hanged at Spanish Town. A loop-holed military strongpoint still stands in a small wood across the road from the church. Inside the Vale church, are tombs of officers who landed with Cromwell's forces. On the heights above the Vale, Juan de Bolas waged war at first against the English from the mountains which bear his name, then afterwards, against the Spaniards to consolidate that part of the country for his black brothers. The Vale is part of a great glade in the west shed of the Rio Cobre. If not riotously fertile, it is fine for pastures on the long, easy slopes, almost always usefully grassed, and for cocoa. And even better for the UWI L ibr ari es 19. two high-spirited Manley boys with its limitless borders for horse­ back riding, and a near pond for swimming. The Manley boys were registered at the Guanaboa Vale elerrentary. C!) $PAC(:; Norman Washington Manley was seven. §_don the extra day of that leap year turning the century, February 29, 1900, in the seaside town of Bournemouth, England, was born to a Methodist anchorite clergyman named Harvey Swithenbank and his Jamaican wife, Ellie, nee Shearer, a daughter, in whom the locally famed preacher, mending from pneumonia and generally long ill-health, would see a sign of his own recovery, and, with some thanksgiving, allot to his fifth child the Hebrew name of rejuvenation, Edna. G The Belmont house was a modestly large five-bedroom bungalow of deep verandahs and commanding views. N.W.Manley was, in later years, to call it a ruinate•property but certainly the old place, cultivated since Spanish times, had paying stands of logwood, pas­ tures and a fair tenancy. The family (and Grandpa Shearer) managed a living far from inconsequential: a buggy, a dogcart, riding horses, church pews, servants, and later, boarding schools. And after all, • 1. ci TJti'i ·to k- they could afford Cousin Alec Clarke, also styled Bustamante, hired I\ for a year as Junior Overseer. Indeed, there came the time that bills for Margaret's maternal ambitions for her brood mounted too rapidly for her income. Then, like generations of Jamaicans before UWI L ibr ari es 20. and since, she took the migrants' route to America, accompanied by her sister, Elizabeth, leaving the children with her aun t , Mrs. Shrimpton, widow of a Methodist minister, who lived in the Kingston * suburb of Rae Town. Dr.Muriel Manley tells the story of Aunt Shrimpton going to Blenheim, Hanover, to collect her small nephew to live with her in Kingston, but returned with her niece, his siste r, Maud, instead after he refused to leave the old homestead, clutching at the gateposts and bawling until he turned blue. It seems as if nephew, Alexander Bustamante, would only - move to Kingston when he could run the place. Her plan was to send for the children to live in America . But the American dream soon faded. Her job in Washington as a postal clerk could neither support her family nor keep ti1em out of the ghetto where their colour would settle them. She and Elizabeth sailed for home. Meanwhile, after a short stay at Wolmer's Girls' School, Vera and Muriel, the two eldest of the Manley children, had been transferred to the boarding school at Hampton, an academy then ex­ pensively reserved for daughters of the gentry. Norman remained at Wolmer's Boys' for a year and then was pulled back closer home to his "parish" high school, Beckford & Smith's, in Spanish Town. He rode on horseback the twenty miles to and from school each day, mostly at a gallop so furious it brought ma ny wa rnings from the local law enforcers. He finally entered his third s e condar y school, m~ C: I.... ,.,.-!L-Lt•,\.{t', ;,4 ~/1 when, with his brother Roy, he was enrolled at Jamaica Colle ge in I\ UWI L ibr ari es 21. St.Andrew. There he would make marks in scholarship and athletics unrivalled in the total by any of his countrymen before or since. () Belmont was a property to gladden a boy's heart. Two large ponds proffered fishing and swimming through the long school vaca­ tion summers. Birds flocked the great glades with its acres of guava groves, yielding shoots of baldpates, pigeons, ducks. Miles of riding trails twisted up and away into the Juan de Bolas moun­ tains. The two boys roamed Guanaboa Vale inflicting their pra nks upon the indulgent countryside: Roy, the younger, impulsive, out­ going, an explosion of laughter; Norman, lean and hard-riding, the high priest of high jinks. The countryside was lenient to their fun. These were the good years for the new brown aristocracy, themselves remotely con­ trolled by the ascendant whites at a carefully encouraged l e ve l of arrogance to be the ruling divisives among the non-white masses. The two boys could have turned rogue, as did, traditionally, the descendant encounters of white master and black female fieldhand, living highbooted and spurred, above the populace. Conversely, given that at this season in our society, Quality was a state denied those of the Manleys tribal persuasions, they could have become genteel fallow. That neither became the case, had its reasons in the work-laws laid out by Margaret Manley, that small woman whose cadenced strength held her children even. Widow Manley's Belmont UWI L ibr ari es 22. dictum declared that labour, and only labour, brought rewards. She herself handled the property, some cattle, logwood and the postal agency her resourcefulness had acquired for Belmont (kept in a room of the house) with equal proficiency. Everybody worked at Belmont, the girls at whatever was going for young ladies of the times, the boys at chopping wood ·and clean­ ing pastures. "We grew up to neither gifts nor pocket-money," N.W.Manley said in later years. "We made our wages." At home from Jamaica College in the summer, and some week­ ends, he honed his skill at the axe until he could make his wages, and better. He could challenge and beat most of the Belmont pro­ fessionals on the property's logwood stands. And even into his sixties, before the heart attack, he was still handling the 3-foot splitting axe with absolute ease. At Belmont, in his teens, * that skill bought him the guns and saddles for the sport he favoured. At Jamaica College he led his team to win the Perkins Shield for shooting. The Shield is Jamaica's oldest interscholastic trophy. Margaret Manley died when N.W. was sixteen, but the spiritual energy which had welded this volatile and highly talented family into a unit at Guanaboa Vale, still held. She had worked hard and passionately to give them a good education. It was her "one great fixed determination in life," Manley has said. "She made all our clothes, made jellies when guavas were in,, kept a small chicken farm, a few cattle, a little copra. Singlehandedly she managed UWI L ibr ari es 23. all these things. When night came, she di s appeared to he r own room to write letters to her few remaining friends, near ly a ll of whom had deserted her when she married a near black man. When not writing, she was a wide and voracious reader." It would appear, too, that Thomas Manley's nicely de ve loped discernment for precedents, which had made him, a produce buyer, from inland Porus, into a charterer of blue water ships for his exports, was not lost in his children. When Vera won a music scholarship to Britain, and with Norman going after the Rhodes, it seemed an appropriate time for a whole­ sale migration to Britain. N.W.M's plan to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship meant he would stay a while longer in the island, but, by August 1911, Muriel was at King's College, London, and Roy was attending a public school at Felstead, Kent. So far, He had been a the luck had mostly broken good ti¾CZ Ct -ff-.l!c. l 0 for Norman Man ley. fine scholar . at Jamaica College• I\ l q I I His ten seconds for the 100 yards dash in the vintage year of llf.lll Jl was to remain unbroken for 41 years (although it would be equalled by his son, Douglas). In track, field and team games, his prodigious performances Ellilt made him the all-time unsurpassed in college athletics. But in the two years while he wa ited in Jamaica to be called by the Rhodes Committee, and, perhaps, be awarded the coveted blue riband of scholarship, his luck ran out. 6) 24. It was to an extent typical of the later man that his in­ stincts led him into teaching, and to teach all through the three levels of the island system: primary (at Titchfield), secondary (at Jamaica College) and agricultural (at Hope Farm School) The knowledge and insight gathered through his gift for detail and con· cept>cultivated an authority in agriculture and general education_ that strengthened his political career. He had grown into a thought· ful, quiet, young man with a passion for reading and music - and horseracing. His luck cracked one Saturday afternoon after the races at old Knutsford Park, now the site of New Kingston. He was at the track with his close friend, Leslie Clerk. Clerk avers that he seemed to be in good health, fluttering gamely although his horses ran slowly. "But that was characteristic of him," says Leslie Clerk. "He did everything fullblooded, win or lose. We left Knutsford together after the last race. Next morning he was dying." The Manley bout with typhoid was phenomenal. His well-slung athlete's frame thinned to gaunt bone and knuckles. He was too tough to die, but it was close. They took him to the Nuttall "hostel", a hospital in lower East Street,where they fought the fever for three weeks. He had made plans to travel to the United Sta 1--r,c; (with Cl0rlr) and t-hnn rro or ' · Oxfor '! r-, • lw I h UWI L ibr ari es UWI L ibr ari es 25. He finally sailed for England in 1914. He entered Oxford. The illness had a crucial effect upon his university career. He would have undoubtedly dealt definitively with the record books. That he never made a Blue in his years at Oxford was due to the post effects of his illness. However, in his second year, there were more important matters for his attention. The war broke out. He enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery and was committed to the Somme. UWI L ibr ari es 26. CHAPTER TWO So now, that year, 1914, the Manleys were together again, Vera and Muriel in their London flats, Roy, a public school boy, and Norman at Jesus College, Oxford. Not quite Guanuboa Vale, it was true, but neither essentially alien, since, in bone and breed­ ing, there was a good deal of England in the four. Moreover, not unlike the Rae Town aunt, there was another in County Cornwall, with a brood of nine energetic first cousins. Aunt Ellie Swithen­ bank, sister of Margaret Manley, lived in a house on large grounds with her husband, the Reverend Harvey Swithenbank, a Methodist minister. Here, in a Cornwall manse in England, was home for the four Manleys, and to it they turned in their holidays. The summer was good that 1914 for the Manley brothers. True, one could not gallop across to Lloyds, or walk the hills of St. Faith-Macca Tree, climb to Point Hill or fish the ponds at Belrront. There was no money left over for spree-spending, since, on f350 a year, the value of the Rhodes, it was hard enough to keep up with the cost of those monogrammed cigarettes which the young N.W. Mmley­ about-London-town, down from Oxford, affected. But there were long golden days in Cornwall, and good conversations and vigorous ranbles, led, sometimes, by a leggy girl cousin named Edna Swithenbank. Pranks were not so easily executed as at Guanaboa Vale. UWI L ibr ari es 27. Englishmen, even when disguised as Cornishmen, were wretchedly rmeasy at any inroads into their privacy. What was even more shaking to the pair of Anglo-Jamaican youths was that they were, in spite of blood, upbringing and outlook, alien corn. It, of· course, brought them even closer. Intelligent, high-spirited and proud, they accepted certain truths that were emerging and settled into as full a life as the circumstances allowed. And this meant that for the two, living was not without incidents; occasions in which there was a flashing return to the frmny, engaging whimsy that pervades an N.W.Manley caper. Such as the day, when, fooiioa:;e in London, they entered an auction room, and, in an excess of good manners, each time the auctioneer nodded in their direction, po­ litely nodded back. They naturally ended up owning the stock, il great load of cheap alarm clocks. Shaken, but frmctioning, they hired a barrow, waited for the end of the short London day, and, quietly as possible, trundled the barrow along the Embank.men t and dumped the lot in the Thames. 0 But summer ended and with it came the grms of August. (9 N.W.Manley had turneq_ 21. He and his brother enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery and were soon in France. Roy was killed in action in a way marked for him by his character. He left his dug­ out during a heavy shelling to rescue a fallen comrade. His loss was a tragic irony in that, by the time he was hit, the wounded soldier he bore on his back had been dead for some time. The futility of the sacrii'ice was to haunt Norman. UWI L ibr ari es 2 8 . N.W.Manley's soldiering put him in a racial crucible from which he emerged with no visible scars but a lgut awareness that colour was a factor. He had a sinewy intellect, equal to the urgen­ cies of his will. Likely, although he allowed it unheeded, at least in silence, he already had heard the ethnic skeletons rattling in the family closet. The descent of the darkskinned Manleys on Corn­ wall had collided, however gently, glancingly, with the life Ellie Swithenbank had made for herself; however innocently, it was in a sense, a contrivance described by our hard pressed black American * cousins as "passing". Indeed, there is no doubt that it was lodged A ploy employed by Bustamante when he lived in the U.S.A. as reported by Norman Manley. in Manley's awareness. A few years later, before they were wed, he was to question the wisdom of having children. Not so Edna. Furiously she wrote him: "I don't want (my child) to be white. I want him to have your own beautiful brown skin II And to prove she was not waffling on the resolve, she made it public a dozen years later in an English newspaper, shattering the Swithenbanks by parading her part-African ancestry. But more particularly at this time in his life, Norman Manley was facing a new reality. He had been ingested into the rough and tumble of the British Army. UWI L ibr ari es 29. The English enlisted man, specifically the Cockney, was noted neither for tact nor a tender heart. A ruthless phrase-smith of quick dexterity, to him, the "darkie" in his ranks was a Godsend. All his life Manley had been a leader of the pack, a fine academic who could also run and jump and shoot; already "even then a National Hero," as Sir John Carberry, a retired Chief Justice of Jamai ca and ~ - an early professional colleague, assert~tr The sudden exposure to ,, the raw power of the English peasant-on-horseback must have assaulted his ego. The Tommies in his Company lost no time in deciding who would be the Company's foil: "Darkie", the black fellow from tJ1e Colonies. But soon what had seemed a perfectly good go, was stumbling on the cobbles. It happened that "Darkie" was not only much better educated than any in the ranks, but possessed a wickeder tongue, could out­ shoot, out-ride, out-box and out-run the best of them; and an in­ comparable axe-wielder at clearing a forest for artillery. Not only that, he was a great deal more hands_ome, a fact respected by the many pinched specimens from the purlieu of the East End. Their tribal worship of class, saw in him the "gent", the "guv'nor". So, "Darkie" was changed to "Bill", a solidly English handle. When in­ coming new replacements to the regiment began the baiting that was as natural to them as spitting, they were s wiftly and obscenely put right by old hands in the platoon. In outlook and insight, Manley's four · years of war foxed the UWI L ibr ari es 30. rules into which his schooling and raising could have locked him. He was for the first committing his whole life with the proletariat; with the folk-people of a race that was half his, the English work­ ingman. At Guanaboa Vale, he had been of the local aristocracy. His working in the field did not breach his privilege as the son of the busha. Deference glinted, however briefly, in the downwind toss of sweat by his axemen colleagues. He returned at evening to the genteel affairs of the country-home life maintained for her children by the determined Margaret Manley. In the army, there was no going home at the end of the day. The shelter of Jesus College and of the Cornwall manse had gone. His comrades were close to his back as shirts - hair-shirts. "Colour had meant nothing to me in the years before the war, in Jamaica ... I was by nature, a rebel, and little affected by what people thought of me." But young Gunner Manley found that what people thought of him could raise hackles where he thought there were none. But "I did not, could not allow it to be an obsession since I was totally without any idea of 'white superiority'. The , only superiority I accepted was (that) of 'excellence'. I had an unquenchable belief in 'excellence' . " Race was an implosive which by iron control he diffused into dialectic. The value of 'excellence' was not of course lost on his brother, Roy, who did everything not only well, but with great enthusiasm. However, Roy having preceded his older brother, Norman, to England by two years, and endured the public school system, was taught and UWI L ibr ari es 31. quickly grew aware that racial prejudices were ever creeping out of the English wainscot. Strong and hot tempered, Roy was already expert at flicking the disrespectful by tongue-lash or fists. They had joined up together, soldiering with a mounted battery culled from the East Deptford gutters. East Deptford is in East London, raffishly tough lower class. The Manley boys would have lasted a while longer in the battery had not Norman's natural excellence landed him a promotion. He was made a Bombadier which placed.him among the non-commissioned officers. He believed he was singled out because of the Cockney's unaquaintance with horses, "and anyway, I was a University man." Although he wore only a single stripe, the lowliest on the non-com ladder, he had stepped straight into trouble. "I really never knew for sure just what the men thought. I am sure they resented in a cynical way having a 'darkie' . given special authority. But I was very popular and I think they just made the best of it. Not so my fellow non-commissioned officers. Without exception, from sergeant-major, through sergeants and cor~ porals, I became intensely disliked. They disliked a situation in which a coloured man shared their special rights and privileges and they showed it in every possible way. For two months or so, I suffered a virtual persecution. I was not then a patient person, and I treated them all with every mark of contempt, imitating sup­ eriority. Something had to snap." UWI L ibr ari es 32. What snapped was their honesty. They shook together a few falsehoods and laid charges against Bombadier Manley. At the pre­ liminary hearing before the Company Captain, N.W. confronted his sergeant and sergeant-major. The 22-year-old future King's Counsel had never been in a courtroom. He was given permission to cross­ examine - and suddenly, it was all there. "I asked a few simple questions..," -/e recalls this rummaging for the first time among the tools of h1s profession. Simple they may have been, but, in final, crushing. Ili s captain, in the army tradition of guilt by being charged of a superior, advised he was in for a Court Martial - but did he have a "suggestion"? He looked hard at Manley. Any soldier worth his boots knew that veracity rose with rank. Manley adroitly caught it. He had a suggestion. He would give up his Bombadier's stripe on the understanding that he and his brother be transferred to another artillery battery and "the whole case could be disposed of in this simple way." Reflectively, he added, "He seemed very pleased." Faces were saved all around and the smiles came out. When he became a political leader at home in the 1940's, the possibility of linkiµg his wartime experiences to a looked-for anti-white attitude, a connection always assiduously sought by English journalists in interviews with him, was frequently tested. He steadily denied such a posture but never disowned the experience. He has never in public life displayed any racial wounds or trauma. UWI L ibr ari es 33. It must be believed that, young as he was, with the integrity that was to be his peculiar grace all his life, he contained his reactions. Once more, after the initial skirmishes, he settled easily as a private in the new battery. Before the war was much older, he had become the Company guru, writing their letters, addressing their problems, supplying a foot-locker contact with an educated world most of his East London comrades knew only to exist. He was offered a commission, of full officer class this time, one he re­ fused because he "did not want to leave (his) companions." Although he has stated that "all good advocates are egotists," a proposition he unrepentantly fills by meeting the stipulation, he was often a shy man, if partial to his own ways, and has never been strong on the science of dismantling a situation - as was manifestly proven in his later political life. Manley's war was Ypres and the Somme and fought in the 1914-18 classic theatre of 55 Pa.endale. It was bloody and dangerous ~ and he fought bravely and professionally. Because of who he was, in his war, he could also be found humming arias from Madame Butterfly and liberating bottles of Veuve Clicquot, 19 O 5 from a French town liberated from the Boche. He spoke, in his later years, infrequently, of combat. Yet he knew the misery, bitterness and continuous peril of trench war­ fare in all its ugliness. For three years. He entered France at the beginning of 1916 and came out in the spring of 1919. His first UWI L ibr ari es 34. unit was a mounted ammunition supply company. Then he beGame a map-reading scout, locating each battery as they moved about the vast arena of the Ypres. The army was on the slow mount to the explosion that was to be the long drawn frightfulness of the Somme. "Map-reading was for me an easy exercise so I was given that special task." He liked the task. It was flat farm country, deserted to war by the owners, and roaming was not much unlike Guanaboa except for the occasional howitzer and other cannon fire that could tear your head off merely by passing close. But it was country,"fresh, and with a beauty of its own in the early morning, or late when twilight fell." He recalls his luck at being almost lost for four days searching for the batteries, "a good four days" on his own with his horse and rifle. That sort of happiness was not, of course, for this world. There were sergeants in every army. And the Manley impishness in bare-facing a sergeant with a ridiculous story of a strong young soldier, unwounded, fainting in the saddle and waking to find horse and rifle gone, and taking another day to look for them, led to his transfer from the supply unit to a brigade of guns, a move requested by Bornbadier Manley to get rid of Sergeant's heat. "In spiteful folly, he had charged me with insubordination after I showed him my rifle next day," states the ex-non com. He lost his corporal's rank, became again a gunner, and joined D Battery of the 39th Division. He became the best gun layer UWI L ibr ari es JS. in the battery, fast and accurate with the complex machinery that puts a modern cannon on target. He went up to the first fight for the River Somme, where his brother Roy was wounded. Shipped to a rear hospital, Roy recovered and in a short time talked his way back to the front. Roy was an able talker. He was returned to the very battery in which his brother was the fastest gun layer alive. Roy, says N.W., had 11 a prodigious gift for making friends. I have never in all my long life met anyone who found it so natural and habitual to get in touch with perfect strangers." Back in England, a 17-year-old fledgling artist impatiently pushing a pen in a poky Pensions office, would have concurred. Edna had found Roy "strange and attractive," according to Wayne Brown. He was - and more. His sister (Dr) Muriel Manley once observed: "He was a person of the most fantastic charm (but) had a ruthless stre.ik" with women. At a canny twelve years old, Edna had liked, but sexually mistrusted the exotic brown Romeo from Guanaboa. Soon she would find an easier affinity in the older, less ebullient Bombadier. Both Jamaican soldiers were at the appearing of the most remarkable military hardware since Troy, the army tank. Walking close in its lumbering wake, they discovered how an army could ad­ vance further in a single day than in four months of trench and charge. But since the Allies had no plans to exploit its success that year, the Somme bloodletting was yielded another year. Posted back to Belgium, at Ypres, they stayed six months in uneasy drill for the second holocaust at the River. N.W.Manley's UWI L ibr ari es 36. battery was to follow the first wave of the attack. The armour at the Somme was inconceivable;_ a mass of guns, wh_eel to wheel, six miles broad. He would be laying his targets from a position just forward of the second line of trencheq, digging dugouts for nests of canno_ns (and a thousand rounds of shells for each). The shells, • fullsized golgothas of 45 lbs each, were two to a box. You lifted close to a hundred pounds each time you hefted a box to sore shoulders. But you worked fine, lice and mud and all, for the great offensive would roll those guns, anchored at an end on Ypres, over the higher ground and down the plains of Belgium and win the war. The reckon- ing was for four to five miles a day. "That was the plan. We stayed put for six weeks after the offensive began." Likely any Sunday morning analyst of that unholy oblation could now fathom how the hell was forged; but Manley's peculiar achievements suggests that, even then, at 24, he had a sturdily conceptual eye; as he talks of the Somme: "We spent two months preparing gun positions in very dangerous terrain. The Germans knew perfectly well what we were doing and ill cross roads were heavily shelled from early morning until the sun was well up. About 30 of us used to leave our camp at about five in the afternoon and walk ten miles (for) the shells. We worked until four in the morning , carrying boxes of shells to where the gun-pits had been prepared. (It meant) 20 .miles walking, and seven carrying a heavy load half the time .• UWI L ibr ari es 37. "I will never forget four a.m., on D-day, when all the thousands of guns we had laboriously assembled opened fire at a precisely timed second. (But) the attack was doomed from the start. "About the first half-mile of enemy held territory was lightly protected but then came a most highly fortified line with enormously strong machine gun emplacements built on the surface, since the land was totally flat and the least rain would make it into a swamp. Well, before dawn, began one of the worst rains I have ever known, for eleven days, almost ceaselessly." It was there that he lost his brother, Roy, from a fragment of shrapnel that pierced his heart. "We buried him with others the next day, all wrapped in blankets, and placed in a field already established in anticipation of the battle." His full name was Roy Douglas Manley. Norman, sensitive to a childhood difficulty which made the name come out Woy, had calmly, in defiance of family usage, called him Douglas till it stuck. He would name his first born, Douglas. "I cannot speak of how I felt. We were very good friends and I was to be lonely for the rest of the war, lonely and bitter." But the war went on. They fought wi thout she lter , in the open, and he fired his gun without break for 46 hours at the rate of a round a minute for the last 12 hours; an agony hardly under­ stood in all its frightening reality; crouched, wet, cold to the UWI L ibr ari es 3 8 . bone in mud-filled shell holes in an unceasing, mind-bending noise. Half a century later, although he was not clear on whether they stayed in the inferno for six or eight weeks, he could desc r ibe the bombardment in a moving recall: "It has to be imagined to rea lise how the world c a n dissolve into one vast sound like a great wave drowning e ve r y fee ling a nd every emotion and nothing exists except the continuous unbroke n sound broken every minute by the vast roar of (your own) gun, and constantly punctuated by the staccato tattoo of dozens of 78-pounders, pounding a practised roll like super machine gun fire - but mostly, just sound that you could feel, that enve lope d y ou and bore you up." 8 The odds were that he would be killed. More than h a l f o f his companions were. He came close to it. Once when he was running for shelter from an incoming shell of a velocity only little less than sound: "I knew from the increasing horror of noise (b ehind me) what I was in for ... and at the last split second, dived for the ground. I felt the shake of the air but just before tha t, heard the shout from a runner behind me: 11 ' Bill's gone~ The y've got him!' " But Bill was not gone beyond t he bottom of a crater dug for him by an earlier shell. Another time, on guard duty, he detected a gas attack and crept from his lean-to to shake his UWI L ibr ari es 39. platoon awake. When he returned the lean-to was riddled with shell fragments. "As a battle, it was the great failure of the war," he says of the Somme. "It cost the British 750,000 me n killed and wounded, the cream of the me n who volunteere d before conscrip tion was introduced." UWI L ibr ari es 40A. C,HAPTER THREE He had fought a bitter war of dull, nagging danger, laying and firing huge guns, sleeping in and galloping through French mud of such tenacious quality that to some it is the most endurable memory of the war. In four years, he had written no friends, seen Edna only once, at Neasden, then, in his words, "a most exciting young girl of seventeen." She was suffering in the civil service and fighting off interferences with her own chosen destiny. She was nearing gradua­ tion at the St.Martin School of Art and being persuaded to join the a secondary sdlool as an art teamer, teaching staff atA~ a plan she was vehemently opposing. In a kind of laconic accolade to her courage, N.W. says of that period, "In the end, she left home, endured great hardships, but had her way about teaching and art." Much later, twenty-four years later poignant in another country, she would give a~ account of a small Jamaican boy in whom she saw a reflection: I have a little pupil twelve years old, an elementary schoolboy and he only wants to carve. He hates painting. His hammer goes like mine. I went in to see him work, about two o'clock (October 28, in 1941) and to tell him to go home. He was so intent, he didn't notice me. He went on banging away and the chips flying. I put my hand on his shoulder and I said, "Look here, Ferdinand Escoffrey, you have got to go home." His eyes went so dark, and his hands dropped quite still; the afternoon sunshine seemed to glow for a second and I felt such a feeling of kinship, it just swept over me from head to foot. I knew his urgency so well. I knew the fatality of UWI L ibr ari es 40D. stopping - so finally". He climbed down and we walked together to the gate. "Goodbye, Ferdinand, until next Saturday." "Yes, ma' am. Next week I finish him." O, Ferdinand, Ferdinand, you're so little and your feet are so big and bare. And your eyes, why did they go so dark? And now the sunshine isn't the same again. It looks shabby without you. (,,,vv,_tl._ The war was nearing its endAd & he returned to the quiet of England from the fury in France, in 1918, to take a special heavy artillery course. He was coldly sick of the war. His unit had become a ttached to an Australian division in which the old explosive of race and colour held less heat; yet, he had brushed with the idea o f seeking a Commission in his own West India Regiment, long since engage d in * all the theatres. *He was to withdraw the a pp lication after a court-martial as the ringleader of a protest against leave infringements. 0 UWI L ibr ari es 41. (9 QUESTION: Why was he content to serve in the ranks of an English regiment, an unpretentious, unprestigious, non-Guard, non­ Brigade, non-famous flotsam outfit, but had thoughts of a ·commission in his own West India Regiment? He was a product of his Colonial time. Englishmen, even if quashies, qualified for Quality. It was a homily that had been steadily hammered home for three hundred years . His fine spirit, had, of course , rebelled . He turned arro­ gant and treated them with II contempt". But he was tilting with adepts. The implant was deep. His intellect saw it going in and raged as it sometimes despaired. It would, and evidence proposes, soon push nim over the brink into a nervous breakdown. It would take him years to face it; perhaps never to extirpate it. Not altogether, until it broke down in his progeny. But he would never become one of the anxious men casting no shadow at noon. Dreaming ramshackle dreams in the long night's journey from the Coast to the Caribbean. He would wall it firmly in, by mind and reason, and be able to relate, at 45, to an audience at the forming of his Party, the story of the indiscreet Englishman, who, on Home Leave , from his magistracy in Jamaica, blurted in a speech that the Empire could only stand upon the "carefully nurtured" feeling of inadequacy among the natives . It was, conceivably, a component in the extra­ ordinary success with which he urbanely destroyed the Empire in his part of the world . (His sister, Vera, was even worse afflicted. "You can't be friendly with (Jamaican servants} like you can the UWI L ibr ari es 42. English ones.") Generally, the character of the Colonial mulatto of the time straddled two behaviours: timid or tumid, mewing or bellowing as a feverishly active protective covering dictated. 0 But now he was thinking of his future. He was 24, battered by war, his brother killed (at 21), his educat.ion unfini shed , and with racial experiences ugly enough to signal the impracticability of living in England. So he carefully worried out a rationale by which he could "with due self-respect say yes" to the offer for re-training in England - fully aware that the war would probab ly end before the course was over. • lie was in England at the Armis­ tice, November 1918 . He had prudently registered for Gray's Inn the previous year, 1917. It was fortunate that he had, in that sense, destroyed his bridges, for he was being now assailed by f e ars of his ability to be a barrister. It was not, he thought, even a II sensible II or useful profession; chicken-breeding was better. It astounds that N.W.Manley was once severely afraid to talk in public, even i n as mannered an arena as the courtroom. Thin, intense, tough as a cowskin whip, wartime training had restored the stamina that typhoid had reduced~lthough his fine athletic _edge was irretrievably lost, at Oxford he won the long jump 20' 1 11 , and the 120 yards hurdles;) But he was wound up tight as a drum. His sisters, Vera and Muriel, were fairly established along their careers in music and medicine. He would be stepping out of four war years, of open air life with little reading save the UWI L ibr ari es 43. King James Version, Samuel Butler's Note book and Brown i ng ' s Ring 1-ov- . . . and 'I'he Book - volumes thoughtfully packed him by his sisters. " "To think of a life to be spent in talk and study, seemed a denial of self. Besides, how did I know I could talk - or learn to talk?" But a stern look at his finances seemed to have restor ed the inherited Guanaboa resolve)even if there were few openings for axe­ men in England. (His brother, Roy, faced with a similar dilemma be­ fore the war, after he left public school, had done a brilliantly fast study of London streets, and, in three months became a licensed, fully qualified taxi driver.) He thought of the property at Belmont. Its sale was a possibility but he could hardly hope for more than six hundred dollars as his share of the inheritance. He had another one hundred and fifty dollars coming from his Army ·pay - plus a limply tailored civvy suit as a mustering-out bonus. He h a d eight months of study ahead for the Bar exams before returning to Oxford. Resolutely, he settled in. War, for gunners with intellect, offers fallow years. The wheel-driver from Guanaboa, famed along the front for his f ast hook-ups and his cool handling of the six horses he rode through mud and shell holes on the suicidal near-side of his pair, had been fallow for four years. Now, suddenly, it was all springing back. To his "delightful surprise", he found "a capacity for work" and what was more, "enjoyed it immensely." He could work for long hours and discovered that he had developed the prodigious memory which UWI L ibr ari es 44. would be one of his more spectacular gifts and the most commented upon by his peers. He raced into the four papers then required for the bar exams at Gray's Inn, did three of them in six months and was first in two. He obtained first class passes in both. It was at this time also that he recognised he was in love.G was staying at Neasden with hi~ Aun~ Ellie, Edna's mother. Neasden was a London suburb to which Ellie had moved with her children, after her husband's death. His Edna of the "uniquely bright spirit" was lengthening into a sword of a girl, shining and tempestuous in her will to be an artist. The postwar uncertainties, Ellie thought, _elected a safer profession, but the creative energies in the 19-year girl generated the faith and kept alivethehopewhich the artist'scb93rvcb.l.e often losing struggle, mostly conceals. Edna had suffered through severe vicissitudes. Like her Jamaican cousins, Alec Clarke;Bustanante and Norman before, she was expert at riding untamed horses and her last job had been pacifying half-wild Canadian ponies for the British army in France. At 18 years old. Bombadier Manley at Ypres may have been plucked from the jaws on a remount supplied by the long­ legged escapee from the Pensions Office, and from pulling flax in Norfolk fields for padding airplane wings, and from gardening for a Ditchingham moneybags who fired her for being (innocently) friendly with the only other young, decently thin person in the Manor, the male chauffeur. Calming unrestrained horses had been her most satisfying job. The Family wanted an art school teacher; Edna was for a professional artist's career; and Norman was strongly for her. - UWI L ibr ari es 45. The girl's solution was simple. She left home, took a small ill-paid job, lived in a rooming house(above a fish shop) and wrung out her apprenticeship. Yet, the doubts and anguish assailed them. Although they had planned to marry the following year, 1921, June, there were questions to be faced. One of the more important uncertainties lay in the choice of islands to live - England or Jamaica. It sprouted into a contest of doubts; she fearing the empty pomposity of the planter colony, uncultivated in any art save the military and cocktail parade, he to a losing interest in law and the bar as a profession. The ten­ sion rippled between them. a forthright objection to settling Edna's appeared to be the "' - among~philistines, with no escape routes into galleries, or museums, or concerts, or even the privacy of an attic studio in an island of open doors and windows. His was hidden, and more damaging. There is hardly any question that, at the time, he was being deeply hurt by the English rejection on account of his colour. He returned to the race-dilemma again and again, subtly, bluntly, always hurtedly; for it was ugly and a reducer of men. He was, plainly, in England, a product of the longest continuous holocaust experienced by modern man; he was an issue of the slave trade; he had an inheritance that would have passed unnoticed, and would certainly be manageable, in his layered Jamaican society, where being "brown" and a graduate of a "good" school would have cushioned the inevitable collisions. UWI L ibr ari es 46. Not so in Albion.[''.!':n in my position have no conventions ... no home, no social position ... a speck floating about in a liquid mass." Thus he wrote to Edna in the winter of 1919. A savage self-denunciation that surfaced out of "the obsessions that colour feelings can create." He thought he was fighting back by going to ground behind the defen­ sives of what he regarded as his "arrogance", and even told himself that he welcomed their prejudices since he wanted to be left alone. Yet, in years after, he was to bitterly recall that in the months he read in the• Cornrnon Room at Gray's Inn, nobody spoke to him. N.W.Manley was, and remained, a deeply sensitive man who took to a covert of arrogance to conceal his partiality to company, good companions. Within that covert, nevertheless, he "felt," he said, a racial hostility "moving around" in his lodgings and the public shops he visited. The outside pounding of cunning,unspoken racism, the growing crisis in the decisbns concerning Edna, his own dismay at his uncertainty in his choice of career, and the inner, sleeping damage caused by a long and dangerous war, built, predictably, to a head. He was doing an essay at Gray's Inn one afternoon when he broke down. What he had thought was an interesting and exciting treat­ ment of his subject suddenly became nonsense on the paper. He was strained and confused. He looked about him. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The Common Room was silent except for the scratch of pens, the brush of paper. He was shaking and resolved to be out quickly before his English,[i:-d that agitation was discovered. Public illness was un­ was the last he remembered until he found himself UWI L ibr ari es 47. in the British Museum hours later looking steadily at early Egyptian sculpture, a black, broken-shaped work that perhaps held a symbol. Shocked and frightened, he rushed from the building and caught the underground to Neasden where his Aunt Ellie put him to bed after he staggered into the door and collapsed. When he was sufficiently mended, Manley made for the woods, HtAUJJtJ- his constant haiing-place for all his life. In his later years, it was Nomdmi, high in the Jamaica:.:_mountains. But in 1919, he headed for the New Forest, in Hampshire, some one hundred and fifty square miles of as near solitude as it was possible to get in crowded England. It would be a walking-camping retreat and he travelled light; water­ proof, road maps, compass, toothbrush and soap and towel. He met nobody during his four days in the forest. He slept under a fallen log, warmed between two fires and safe from the herds of wild ponies . galloping in the night. In the daytime, he walked and cooked and thought. It was in the New Forest that he faced the truth of himself and the Law. Dry law would never be_,for him, a subject of deep interest. The cut, thrust and hammer of the courtroom would always be a challenge to his love of intellectual combat. But the bench and chambers held no inducement. He has never tried the former, and a short engagement with the latter, near the end of his life, proved his conclusions right. He was the advocate, the workman who saw to the close and ha,rmonious fit of fact and law. His walk in the New Forest had not :3olved his problems but it strengthened his mind and body to struggle with them. He cooked UWI L ibr ari es 48. and lodged in the woods when the village landladies had no room 'for the likes of you." It occurred to him on his walk that if he could not ignore the matter of colour, it was not necessarily an issue to be wrestled to the ground. He told himself he was a citizen of the world - and on that lofty note, returned to London and Edna. At Neasden, he found that Edna had left home, committed her future to her art. He felt he was losing her. Their's was a great love story thoroughly docketed by two articulate people. Fortunately,each was lonely, for different reasons; and luckily, in love too with words. Wayne Brown, in his book composed around I1er letters, points out that "close on a thou­ sand letters, a million written words, passed between them" in the thirty months before the June morning (25th) they were wed at the Registry Office at Kilburn. Somewhere a mailman must have experienood an inexplicable lightening of his load. Their letters were often young and breathless and conventionally brokenhearted. It was the one time his natural gregarious ways could break through the shell the shy man had encased himself with. He felt misused in what he desperately called "a cheap flow of cynicism and an affectation of intellectual aloofness." But his integrity was powering him to break free. He started out by acknowledging his vanity, disapproving his hunger for applause, and promising to pursue his "greed for ability" that would make him strive for excellence. It took a lifetime of striving, an equal share of victories and defeats, an understanding UWI L ibr ari es 49. that despite his soft boasts in public - the ego-armour he encased 6-k -- - he had just about "enough to be profoundly dissatisfied with my own intellectual content." So the sum of him was in a Gestalt that influenced history: a generation and a future. Manley, in his early years, was easier with pen than tongue. Edna was the private artist who found release in words rushing from her in torrents, turning over and over in her sunny moods, glinting with ideas, flashing its spinwheels of wit and frolic - or flowing sanely, thoughtfully between them; a steadying stream in their struggle for calm. Edna elated him. As she had at Oxford, the day he received the Lee Prize for his essay on Samuel Butler and she travelled up to see it. "For the first time," he wrote to her back in London, "I've felt differently to Oxford. Even a twinge of regret at leaving. I'm almost ashamed to own it." In the unkindness of the society he loved as it alienated ~~p-rRR-, him, superbly fitted for it in all his parts a skinfglowing too warmly for its cold, northern, guilt-ridden, raw-eyed narrowness, the young Jamaican soldier fought for the Empire in cool professional detachment; and for his woman with the urgent, unaffected sensuous­ ness of a torrid-zone lover: "I want (my) mate ... I am not ... sexless. * I am of the lesser breed." In time she responded as ardently: "I love you ... I love you ... I'm just curled up against you." * Quoting Kipling's contemptuous dismissal of the Empire's brown children: "Lesser breeds without the law." UWI L ibr ari es 50. The situation at Neasden seemed to have twanged the bowstring. Although he supported her decision, he was physically unable to cope with much. He had been through a grinder. The discomfort, danger and peril of the war years in France, the relentless strain to stand tall .among the racist English comrades of his regiment, the joylessness of his own puzzled loyalties adrift somewhere between his unsophisticated little island and the cultivated seat of Empire, the hurt and the need not to show - and the years of the same ahead before he could claim his life in terms of profession, family, identity, all these combined to fell him. He was jelly for a year. In the summer of 1920, he began to mend. Again, as he had done before, and since, he took to the outdoors, or as near to them as he could. This time at the quiet resort of Milford-on-Sea - close to the New Forest. Cousin Edna Swithenbank was also at Milford, studying and drawing. They met every day for lunch, talked and planned. It was a good summer. At the end of it he was his old normal self again, intelligent and tireless, tough enough to announce their engagement and hoping that Belmont could be sold before he took his finals at Oxford. For he would be broke; and he needed the cash to be married, and to read, unpaid, in Chambers in London for a year. Then he would return to Jamaica. UWI L ibr ari es 51. CHAPTER FOUR August 30, 1922, in Chambers, before Mr. Justice H.I.C. Brown, the Irish Acting Attorney General of Jamaica, Mr.H. Kaye Ryan, made an application for the admission to practice on behalf of Mr.N.W.Manley. Mr. Ryan properly pointed out that the papers, which had been filed with the court, showed that the said Mr.Manley had passed all the necessary exams in London and had been duly "called to the bar in the Mother Country." Seated behind the plain wooden table in his steamy Chambers, Mr.Justice Brown, wig pushed back and white cuffs hauled up for cooling, gravely leafed through the pages and made his legal seal. He had read them before. The papers were in order. He looked up and nodded at the fledgling barrister. The lean young man in the artfully aged gown, wig thoroughly squared on his high forehead, rose, bowed and delivered the neat little speech of affirmation he had carefully worked over. He was not an easy talker, difficult to begin. But once set on course, he was very good. He had licked his nervousness by working very hard at auto-suggestion. At least, he thought so. He was still to argue his first case. Mr. Justice Brown duly enrolled him among the less than a dozen barristers who * comprised the private bar. *rncluding C.H.Beard, E.F.H.Cox, J.L.King, Josiah Oldfield, H.M.Radcliffe, A.B.Rennie, J.A.L.Reid , Philip Stern, K.C., J.A.G.Smith ,< F.C.Tomlinson, J.C.Moss. UWI L ibr ari es 52. He had fulfilled the first requisite of Cecil Rhodes' award which enjoined that the candidates for his Scholarship should be chosen only on the basis that they were strong, scholarly leaders. How he would meet the hope of the old Empire-building Donor that his beneficiaries possess the qualities which would be "likely in after life to guide them to esteem the performance of public duties as their highest aim," was still hidden behind the cool, almost icy composure of the 29-year-old war veteran. The Jamaica to which he returned was not much different from the days of Guanaboa Vale. The Empire was still airily bemusing the world, working its curious alchemy upon its subject peoples; in an almost unbroken silence from them save for the brief flurries of the Sepoy mutiny and the occasional flares in Africa. Jamaica was an English outpost, a tophat and waistcoat society serving hot afternoon teas on sun-baked lawns. The impending wedding of the English princess, Mary, was daily front-page stuff for months be- * fore the nuptials. Social consciousness went only as far as a *An island-wide appeal was launched for the contribution of a shilling by every woman in the colony to purchase a "Royal wedding gift." Domestic servants, who were being paid 30 cents a week, were thus encouraged to fork out a third of the week's wages. clampdown on Chinese immigration, and an invitation to explorer Mitchell Hedges to clean Kingston Harbour of its hammerhead sharks. Almshouses festered. Streets were unpaved except for two or three cobbled ones. The annual revenue was under $4-million and expendi­ ture $4½-million. UWI L ibr ari es 53. Manley came home to none of the protagonists with whom he would later engage. Bustamante was wandering overseas. In the United States, a ferocious squad of treasury agents was putting together a Federal frame into which they would entrap Marcus Garvey. Island politics was a part-time exercise for a handful of gents, one to a parish. But,_ professionally, the lists were already up. His most formidable opponent would be J.A.G.Smith, legislator and voluble law lion whose longwinded eloquence (but sound law) . could reduce a judge and opposing counsel to a blob of weary lather. Smith straddled the Bar; a lean, black aristocrat whose fear­ less advocacy and unfeigned air of grace-under-pressure from the white Bench, was not lost upon black and brown jurymen. He was immensely successful, appearing in most of the important causes for a dozen years prior to Manley. He was one of the fourteen elected members in the Legislative Council, representing Clarendon parish. He was an abrasive, relentless battler for citizens' rights with an almost unqualified distaste for local Colonial officials. He was the widest known Jamaican of his day in his country. Norman and Edna Manley and their infant son, Douglas, stayed with his lifelong friend, Leslie Clerk and his wife, Beryl, at Retirement Crescent before settling in an apartment on Hope Road - uPPcR three rooms and a part of the verandah on the••• floor of what V\. was to become the Andrews Memorial Hospital. He spent his early weeks looking for Chambers and visiting the courts. Like the superb craftsman he was to become, he believed in looking at the work of other professionals. In England, he had watched closely all the UWI L ibr ari es 54. great jurists and had been strongly influenced by Lord Birkenhead. He admired Carson and Patrick Hastings. (The way he stood in court and the cast of his head was said to be uncannily like Hastings.) On board ship on the homeward voyage, he had the good fortune of discovering Sir John Simon who was sailing to the island for a month's rest. For the ten days remaining of the voyage, the holiday­ ing Sir John in an expansive shipboard mood practically coached the young Colonial lawyer in law, the courts and in the art of advocacy. "All good advocates are egotists," Manley said many years later, "and nearly all good advocates are happy talking about their cases. Sir John was no exception. I think I learnt more about advocacy in ten days than I had learnt in all my life, for here was a master talking about his own secrets and explaining the methods he used." But it was the powers of observation and absorption of young Manley that fixed that fleet encounter into what soon became a familiar professional quality. The Manley re-entry into Jamaica seemed to have been a care­ ful blend of thrust and caution. While he stayed with the Clerks, · he sent Edna and the baby into the Mandeville hills, a cooler place containing the countryside-green of England but occasionally fanned by the warm breath of the tropics rising from the plains. And they escaped the discomfort of the Manleys crowding in on top of the Clerks in the small suburban house. UWI L ibr ari es 55. But Mandeville was a comedy of manners, an entr'acte of high-bosomed grande dames crouched at their lace curtains, alertly searching out the slightest infraction of the white-boss, black­ peasantry relationship relentlessly at work in home, church and state. Mandeville was no place for a free-spirited artist who was light years away in intellect and sheer fine-mindedness. The white Quashies depressed her; as did what she reckoned was the hostility of the black ill-used folk; perhaps imagined; a white-flight from guilt; a self-accusing colloquy to inner indictments, since country­ folk of the day were notoriously amiable. Norman's paying cases fortunately came early. Like many young barristers before and since, with no powerful corporate * solicitors to support them, Manley depended on the Crown for his *Before the fusion of the two branches of the profession, solicitors and barristers, solicitors did not 'appear" in the high courts, and barristers, to appear, ~ad to be briefed by solicitors. Barristers with good connections among soli­ citors of heavy calendars consequently received more briefs and made more money. Top-class barristers would naturally grow into heavy-calendared ones. first case; i.e. as a Court-appointed counsel for the defense in a murder trial; by coincidence, in Spanish Town where he, as a hard-riding schoolboy, racing his mount from Belmont to high school, had his first brush with the law when he was stopped and warned by the town constable. In notes made after his retirement, he reported his advent on the legal scene: UWI L ibr ari es 56. "I will never forget the moment I rose in Court to ask my first question. All the cross-examination had been written out, with many branches. If (the) witness said, 'no', I asked a differ­ ent question and we proceeded accordingly. I had been laid up (ill) for three weeks and the work done on that simple case was tremendous. Leslie (Clerk) came with me to Spanish Town. First witness ended his story. I rose. My mouth was dry, my tongue felt swollen. I stood silent for nearly a minute. Then the months of auto-~uggestion came to rescue me. I felt an onrush of great energy and confidence. I asked the question. I was off. What a moment. What a strange thing. This long preparation, this near prostration, then the sudden burst of light." It was a burst of light that would hold, and swell and lead the judiciary in a manner no other lawyer ever did. "It started slowly. But two very exciting cases caught public attention in a way that could not happen now and the speed of the growth of my practice was almost legendary." The two cases were the Spaulding murder trial in 1924 and the Walker murder trial in 1927. After he found the rooms in Duke Street for Chambers, and the modest apartment at Hope Road, it was an easier descent into the heat for Edna than a straight rush from chilly England to the Liguanea. It was a good road for living, with the fine mountains at the back and the famed poinciannas flaming in the green of the Liguanea savannah. But out in the underbrush, something stirred. UWI L ibr ari es 5 7. Among the prized possessions in the lightly furnished flat of the impecunious young couple were the thirty cups and trophies he had won in sports. Today, the trophies would have been national memorabilia but for a sneak thief and an open window. One wag thought at the time that the burglar was a hungry collector since the only other item stolen was a tin of Douglas' Glaxo. In lieu of the Glaxo, they acquired a goat, a shaggy Egyptian Black, from the soldiers at Up Park Camp. One evening as they sat in the living room of their upstairs Hope Road flat, styled, pre­ sumably for esoteric reasons, in Arawak Octagonal (the eight-sided huts of these Early Jamaicans, however, were for purposes strictly utility, to baffle the lunatic hurricane winds seeking solid, full­ faced obstacles to wreak their fury on), in walked Alec Clarke, the Hanover mulatto cousin who would one day propose the fiction of Arawak blood and never a nod toward Africa. Beanpole tall and lean, as any country boy home from foreign parts he had furbished to illustrate his success. He was home from Cuba "with all the airs of a Cuban grandee," recalls Norman; ties that matched his socks that matched his display handkerchief, his anguished hair pomaded, "full of airs and graces." They talked of this and that. Maybe as Cousin Norman spoke of his war, Alec, never to be outdone, founded his own affrays, Then may have been born the later stories of conflicts in Spain and Morocco, although never of specific battles. Of his courage there has never been doubt; no less of his inventions. UWI L ibr ari es) 58. They moved to Worthington Avenue. They sold the single-buggy Norman had been using to drive to Chambers and invested in a two­ year-old Essex and a couple of linen dusters for the chalky thorough­ fares. They remained at Worthington for several months, including a move across the road to a larger house called "Newara Yahlia", two words of reputed Indian origin believed to be an invocation to Allah. Well, then, the following year, Edna had her second son, Michael, and the Egyptian Black was working double time. Naturally, fond of horses as they both were, they had horses, among them a -.e.oa..1\.do>' ■ 11 which was to achieve a minor fame on racer named "House of A. Mr.Dolphy's track at Maverley in Edna's gymkhana appearances. In 1924, they moved to a place in the woods above Half Way Tree, named Drumblair. f) He bought the property from Volney Rennie on a loan of £2,200, secured partly on his life insurance. It was bought in the period he was calling his "rebirth". Once, before their marriage, in the year of his first nervous collapse, and he thought he had lost Edna, he had taken to the healing woods. Some men turn to drink; others seek solace in lengthening the romantic listsj arguing the safety in numbers. He sought to lose his grief in an English forest,arguing that its great halls would diminish his anguish. But now in these days, it was Drumblair, a milder wood, he entered. For he feared that Edna, in England, had bolted. UWI L ibr ari es 59. And she, too, in England, feared that she was a runaway wife. As a young sixteen-year-old country girl from Cornwall, she had ' been terrified by London, smoky, noisy, stately ferocious, half-way into its century of ugly growth. But there had been music and museums, parks and theatres, and a torrent of art. Jamaica was a wasteland that had exiled sanity. A land of shrewd, hard, flairless men in two-tone shoes and their semi-literate meddling wives. A frontierland with an inhabited settlement of limestone streets, queues of open whorehouses, one theatre mostly closed, and a loud, undereducated, overdressed oligarchy guarding their stolen privi­ leges with the murderous intent of robber barons. A modest two­ storey edifice in East Street housed the only national nod towards the arts; the redbrick Institute had a kind of nose-in-the-air aloofness, ready to do a little business if you could summon the courage to cross the threshold. Some spinsters gave piano lessons and a diocesan choir sang occasionally. Claude McKay, the only promising poet of power, had migrated to America. A handful of watercolour artists brushed their delicate talents. The land and its powerful folk fecundity, lay fallow. But a sense of renewal was surging against those bonds of remembered bondage that were somehow immobilising the natural wisdom and song of the African people. Soon, now, the Breakers were due. Edna Manley would be one of the Breakers - although for now she could only rage at the misused strength of her new black and white, rich and poor, compatriots, each waging defeat on the UWI L ibr ari es 60. other. They were wearing her down. She had to go; or agree to hang fire. In London, she had broken from her mother's punishing grip of love and moved above a fish-shop. Now she broke loose and sailed for England with her baby son, Douglas, convinced that the marriage was ended. But she had reckoned without the tenacity of the old axeman. He wooed her anew with the oldest male trick since Adam lost his lodgings. He secured for her, a home. The house was shabby but fine under its elbows, and it had 25 acres. Acres that meadowed and gullied and rolled joyously at the foot of the Blue Mountains, beautiful for riding and growing roses and pineapples and corn. And fine too for what he had in mind, to shield his wife from the barrens: the unproductive, acarpous pomposity of the saltfish merchant elite and their wives who haunted the front porch of the Myrtle Bank, the highly upholstered hotel on Harbour Street. The Manleys, he promised, would "follow no social patterns," but be "free to live our own lives, to make friends as we pleased, and to develop interests where we cared to." Drurnblair offered what Edna would want, he thought; "something with land so that though we belonged to town, we could imagine we lived in the country, and keep horses and cows, and have a place of her own." He put a builder to work on the house. ! It was the best time of year for the foothills, a clear Fall light and a nice crisp to the nights; and he missed her, especially over Christmas, but held in well. And that Christmas he gave her UWI L ibr ari es 61. a unique gift. He did "something really hard" for her. He gave up smoking for a month. A magnificent token, for he was at that time a full-house smoker, pipe, cigar and cigarette. Apart from their own youthful dilemma and temporary troubles (he was 31, she 24), it'W:ls a parting that would have a peculiar effect upon the Jamaican people. For Edna, who left as a modeller in plaster, returned as a carver in wood, the medium she was to master so conclusively, her fame would go out to the world. 0 In that year, now, the marriage was in trouble so he wooed her anew with all the elan of his roguish Grandfather Manley, that ardent English swain who had swooned them from Porus to Williams­ field and produced a handful of love-children among the peasant ladies of the hills. And Edna let slip her grip on despair. For the marriage, it now appeared to her mind½a mind reel­ ing under the impact of those letters concerning the dream house at Drumblair, and the two-seater secondhand Durrant automobile he was dickering to buy, and the great white moon he wrote eloquently of coming over the mountain, and the artful easing in of his success in making L55 one week, and that (this one really a body hook!), Tiger, her large, black, mixed-ancestry, fiercely-loved, savagely­ protective pup was roaming the countryside seeking her; and how her friends stood about, missing her, and that a mutually-loathed one of them had seemed pleased that she had weakened and run for England~ UWI L ibr ari es 62. and after all that splendid wooing with its subtle changes of pace and direction, the marriage, it must now have appeared to Edna's IN HI RLi.(JG ■ mind, was not in ruins after all. That it could not only work, but be positively ecstatic. It was not long before she was passionately longing to be back "in your arms ... all tingling." When she returned after five months in England, it was with bag and baggage - furniture she had bought for their first-owned home and tools for her wood carving career - and the decision to have another child. It was N.W's first effort at negotiating and was concluded with spectacular success. Michael was born in NuttallHospital on December 10. UWI L ibr ari es 63. CHAPTER FIVE Drurnblair was a new beginning. It marked the creative years, a time of gifts so prolific, they would provide an abiding influence. The property occupied much of a curving leafy lane known as the Old Church Road. The house sat well back from the public path, reached by a driveway which circled in front of the verandah. Genteel, rather than elegant, it had fine floors and panels. It was quickly made over into an image of the talented young couple who occupied it with their two sons. In what one source has described as a "curious move", Drurnblair would be sold in 1928 and bought back by the Manleys in 1933, a negotiation that was hung either on a secret psychokinetic activity th!t guaranteed the Old Church Road would never let them go, or a deep cunning in real estate skullduggery, or sheer blind luck since they both so loved the place. It was the latter; yet, so suspiciously out of step with Norman's careful approach at the purchase, it required further probe. And, sure enough, it was the work of Edna's antic will. Recently she told it with a chuckle: "Norman had been work­ ing too hard. I talked him into selling Drurnblair and taking a holiday. We sold it to a German-American man living in Jamaica, for a good profit, and travelled. Then we bought it back again after the owner died." They lived at Bedford House, a large house and property nearby until the return to Drurnblair. UWI L ibr ari es 64. The _ grounds of Drumblair had a little of Guanaboa Vale about its rolling foothilly acreages, laying close to where the Liguanea commences to swell into the Port Royal mountains. Besides the house, they had a stable for their riding stock and a garden for N.W. Both loved mountains and as at Belmont, his childhood's first home, there was a clear view of Blue Mountain peak from the north windows. It was a similarity that may have engaged Manley's res­ ponses when he chose the property; soon they were both running off into the mountains. Drumblair won and held a special affection to that remark­ able generation of poets, writers, politicians, lawyers, industrial­ ists, painters, sculptors, scientists, dancers, statesmen, republican presidents and the better royalty who frequented the place for so , many years. Even at middle age, and past it, the Manleys had a faculty for attracting the young and gifted. If his sometime impatience was from the first ■•■■I to cause traumas among the less shining acquaintances, his approval nevertheless endured through many abrasions. For his warmth was only banked, not un­ kindled. He had been a shy youth, not, it appear~d, because of uncertainty, but more because of a mind whose native incisiveness dictated an unwinking fix on facts. He could listen as long as it took, but a profile sculptured in the cold classicism of a Seneca, and a preference for logic, locked out intimacy. "He had," says Leslie Clerk who came closest to being one, "no intimates." UWI L ibr ari es 65. He had, of course, seyeral friends. His. wit, wisdom and aplomb attracted the clever and the sophisticated. The deep veran­ dahs at Drumblair grew famous for soirees of cards, conversation - and that light flogging of political ideas which the times allowed. But the bottom submerged majority of his countrymen were still out of sight and barely on the edge of mind. What passion there had been in the country for the shoeless ones had been interred sixty years before with Paul Bogle and George William Gordon. The land was suffocating in its middleness. Claude McKay and Marcus Garvey were fleeing to Harlem, U.S.A. seeking concern, or bent on stirring it. In a land once noted for its risings and riots in response to the rights of man, there had been a ringing silence for two generations. 0 So far, the young Manley had gained success in two fields: the prodigious performances which made him a legend in the college athletic contests, and academically as the first obviously mixed­ blood to obtain a Rhodes. These were the visible, highly lauded exploits. His scholarship at Oxford was less noticeable, while typhoid and the war had kept him from adult athletics. His new field of the law lay before him. How challenging was the field? The Jamaican bar was small in size and middleweight in quality. J.A.G.Smith's advocacy was strong on the legalities but mild in techniques. No new barristers had been admitted to the Jamaican bar in eleven years before Manley. The only King's Counsel, Philip UWI L ibr ari es 66. Stern, was already aging. The brilliant incoming young man brought a whiff of fresh air into the musty corridors cf the tired old courts. Litigants liked what was showing and flocked to his practice, to commence for him a 32-year run that ceased only when he retired to become Premier of Jamaica. Very early in his career, a former * Chief Justice was already publicly labelling him a "genius " . ** Another Chief Justice spoke of the "ability of his mind." The fact was, his presence in court was a promise, tacitly acceded to * Sir Adrian Clarke in the Alexander murder trial. ** Sir John Carberry, who, as a young barrister, was associated with Manley in Chambers, 1925-27. by the Bench, of sound, clear advocacy which most often facilitated their coming to judgment. For three decades, there was no important case at trial in which Manley did not figure. But even while he was winning an un­ challenged reputation in Public Buildings East, the lower King Street civic block housing the High Court, the politics, which was to disengage the law from his life, was going into gear a scant few hundred yards north, in The Parade. UWI L ibr ari es 67. CHAPTER SIX A redbrick sidewalk east of the Victoria Park, on The Parade, is the cradle of Jamaica's modern politics. The sidewalk was then a kind of platform rising about eight rungs off the street and ran the length of the Coke Chapel along East Parade and East Queen Street. Coke Methodist Chapel is a landmark in red brick gothic to match the sidewalk. It was for better than three decades, the main forum for every office seeker in the city. The platform, on The Parade side, faced the Park, where, by day, ancient banyans drooped shady and cool to the green curved-back benches. The banyans sheltered in comfort a whole generation of touts, orators and candidates for small offices, reading newspapers and arguing to the caw of crows and the clatter of electric trams switching on the tracks outside. It was, towards evening, a short matter of crossing the street to a platform exactly high enough for effective haranguing, wide and flat enough for a little limited dramatics as points were driven home to the auditorium in the broad street below, free of traffic save for the occasional horse-drawn hackney. Although the voters' rolls were small, the campaign quality was vigorous and crowds flocked to The Parade. In the flicker of three-burner kerosene lamps on poles (wealthier contestants afforded carbide flares), the rhetoric rattled from such pros as Leonard P. e, Waison, Bain Alves, and the doyen of them all, Alfred "Doc" Mend_R, @ UWI L ibr ari es 68. a short, thickset brown man of gallery eloquence and Napoleonic gestures whose libels enjoyed a generally accepted legality since he unfailingly prefixed his insults with the adjectival "political". Opponents for years fell into one of two categories, "political ras- cals", or "political nincompoops". The specialist speakers were men famed for their invective and gutsy humour, who could and did switch sides if the opponents' liberality grew into offers that made it foolish to refuse. The citizens had more lamplit fun than a yardful of kids in a full-moon Anancy night. Lights burnt late at Drumblair too but for other reasons. Now in his thirties, Manley's capacity for work was dismaying to his adversaries. He had a knack for unlocking details. His law briefs, closely studied through exhaustive research, powerful per­ ception and an uncanny memory, became an avalanche as eager solici­ tors sought his services. Like all courtroom giants, he was a con­ sumate actor. Theaquiline features under the theatrical·flow of hair escaping his wig, the eloquence and strikingly beautiful ges­ tures, the ability by the lay of his head or the shrug of his robe to ·compel attention, gave him a style so personal that though widely l:c- imitated by many younger lawyers,~denied them a true copy. It was a curious side to his character that he seemed to exude the same warmth to a jury as he did in the intimacy of his home or among those he liked - but hardly elsewhere. His emotional orchestration was for the chamber, not the symphony hall. His pull on the great UWI L ibr ari es 69. crowds that would, later in his life, hang on his words from the political hustings, was activated by his intellect and his unques­ tioned integrity. They knew the odds were that he was right, and certainly that he was honest. For years, the lights at Drumblair were darkened only some four hours most nights - he would make up the loss with an extra­ vagant six hours sleep some nights. His knowledge of law was of course, prodigious, but so was his capacity for work. His success was long, and colossal. The, "Yes, Mr.Manley," from a high court Bench when the Presiding Judge called on the defence, came to be known as the commencement of a virtuoso performance which was for force, skill, elegance and wit, unmatched then as now. The profession quickly recognized his remarkable gifts. Solicitors and the growing bar were soon filling the seats of the courts in which he appeared. Many young lawyers had unabashedly taken to lurking in the seedy law library (then serving the Supreme Court on the second floor of the East Block) in the hope of obtain­ ing a gratuitous opinion on a knotty point. His natural generosity for awhile obscured the ploy. When he did catch on, he took to visiting the library on a Sunday morning but soon a surprising num­ ber of lawyers were breakin_g the fourth commandment. Manley the Lawyer asks his own book, an unavoidable but reluctant conclusion since much of the clout in his political career came from the insights into the Jamaican character he had gained UWI L ibr ari es 70. through his work in law. He was to defend high and low, rich and ­ poor and all races throughout Jamaica. A successful civil negotia­ tion was to prepare the ground for every social reform since 1938, the year when the State took notice. Yet, the truth is that the early Manley looked ~likely political fellow than anybody who ever shouted a slogan. He grew up on a farm but his instincts were trained to the bourgeoisie for he was the property owner's son. He defended shanty town in the courts but sat in the Stewards' box at the tracks. 0 The shocking workload he was carrying and the tensions of dissatisfaction with sheer law as his reasonable life purpose, took its toll. Made a King's Counsel in 1932, he was soon awarded his first ulcer. 0 He had settled into no familiar pattern. Forty-five years . later, looking back, short weeks before his death, he was ~ tisfied that in the days of adapt or diminish, he had "lived my own life in my own way" and flourished. But his life being largely with the Law, and resolute as he was in his purposes, his own way could lock him into plights where his ego goosed his 8 £ hevlL- trous consequences. One such was to I t him ~ judgment to disas­ Pou T ,CftL all his --- LtFE ; " UWI L ibr ari es 71. The unlikely alliance of Marcus Garvey and wealthy Jewish * corporation lawyer Lewis Ashenheim was one of the peculiarities *Actually, such alliances in Jamaica were common a century and two before when the disenfranchised Jews made compact with the equally deprived blacks to shake the Anglo-Saxon/ Caucasian dominance. of politics. Ashenheim was head of a firm of solicitors often associated with Manley in High Court cases. Manley, truthfully but recklessly in the teeth of the wind rushing out of black con­ sciousness and pride)as Garvey's propositions and predictions proved agreeable to black ambitions, risked a lasting unpopularity by placing himself in professional legal opposition to the Garvey­ Ashenheim side of a court matter. Before that, Manley, unforb.mately but in accordance with the law, had, by Opinion, supported the city council's ruling that Garvey's seat was vacated since he had been absent from three council meetings - due to being in jail for con- tempt of court. (At the time ,the Opinion was given in the Council Chamber, N.W., and his future fellow National Hero, squared off and nearly came to blows. Garvey, a brisk, energetic man, chuckled at his slight but sinewy challenger's invitation to "step outside," and declined. Thus was lost an incomparable hilarious footnote to history.) Worse was to come a few months later when again he placed his legal skills at the service of a lady litigant suing Garvey for an alleged libel published in his paper The Blackman. Garvey, the layman, lost to Manley, the lawman (Garvey had argued his own UWI L ibr ari es 72. case), but it was a barely perceptible victory. Manley's own words on the outcome tell of the bruises he sustained: "He made a brilliant closing address to a Special Jury hearing the case. He was witty and amusing (taking) every advantage open to a litigant who defends himself. Though I won the case, which was really quite. indefensible, he got that jury to award a bare half the damages we had expected... It was a fine performance." The most famous of the three legal clashes was that in which an American UNIA official named Marks brought action against the Jamaican UNIA for unpaid wages. Marks, with N.W.Manley arguing, was successful; and Liberty Hall, the UNIA headquarters on Upper King Street, a valuable block-wide property, went under the hammer for settlement. The local UNIA, in effect, Garvey, appealed through their solicitor and won. But Liberty Hall had already been sold. Ashenheim, desperate for Garvey's support of his own political ambitions, turned up at the auction and made an uncharacteristic loudmouthed protest which cost him the then whopping fine of £300 for contempt of court. Then in one of those curious turnabouts in courtroom manners, it was Manley who appeared for the Jamaican UNIA and won what he called "substantial damages", enlarged, he believed, by the faulty decision charging Ashenheim with contempt. After all, all Ashenheim had, loudly, granted, declared, was that anybody who bought Liberty Hall would live to regret it, since, he, Ashenheim, expected to win his appeal. Which he did. The stoms of Manley's tilts with Garvey were amplified and UWI L ibr ari es ,... , 73. made bodeful by his political opponents in later years. "Any suggestion that I had anything else to do with Marcus Garvey is totally untrue," he wrote vigorously in 1969 in a last strong effort -fu2..- to lay the ghostA • said the Labour Party had sought to embarrass wilt. him/\over many years. It would be a very real impediment to the success of any politician. And so it was that the explosive quality of "black" politics which Garvey's great lifework was to subsequently entrench in Jamaican affairs was always critical in the reckoning of both N.W. and Busta - both undeniably "brown" or mulatto, and targets for ruthless rejection by the people if either showed a * grade-by-shade leaning, a bias towards the fairer-skin rock-dwellers. *The island is wryly referred to as The Rock by Jamaicans abroad, the economic exiles seeking shekel while unceas­ ingly scheduling The Return. "Both Bustamante and I," N.W. once confessed, "in our years of . (Party) growth, were careful to refrain from references to Garvey and the UNIA." And so neither ever lost the black mass support each depended on. (On the two occasions that Lawyer Manley had a professional involvement with Busta, the first was a comfortable counsinly request, in the early Thirties, to read over a contract Busta was negotiating for the purchase of an apiary. To clear the document of any hidden stings, Cousin Alec consulted the bright one of the family and was assured that the contract would hold up. The second was the famous Manley intervention (along with J.A.G.Smith) during the Thirty-Eight Troubles which freed Busta from the Tower Street gaol and hurtled them both into politics.) UWI L ibr ari es 74. CHAPTER SEVEN And yet, not even in those younger days when he lived the life of the young gent-about-the-upper-town, did he lose touch with the marketplace; for his choice of fun and games held a social luck. While he did not turn his back on the stewards' box at the * track, nor sit in the cheaper seats at his beloved boxing nights, *rn 1937, both he and Edna were Board members of the Jamaica Boxing Association, he as Chairman. it turned out later to be sound political collateral that his public sports were folk-sports. Chess or tennis would not have served as well. Almost casually, he was being groomed in spite of address and profession - and a style perilously close to hauteur. But in the bosom of home, that side of the cool, aloof young lawyer, hardly ever on view away from his family, was, as usua¾ droll, frankly comic, marshalling with a dry wit a personal pack of fun-devils. His love of pranks and unconventional ways could reduce his family to apprehensive shivers or throw them into howling laughter. He was a man notoriously careless of his own safety, thinking nothing of mounting high roofs or going to the top of giant trees by an illogical system of double ladders that never failed to work. A great lover of classical music, a discerning critic, his own performance however never endeavoured beyond vir­ tuoso blowings of the mouth-organ. (His expert stroking of the wondrously indecent folk-mentos still jellies memories.) On the long summer-days at Nomdmi, their cabin-in-the-sky in the Blue UWI L ibr ari es 75. Mountains near Guava Ridge, he could fully _ give range to the imp that was never far removed from his most serious moments. (Time and again, in courtroom and parliament, the Imp would show up, in apparent innocence, yet suspiciously enabling to his case.) As he journeyed up and down the land, practising the law that was, already in his own mind, apprentice to his politics, he came under scrutiny of concerned men whose growing "look to Manley" was assuming a kind of cult. For he had the kind of identi~ for which the young Jamaicans of the literary and debating clubs had begun to vaguely hunger. He was a strong dark presence, accomplished as hell, in a sea of vapid tea-slopping English faces that floated fl like ghosts behind the jalousies of wealthy suburban St.Andrew. He had proven that he could out-run, out-jump, out-talk them all. He was handsomer than the malarial sahibs and an authentic war hero to boot. Above all - swallow your collar studs, Britons~ - he had been to Oxford. But the hunger was not widespread. A sprinkling of young intellectuals had discovered Karl Marx and were cautiously brushing their fingers over the mosaic proposed to fetch political power to the working class. Yet, Marx's philosophy had its foundation and growth in an industrial/ than agrarian economy; it owed its soul to the tight wage-bond between mill-owner and hand, than to the at-large irrelation of scattered peasant farmers whose one acre demesne was home all the year. (Farm labourers on the sugar estates were vastly UWI L ibr ari es 76. seasonally employed.) Bauxite was thirty years away and manufac- • turing factories, further. The wait for an industrial working class would be crunching to the hopes of the small in numbers but passionately impatient long exploiteds. There was, as yet, no large black middleclass, although the urge existed, strongly, among the sons and daughters of the rising artisans. And it was here, among these, that the Marxian irony happened. The young, hopefully bourgeoisie were clamouring for a transfer of power to the "middle-class", - for them to hold until the "working-class" was ready. But irony is often a shortcut to reality. The new politics took hold and rap:i.lems. Manley found he had to go up against the Old-Guard thinking which was for putting the new money into tired old "credit schemes", a venture that would have none of the dramatic impact Manley saw was UWI L ibr ari es 104. required for any significant assault on the ingrained apathy which centuries of short hope had established. "I do not agree that 'credit schemes' ought to be privately attempted," he said at the time. It was "essentially government's job ... a duty which must soon be re­ cognised." He was, of course, still some years short of the co-opera­ tive and credit unions surge which was to take the imagination, almost the passion, of a rising young middleclass caught in the gospel of Rochdale. At that time, he saw that since "our foundations areflirrsy (our) superstructures are wasted efforts. You can't build a palace on mud." A(challengeab~nclusio:Jonly in Borneo. Nevertheless it was an example of the hard, cool reasoning at work earning him the reputation for composure and confidence. To the public, he was an unemotional man whose infrequent outbursts were generally well directed. Partly true. Once after a legal conference with a colleague who had been "rude and provocative," he commented that "I lost my rage and it had the desired effect." Privately, like other men great and small, he had his self doubts and confessed to often acting in­ tuitively. The setting up of the banana trust fund and Jamaica Wel­ fare was the first public weight of large proportion he was to bear; and it sat heavily on him. "This business of spending money for Jamaica," he said, "it gets messed up in my mind." Nevertheless, he would structure a policy that was to hold * the line against confusion all the long life of Jamaica Welfare, putting the money and effort into sociological and agricultural causes; educating for cottage and field. * The name change to by the Labour Party when they gained office in 19 has not changed its purpose still serving as the essential base for social action. UWI L ibr ari es 105. CHAPTER FOURTEEN The years of apprenticeship were ending. He was about ready, spectacularly as he A thought of it, to "wrench myself off the banks of contemplation." He was not happy about getting off the bank for it meant involvement with the vanity of others, a team game for which he had not trained. Edna, early in 1937, had flown with him to the United States (where the Welfare agreement was confirmed by Sam Zemurray) and then they went to England to prepare for the March showing of her sculptures in London's French Gallery; among them the powerful The Prophet and the now legendary Negro Aroused, later immortalized as the symbol of the Jamaican worker, after it was bought by the Institute of Jamaica and brought back from the United Kingdom. He flew back alone on March 30. Four days afterwards he "decided, belatedly, to keep a diary (be­ cause) it becomes increasingly difficult to remember what I do from day to day." He would not be a faithful diarist, omitting years at a time. However, one of his early entries was a blast against the British critics for some patronising reviews of the show. "It takes a tough skin to stand these Olympian pats on the head from those who re­ fuse to essay the inner significance of (the) work and prate about in jargon, on superficial~ties of technique · and form." The months were made worse by Edna's illness in London and the likelihood of surgery. A two-week holiday in Holland lifted h~r spirit but inflicted more physical distress. her appendix losing Back home, in England, she took her operation, to the project. The Queen's Gate nursing home held some Q " ~J\uali ty. The King of Greece and the Duchess of Kent had received its UWI L ibr ari es 106. ministrations. The Queen's Gate nursing home would have tripped over Q its Auality if it could have read the ribaldry in the cablegram sent by the elegant young Colonial lady to her Jamaican lover, celebrating some certain new freedoms ahead: All's well ... very happy ... going to be superwoman. "That," Norman, at home, commented drily, "defies comment." Meanwhile, as he waited her return, he was minding the boys and working at his heavy legal load, supervising the farm at Drumblair and carefully nursing the fledgling Welfare. Douglas was fifteen years old and growing "tall and bright and secretive," a description not unsuited to Dad. Boarded at Munro, a high school in St.Elizabeth parish and the most prestigious on the island, he was home only during the holidays. Michael, 13, was at Jamaica College, the Hope Road high school that was still freshly aware of the fugleman performance his famous ancestor had given in track and field, academics and knife-edge * chancing of the headmaster's axe. He was enjoying his two boys, but (R·M .Murray') * • The famous O I Murray for whom N.W. always held reat affection and res ect. "He was the most brilliant eac er ever me in my 11 e. 11 moreso at that time, Douglas, with whom he held long talks on socialism and capitalism - and books. Books of plain realism and raw life that ** were, to his thinking, the firmest road to effective education. **He once told Barbara Gloudon, a Gleaner editor, that the best way to self-education was to read a paga daily of a good book on an academic subject you found dull. Michael was too engrossed in his Lower School activities at Jamaica College to mind Marx. Moreover, Mike was having his own problems, having been caught lately in the heinous crime of puffing on a UWI L ibr ari es 107. cigarette in his bedroom; as it was, a minor crisis for Dad in the absence of Edna, that knitter of loose ends. NW was also angry and snapping at his Old School for its "butchery of babies." Michael was being bullied, as his father had been in his time and had fought his way out of it. He considered moving Michael; but after awhile bottled his anger and sat down for an intoxicating evening with Orpheus in the underworld. He was later rewarded with an apologetic note • from Michael about the smoking. It brought a comment on the character ofi a future Prime Minister of Jamaica for displaying "guts and far more sensitive feelings than I can pretend to . . . Given half a chance, what possibilities! N.W. was also having a . kind of felicity in court. Capital crime was not the humdrum line of work it was later to become among the thugs of our time, in the latter half of the century. He had not ap­ peared in a murder trial for over a year. But then turned up a pure Jamaican one with just a brush of obeah to colour the jury's eyes. A rich smell of garlic pervaded the court - a condiment considered by the cognoscenti to be very thorough in putting down rival witchery. The lady witnesses wore sunshades in the trial room; a safe cover, too connected with the feminine mystique to be questioned by the mas­ culine court. A bemused Manley could only comment at the end of a day rich in story and innocence, "Women make magnificent liars in the {witness) box, and education has nothing to do with it. It is their native flair for the ready tale, spiced with humour and invention." He added with a touch of wonder, "So Nature redresses the balance." But another category of balances was blurring his blueprint for Jamaica Welfare. He confessed to being "shaken by the arguments that you cannot build a palace on mud." Much of the available talent was soft, untried. It would be slow work laying the stone foundations. As he prowled the unmarked wilderness of soci al obligation that was UWI L ibr ari es 108. Jamaica, searching for people to serve on Welfare's managing board, he was frequently sharply critical of attitudes, denying, under stress, his own insight. He thought, in an instance, that Rudolph Burke ., the eminent planter and later President of the Jamaica Agricultural Society, was "too burdened with consciousness of his origins, the past, and the want of opportunities." These he saw only as "apologies for c;t sense of personal failure or doubt." But in the society of his day, Burke, a very black and educated man, would have been singularly in­ sensitive not to accept the evidence of the handicaps a colonial policy had laid on him. After all, he, Manley, had himself in near despair walked down similar alleys, dismal, beleaguered by the racists of England, and had not emerged utterly annealed. And yet, Burke strove and was to become a highly important achiever. Still and all, at the same time, he observed the gifts in his junior (by 6 years) Jamaica College colleague and eventually was to invite Rudolph Burke to the founding directorate of his "banana fund trust". He had an intent to go into people; the indices he stored as lawyer, leader and intellectual gave him no alternative. The need to know was a passion all his life. The long, introspective non-look , he sometimes wore in a private conversation could cause discomfiture to a companion. He was appalled at inveracities but could understand * dissemblings. When U. Theo McKay leaked to newspaperman "Nattie" * A brother of Claude McKay Parker the as yet unpublicised story of the Zemurray cess, he could chuckle in secret at the innocence in McKay's subsequent note enquiring of the news leak. UWI L ibr ari es 109. One pursuit in which his capacity for levity lagged, was in law and justice. He was severe on incompetent fellow lawyers and judges, although in the case of the latter, the law of contempt being so notional, prudence kept his opinions private. But in "private", "lazy" courts exacted his severest comments, particularly judges who had not "troubled to read more than a page of a textbook." He particularly abhorred and castigated "expert" witnesses who, under his merciless cross-examination, proved progressively inexpert. Those he was known to destroy. Yet, such was his respect for the sys­ tem that he would endure "gratuitous rudeness" from a Bench, occupied * by a poor lawyer, as an exercise in self discipline. But his therapies In later years, his sound and unrivalled knowledge of the law, always at the disposal of a floundering judge, and his reputation for the cutting retort honed to fit meticulously, unreachable c£the engulfing contempt laws, won him the unusual­ ness of instant and unwavering attention from high court ben­ chers, some of whom were notorious for arrogance and savaging of witnesses and advocates. were not, as a rule, flagellate. He could turn instantly from a political confrontation, to finish a frame and stretch a canvas with Edna, or assist his cow, Rhoda, at her calving, be lulled by a record­ ing of Orpheus ( "What a lyric! Intoxicating!") , or tell outrag.eous tales of crooks to a heartily disapproving young Douglas. He was seldom undevoted to his contradictions, nor reluctant to voice them. A published music critic himself, he could be furious at an unflatter­ ing piece on Edna's art anq deliver of himself the pronouncement that "criticism is a parasitic futility." But the real reasons for this latter contrariness lay in a love story. UWI L ibr ari es 110. CHAPTER FIFTEEN It is not possible in the British Isles to be closer to Jamaica than at Penzance, in Cornwall. Penzance (and the country about) has more sunny days than any place in England. In its gardens grow the bl.ooms and vegetables that flourish in our own Blue Mountain country. The fruiting trees are not all unfamiliar. And close to Penzance lay such hamlets as Mousehole, and Gulval, and Lizard Head and Brown Willy beyond, homely, easily-taken-to names that could have turned up in the little green covered Jamaica Geography in use a generation of schooldays ago. Newlyn is also close by; with Mousehole and Gulval, satellites of Penzance and later grouped into the borough. Newlyn has a special fame as the place on earth from which the elevations on ordnance maps are calculated. It also sends off urgent calls to artists. The beauty of the rugged coastline, the clear light, and profusion of foliage, assists the choice. In its ambience, just across the water, are the storied Scilly Isles. Within a Sunday walk are the most westerly (Land's End) and southerly (Lizard Point) reaches of England. These are fine romantic reasons for its popularity: but to artists on short commons, the warm sun and ready ! inexpensive food gardens also lend heavy weight. In this extraordinary country of high ground and ocean, of colour and isolation, Edna Swithenbank, who was born in Bournemouth, grew up in a country pastor's manse, an unconfined spirit whom Norman first saw as "a little girl of fourteen, a strange, shy and highly individualistic person, quite unlike the rest of her family and indeed unlike anybody I had ever known." He had turned twenty-one, embarked on the Rhodes but destined UWI L ibr ari es 111. 1 to quit, for 1while, the green fields of academe for the bloody French barrens. The relationship survived the four year interruption in a way not infrequent among the young. Not, of course, without the help of Mother Nature, who had earnestly and thoughtfully kept at work despite a war, and brought her, when N.W. saw her next, to "a most exciting . girl" as he recorded appreciatively on his return from France. There must have been a special strength and light in the encounter of the two sensitive and highly intelligent young people, struggling to touch and grow together in a society so captive to its racial mores as England's; so tight-lipped about its sickness, to the schizophrenia of affecting it did not exist as it enacted statutes against it. They saw and were aware of a decision inside themselves that shed its own inner candescence to sustain them in a land that gave coldly be­ fore their heat. And in like goodness, later in Jamaica, the crea­ tivity of their love was to open ways to achievements, in a severely limited island, of astonishing breadth and diversity. They were bolts from different parts of the cosmos, he with his intellect and logic, and Edna with the artist's ineluctable compulsion to swerve and chal­ lenge the devil-muse at every crooked crossroad. They strode, and stumbled, and went on again, a triumph of spirit that could make them incautious and certain. The mode and direction for the long journey rode in them. Edna, elegant and earthy, laced with a malicious wit that wrinkled the pompous as it enlivened the scene, was, probably without ideological intent, establishing the role of active concern for the social welfare and artistic integrity of young artists that would one day fire the charge of pretensions to founding a school as advanced by her critics. (Her idealizing of Adolph Hitler in the days UWI L ibr ari es 112. before his unmasking, an indulgence that still drew comment forty years later, seems hardly to have been political; more of a fierce retort to all the arrogantly complacent people who had in England made her Norman uncomfortable.· She had much company. At the time, many outwardly "loyal" Jamaicans, while not wishing the defeat of the Empire, were considerably cheered with the thought of a mild come­ uppance to the haw-haw colonial Englishman.) Hers was a genuine compassion mingled, it is true, with an en­ gaging gregariousness. Drumblair, with its grounds, and trees, and rambling old house, its two gifted and lightly imperious occupants and a frenetic frequency of proficients and tyros usually hanging about, could, and did suggest that inevitably there would be a wake into which the young artistic talents would settle, borrow shape, and provoke her critics that there was a Drumblair artistic endowment; but the fact was that Edna brought to Drumblair not only painters and sculptors, but musicians, novelists, preachers, essayists, gardeners, athletes, journalists, engineers, doctors and even a few lawyers Nor:man or Edna carre near to beinq deified. and several politicians. (Neither: I tq on his side ooli ti cal Artists seldom worship; and,(Manley had very questioning men~actors on the stage he undisputably managed but who were as temperamentally singular. At no time in its history was the PNP without infighting, sometimes perilously close to being torn apart. But some of his political colleagues would be later mortised by this exposure to ~dbe Edna artists,••• improved men.) ... turned a prodigious and passionate energy into every influence that could provide assistance for strug­ . gling artists, guiding the disordered into discipline; and perhaps marketing the product when the rent was due. She held art classes for children at the Junior Centre on East Street. She founded the UWI L ibr ari es 113. justly famous FOCUS magazine when it was evident that writers were * dying on the vine for want of outlets. She also shared her husband's * And wrote back long detailed appraisals to struggling young writers as she did to my first full-length novel sent her in 1940, an unknown from the wilds of a west qountry sugar central where I section-clerked. AUTHOR. interest in athletics, particularly prizefighting and is credited with an assist in the training of a fine light fighter of the ''llrirties called St.Andrew Pup. She had never been a reformer in the socialite Wednesday after­ noon sense, descending gloved and tea-hatted to the ghettos for a brisk one-hour workout at a conscience bash, scrubbing babies or dis­ tributing silver fippences; but later, when N.W. went into politics and her awareness broadened, she was soon with characteristic energy strongly into child care and women's welfare. However, at a time long before the way was indicated by spousal advantage, her concern, intense and personal, significantly re-arranged the scene. In the next years, although she more than stayed ahead with the chisel, gain­ ing international repute as a sculptor, her generation of young pain­ ters was delicately but firmly brushing past her, to the glad applause of this unusual woman. She liked people to succeed because she liked people and believed in humanity, whoever and whatever they were. It is the core of her character. The youthful Norman had been buoyed up by it in his courting days in England. He could not, as he has said, ignore the matter of colour and it had stirred up enough appre­ hension in him to notice that the announcement of their engagement brought no "immediate warmth of approval" from her family. But jolly for the benefit of the doubt. It could be that a Methodist uneasiness h er mother 14 ) Swithenbank, may have flinchel\ EllieA begat of the old Table of Kindred and Affinity, a document which declares among several anathemas, dire descents of UWI L ibr ari es 114. the Deity upon the head of the man-who-marries-his-mother-in-law, £///a :>s. or the woman who gets herself espoused to a step-grand-uncle. tte:r . /\ late husband had been a fanatical upholder of the 18th century fer- vour shown by Cornishmen in the Methodist moveme~t. Norman was her nephew; ,Edna his first cousin. Wasn't it close enough to trouble for a body, for a moment, to be still? Gwan, it~ colour, but the Manleys didn't care and eventuali­ ties proved their choice. The union turned out to be nearer made-in­ heaven than most amalgamations. Much later, in a burst of quiet exuberance at his luck, he was almost compromised into publishing a brochure on the joys of monogamy. The quaintness and audacity of the subject in the aquarius age may just have floated it among the best sellers. But the fact is, they did manage to work an orderly, constitu­ tional, organic structure that raised hell and kids with great good fun within the monagamous bounds that for so many, in the repressive 'Twenties and 'Thirties, turned into a boredom. Edna was ever to be his "wild bird on a tall tree on a bare hill," the luminous felicity he once used in describing the "elusive beauty" of a thought he never identified. But that was she, and that the identity. It was their , love affair. An elusive happening of great beauty between two crea­ tures. He was sometimes mystified by its intensity. One Spring day in 1938, he watched her at work, the chips flying from the wood after a time of drought when nothing came from her chisel. He knew then, clearly, that, to him, her work and fulfilment held importance over his own ambitions. "After twenty years, this still matters more than _ anything else," rode his thoughts in quiet wonder. nut we have gone a litff2 ahead. F or f irst, · there was Frome. UWI L ibr ari es 115. CHAPTER SIXTEEN An unusual feature about the parish of Westmoreland is its flatness. In a reverse of the island's total land fall, over 75% of the parish is below the 1,000-feet level. Well watered and of heavy fertility, the great plain was the choice of Tate & Lyle, the large English-owned international sugar complex, for locating its central sugar factory. Tate & Lyle entered the Jamaican field in 1937 when they bought lands extensively, mostly from the old bankrupt Charley estates, and. settled down to becoming the potent factor in island agriculture. The "Central" begun at Frorne would be the largest and by far the most modern and efficient sugar factory in the British Caribbean territories. It would replace the half a dozen or so de­ crepit mills scattered over the Westmoreland savannah. The project would require many workers. There had never in the past been a shortage of workers on the plain. Hundreds of resident labour occupy the estate "barracks" during the "weeding" or out-o.f-crop season, between April and December; and in the harvesting grinding months, a veritable flood of wage-seekers descend on the ripened fields and the factory, corning in thousands from the larger towns, Savanna-la-Mar, Grange Hill, Little London, Petersfield and from the mountain settlements around Darliston. So this was the pattern of the 'Thirties: the regular workforce of hoernen, spadernen, planters, weeders, functioned all year; the great .regiments of reapers and factory hands marched in at crop-time for the three to five months when the mills rolled. And then the whole countryside was transformed . UWI L ibr ari es 116. Suddenly, the wappen-bappens proliferate selling liquor, women, smoke and food, like a goldrush town. Kerosene lampsA tongue on th_e crown-&-anchor tables, three-pebble conmen, and pencil-in-the-belt ginals; the sam-fie sleight-of-hand artists whose old colourful skills have disappeared under today's onslaught of English betting shops and bingo games. The long, squat, ugly barracks of wood or broken "Spanish" walls are packed thigh to thigh with itinerant cane-cutters and loaders, who, like any man-jack footloose in foreign territory, away from the discipline of home and brood, turn lustful, boasting and brawling. The huge sugar works commenced at Frome was the biggest industrial enterprise ever conceived in Westmoreland (or, at that time, in Jamaica.) It attracted such a worker inflow as had never before gathered in that rural community. What was more, most of them came from the massive divisions of unemployed in the city. Seeking a piece of the action, they bore down on the parish. As city workers they were accustomed, when there was work, to higher wages than the sugar belt employers were prepared to pay. Added to that setback, the huge influx had created an overweight labour supply for the market. The two frustrations were undeniably good for trouble. Nor did the circumstances seethe less because of the traditional attitudes of estate management. On most sugar estates, the unwritten law dictated that middle management posts, i.e., overseers, field book-keepers, office clerks, scale clerks, were filled by whites, mulattos, or browns; generally, arrogant men who rode their mounts and wore their Balaclavas with the air of cavalry officers. Frome was half a century behind the city in labo'ur relations; indeed, had UWI L ibr ari es 117. hardly left 1838. Fines and other disciplinary measures on field workers were levied at whim. One estate even notoriously had its * own private lock-up for jailing minor infractors. The overseers * Not only in Westmoreland were the estates near tiny "cane repub- lics". P.A.Bovell, attorney for Caymanas Estates in St.Catherine and a Justice of the Peace, in the 1938 Troubles, not only read the Riot Act (as a J.P.) himself but swore in his senior staffers, armed them and allegedly gave orders to fire on a crowd at his gate, wounding six. Irate Spanish Town citizens marched on Caymanas but were stopped by the police. and book-keepers, strong, well-fed ignorant men pursuing the ancient prurience of slave times, begetting bastards among the field women or laying a quirt across the shoulders of a hoe-man, were hardly the kind to easily take to the brash, more "democratic" city migrants who were already fired with the growing dissidence in Kingston through the enquiries of men like St William Grant and Bustamante - whom Grant had by now brought to his public forum around Victoria Park. The distance between deeply rural Westmoreland and the capital was more than long dusty roads. Folk grew old and died in the parish without venturing east of Bluefields. Even among the educated, there was a distinctive Westmoreland way with words, e.g., "bile" for"boil", "yawm" for "yam". Into this anachronism came the migrants from the city, attracted by the promise of jobs, impelled by the same hope which had sent their progenitors into thecanefields and banana fields of Cuba and Costa Rica, to dig the canal at Panama, to work and write poems and books and take politics to the streets of Harlem, U.S.A. At Frome were such diverse men as Alfred Francis, an "honest-minded man with my box of tools and hymn-book" who would be tried as a ring­ leader of the riot, and sea-pilot Vicker Hayden doubling as a roving Daily Gleaner reporter whose early despatches gave spot coverage UWI L ibr ari es 118. of the "dollar-a-day" riot. The only previous occurrence that bore a resemblance to the - Frome troubles happened in Kingston in 1924, the "Darling Street riots. As at Frome, it was the commencement of a project offering unusually large job openings - asphalting of the city streets, then surfaced in macadam - which caused two results: a sudden and heavy tilt in the balance of unemployment when migrant (rural) workers rushed into the city; and then, the unlucky seekers inciting the succeeders to ask for more. As in Oliver Twist, the keepers were aghast. After all, just recently, in a House debate on shop conditions at the Mental Hospital, only that indefatigable champion of the people, J.A.G.Smith, the Member for Clarendon, saw cause for condemning a system which ordered a (female) nurse to work 35 consecutive nights of 12 hours each. The others could not fault it. Indeed, one member, H.E.Vernon of St Mary, suggested that when a nurse had to be fired for being caught nodding any of the 35 nights, the Director of Medical Services ought to "hold a little enquiry for the sake of what I call giving satisfaction tothe country (and) after that, the dismissal can take place." Vernon was a joking man, but his comment evoked no chuckles from the House; so one must conclude that at least to his hearers, , the Honourable Member was in dead earnest. Friday, April 29, 1938, day workers on one of the West Indies Sugar Company's (Tate & Lyle) estatesrefused to accept their wages at the Company's paytables. They grumbled that the pay was less than they expected. Yet, the Company, a newcomer to the ranks of the long entrenched, exploitative sugar families of Westmoreland, had been really souring the old patch. For example: Labourers paid one UWI L ibr ari es 119. shilling and sixpence (1/6) per day under the previous ownership had * been given threepence per day increases. The old scotch-swilling The day began at 6.45 a.m., ended at 5.30 p.m. rum manufacturers sulking on their "great-house" verandahs were apo­ plectic at the "foreigners" munificence which they would have to match if they would keep their work-force. These old plantocrats had for generations fed their profits from an inexhaustible labour pool. And although the sugar market had fallenon poorer times in the post-World War I years, sensible (i.e. extortive) management could reap enough to keep a reasonably luxurious life style, until, say, the next war ~hen prices would plump up again. The Tate & Lyle subsidiary was mucking about with a system that had served splendidly since the Abolition, grumbled the barons. There was worse on the other· side of the wire-fence. A rumour had come to the workers that the Company had intended to pay four ** shillings a day - near enough to a 200% increase. * L.A.Grant, Frome's general manager, later offered two shil­ lings a day but the situation already polarized, it was furiously rejected. Some cynics were later to speculate that the rumour could have been spread by the local sugar barons to incite a strike on the W!SCO es­ tates. Whether or not, it did. More than a thousand workers were involved. Speeches and tiore rumours over the weekend fed the discontent. The attitudes of the traditionally feisty field book-keepers and administrative staff, long used to cowing by a threat of fining or firing, assisted at tightening the tension. With a flourish of their quirts they declared a like-it­ or-lump it stand. The ingredients for the explosion were gathering. UWI L ibr ari es 120. The weekend ended early Monday morning in a slowly rising noise of people closing in on the compound of the old factory at Frome - the marshalling yard for the work force. The .Sabbath activities of rumours and speeches had not been lost on the police and they were there at daybreak, in force. The constabulary of the day was not of course there to prevent trouble, as much as to protect the bodies and property of the management. It was the role to which their Col­ onial training programmed them. These were also the years before riot· control weapons, e.g. teargas; civil disturbances of those years were met with the brutal Mark Vll rifles and fixed bayonets. Newspaper accounts later claimed that at six o'clock, there were about three hundred people on the Frome compound, singing and listening to speeches from the spontaneous leadership spawned by any instant revolution. Facing them were about a hundred policemen under a couple of Irish Inspectors - a land which had for many years sent Jamaica their sergeants to become officers and gentlemen. The old ramshackle factory, a few hundred yards north of the building site for the new Central, was still in use, taking off its last crop. It stood about a hundred yards in from the main Savanna­ la-Mar-Grange Hill road, behind a lovely fieldstone wall - so often found at the old sugar mills in the west. Across the road from the * factory compound was the Frome market-square called the "shambre". * Perhaps from "shambles", Old English dialect for a meat market. - ~ - - - - - .- - The action commenced impersonally enough with an attack on a sugar truck hauling out for the . wharves at Savanna-la-Mar. But soon it UWI L ibr ari es 121. turned to stronger grievances, singling out the home of a particularly unacceptable official for attack. He. survived by his absence. But that turned the crowd's rush towards the decrepit frame factory and an office building into which Manager Grant and his staff had scurried. Grant, after the building was breached and entered, was saved by a field labourer named Rufus Jones who uptilted a barrel over him. The refuge underwent a siege that was broken only after the police opened fire and made a bayonet charge that killed, near the lovely old wall, four and wounded nine. The stone-throwers had used the stone wall for a breastwork. But that was no match for rifle shooters. 'lhe sw:vi"VOrs ran for cover in the canefields. l So the Freme riots ended, except for retaliatory canefield fires lit by the fleeing. folk. The casualties included six women and seven men. One of the four killed was a woman. (!) But the fires lit at Frome were to spread around the island and force into leadership the two most famous men in our annals. "By the time of the end of the Freme riots, Bustamante had been made the best known person in Jamaica," Manley reflected in 1969. He charged the Jamaica Standard, a new daily rival of the century-old Gleaner, wi,th the responsibility. The Standard, he said, made "a legend of Bustanante Busta himself was anxious for the legend since his moneylending business was being battered by the new Usury Law directed against loansharking, but, of necessity, flaying at the most legal lender. Busta was also into his pattern of pulling away from any obligation to a political partner remotely connected to a challenge. Now it was from St William Grant who had fetched him into the public eye. Within days, labour commotions were breaking out on cane estates and at UWI L ibr ari es 122. * banana ports. The city stayed quiet - on the surface. Tramcar motor- To the statement of a police inspector, an Englishman, that Kingsto' was quiet, St William Grant, by then being called by the media, Alexander Bustamante's chief lieutenant, retorted, "No sir. Kingsto is not quiet! On the contrary, the city ... is seething! men, of some influence among the workers because of their semi-skills among a largely labouring people and the glamour that rode with them on the swaying, rocketing platforms, were about to be made obsolete with their streetcars through a takeover of public transport by motor bus and the iron lines were being ripped out as Ke~ Hill's National Reform Association fought for better severances, calling street meetings on the issue. The Colonialists were taking a few small steps towards improvin~ life in Kingston's cactus ghettos. Roads and housing were planned for Trench Town, then a wilderness of thornbush streets and homes in discarded auto bodies. Montego Bay's A.G.S.Coombs was planning a hunger march. Coombs, tall, tough, dedicated, was one of the pioneer labour leaders in the colony and president of the Jamaica Workers and Tradesmen Union, A new weekly paper trenchantly called Public Opinion with an option on a nationalist-socialist purpose as it exerted a strong cultural interest, had been founded by Osmond Theodore Faircloug (later co-founder of another greater event, the PNP) and an English scholar named Hedley Powell Jacobs, who, coming to Jamaica at 22 years old in 1926 and marrying the daughter of Jamaican poet Tom Redcam (MacDermot) would spend all his long years here. Those three weeks in May were to be the end of the Old Jamaica. The New Jamaica was about to institute its birthpangs. UWI L ibr ari es 1 23. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Shipside loading in Montego Bay is done from pontoons or lighters On Saturday, May 21, 1938 the stevedores in Montego Bay struck. The lighter-loaders of sugar on the Royal Mail Line's Lombardy lying in stream, demanded a doubled rate per hour. From five cents (sixpence) to ten cents (one shilling). True to tradition, the shipping powers refused to consider the increase and the lightermen went out, -clos- ing the port. It was a companion action to the other two days before, in Kingston, where the United Fruit Company's 200 stevedores had de­ activated the pier with a walkout after the Company's refusal to up the hourly rate from eight cents (ninepence) to ten cents. The Com­ pany had confidently and promptly moved the vessel next door where a few hundred hungry banana loaders (then next to, just above, the coal carriers, the lowest in the waterfront social scale) could be expected to turn out for the old eight cents rate. Patiently, the banana loaders had crowded the old wooden finger-pier, waiting for the vessel to be moored - only to flabbergast the Company officials with unexpected shakings of heads when the order was given to load. "If there had been no strikes, you wouldn't have wanted to make us into stevedores," said a spokesman for the banana loaders. It was the day's ringing declaration~ of the old manipulation. A spontaneous rejection The Company took the ship to Port Antonio on the northeast * coast where, for the moment, the old order still stood. *Next day, in Kingston, it was the turn of the Jamaica Banana Producer's "Jamaica Planter" to be given the treatment by the city longshoremen who now had their tails up. UWI L ibr ari es 12 4 . Even while a Westmoreland magistrate was handing out stiff sentences to the Frome folk for the happening on Tate & Lyle's es­ tates, the protests were spreading into every parish. In St.Ann, led by the indomitable A.G.S. "Father" Coombs, 500 workers were demonstrating against the Public Works Department and the Parochial Board (parish council) two large sources of employment. In St. Catherine, L.W.Rose, a local labour leader, was quietly but effectively agitating for reforms. Kingston street-sweepers downed their brooms at the old City Cart Stables, demanding thirty shillings ($3) a week and the removal of the East Indian foreman - curiously a supervisory field in which Jamaicans of Indian extraction held a virtual rronopoly. The weekend turned hectic on Sunday (May 22) when at all-day sessions on the waterfront, Bustamante and St William Grant made mara­ thon speeches calling for unity, ending the day with their regular Sunday mass meeting on the Kingston race course. By morning, the result was a complete shutdown on the wharves and a readying of the scene for the next two days; powerful days that would abruptly halt commerce in the city and wheel the country a quarter to face the bend in the wind. cD Early Monday morning, strongly rushing troops of longshoremen wearing their cloth caps, wind-filled shirts billowing off their backs, baggy trousers ankling down on feet bare and sneaker-shod slapping the pavement, aggrieved men, determined and aggressive men, pounded along Harbour Street, and split columns to run parallel on Port Royal Street, and split some more to penetrate the tar-soaked waterfront lanes, diligent in their duty to close the city and rouse the citizens to havoc. UWI L ibr ari es 125. To pull down the strongholds of common purpose built up by generations of bad employers who exploited the overflow labour poo_l. Led by the stevedores, the attacks were low-keyed in accord a with circa 1938 more when violence was noisy than destructive. They ,A A.. banged the overturned garbage cans but fired no guns. They.furced the shutters to drop but burnt no shops. They hijacked a clip of electric trams and joy-rode lightheartedly on King Street. They broke some gaslamps, illegally skipped pebbles into the Victoria Park pool, and, bored with all that stuff, fanned their columns into the city to cry the acceptable day of release, of New Times, of somehow by the grace of wrath we have turned a corner. Roughly ,they cleared the piers of strikebreakers the shippers had brought in. At mid-morning, police and men of the English regiment on station were put on patrol but by that time the strikers had effectively buttoned up the city. Firemen, tramwaymen, sanitation workers joined the longshoremen in making the work stoppage official by making demands for better wages (some tramway motormen were paid about five cents an hour, fire brigade rank-&-filers from about $2.80 a week.) The authorities reacteq. - with rifle-fire. Riflemen have no place in riot control. Especially when, as , in this case, the rioters had no explosive weapons. Their arms were the ubiquitous coco-macca used as a walking cane or for stick-fighting. With the small slaughter at Frome still in mind, one newspaper, while carefully refraining from any criticism of the rulers, observed in an obscurely placed paragraph that" ... as a means of dispelling possibly riotous assemblies ... it certainly is a tremendous pity that (teargas) has not yet been introduced into Jamaica." Before the day was out, rifle-fire had killed Mrs Sarah Thomas, a candy-seller UWI L ibr ari es J.26. andhersma.11 son, Stanley, at their gate, No 103 Matthews Lane, and wounded another 9 year-old son, Henry. Mrs Jackson of 137 Princess Street looked out of an upper floor window and received a .303 bullet in her back. And some time in the forenoon of that eventful day, history made a punctuation in the Jamaica story. Alexander Bustamante and St William Grant, passing the Central Police Station on the way to A,)..du_ the main fire station on Sutton Street, _. pounced upon by a police party and dragged into the station. Both Bustamante and Grant were arrested. UWI L ibr ari es 127, CHAPTER EIGHTEEN That Monday morning, N.W.Manley was as far removed from Kingston as was possible in the island: in Savanna-la-Mar holding a watching brief for the West Indies Sugar Company, before the Froma Riot Com­ mission . Manley was not ye t altogether the people's man . He was the most eminent and sou ht after lawyer in the land; and wealthy WISCO, like the other l arge corporations, took him, by retainer, out of the pool. Yet his sympathies were known to be with the working classes, as witness his Jamaica Welfare. tM,,..tl i,, -.ui.Pd"1nt Many , on both sides of the economic halves, were aware of/\ the Manley dilemma . It was not a pei:sonal inclination towards Manley, . , ~ ,:: • a • • 6- 1 1 ✓"~ (I.., 19-J.. £.?:>.\X .s.;,::1-,; ··n~- t;.,i.(v.. • · lh r1,lrh lJv"()/)/f."- .e.. !,'1\,CV,JI, ti· but respect . his integrity and skill as a fuwyer.~ Within a few days, 1\.. I\ .I'\ he would be publicly commenting that "for many years, we have been educating our people and we have been making them conscious of their powers and their rights . It is high time it was realised that we have got to make a step forward and organise and train th~ people so that they can properly use their power for legitimate ends. No pro­ gress will ever be made until this end is recognised and met. 11/But in the beautiful old Georgian courthouse on Savanna-la-Mar's Great George Street that morning, he was all advocate, doing the job his education and professional commitment required. As a lawyer, his client's case was his cause. There was, however , a scruple in his mind that obliged him to explain .__ __ ..,. to the Commission. If required, he said, he would assist "in bringing facts" before them. He "did not desire to inter­ fere unduly, or t o ask to be allowed to interfere unduly. Anything I do will be wit·- the view c.: giving the fullest assistance for the UWI L ibr ari es 12 8 . fullest enquir"IJ to be made from eve rybody's point of viaw." Not ever1one t ook kindly to the apologia or to his place at the enquiry. Di smissi ng his pos ition as a l egal nicety, e was, they said, a main man f or Bi g Business. 1-lze--( .c·i1J,,1 l ri -f"-1. ve tJJkLd '?d"t,;, •• V Edna Manley , knowing t.11e w y her husband's mind was turning ever more s trongly to t ha pers onal covenant he had made years before, ins t antly s ensod that his place this morning of May 23 was ot i n the co-.1rtroom but on t.-ie str e ts. She sent him a t e legram. With her usual luci dity, s ha brushed in the picture for him. All he l l, she -xplained in tle wire, has b r oken l oos e . Neve rtheless, "I ca.'ile home l a te and am abused," Manley was to note ruefully years after. Edna seemed to have lit sharply into him . . · s "exciting" woman was not about to allow any little matte r like the l aw 's delays, nor rough winding roads, to frustrate the real s tart to his race. So they settled down to an evening of talk, conjec­ t ures , plans and projects at Drumblair, phone calls and visitors f low­ ing i n and out, tasting and testing the happenings which for t he first -ti me in a hundred years, since the l 31/32 rebellion, when English war shi ps had been w rped i nshore s o the i r cannons could rake the s tree t, had shut down the ancient city. Manley was up early after his usual short sleep. It w s a holiday, ironically, Empire Day, and it was to see the thinnes t of wedges insert d that would one day part t.~is outpost from rule by Crown . The May morning was sunny and hot as he breakfasted and r.\Otorod i nto the city. He parked the car and proceeded, as he has i mpishly put it, to "per~r·· .. t e" the deserted downtown stre t s, shuttered and eye f00 /~ ~ ~ ght. Ocoasionally, roving squads UWI L ibr ari es 129. of people ran a block and disappeared, briefly exploding the silence. Police and military vehicles nosed restlessly through the lanes and alleys. The city was strangely half alive. "Something in the nature of a general strike . . . something in the nature of martial law ... " mused the Jamaica Standard. The newspaper went on to say, "For the most part, the strikers are ill-informed, lacking in leadership and in many cases, know not what they want." But this was so too of the employers and the government. Lacking in elected leadership, the central government had to look to the Mayor of Kingston, a general practitioner from Cross Roads, Dr O.E.Anderson, and his Council, to provide a liaison with the people; the elected members of the Legislative Council, theC:ravn dominated Parliament, were hopelessly out of touch. They "have pal­ pably failed to look _after (our) interests. This country (will not) easily forget the apathy with which the representatives of the people received the news (of the events)," observed the Public Opinion weekly. Yet, the silence of the statesmen was golden as against the utterances of the employers. The daddy of them all, the sprawling and powerful United Fruit Company, whose ukases from Boston often weighted the decisions of the English governor in King's House, spoke through its acting general manager, C.M.Hislop (Kieffer, the great Khan, was not much given to public statements): "We never had a depu­ tation from our workers at all. If we had, we might have been able to consider their case. Even now, should we receive such a deputation, we might give the matter some consideration." Might have been able to ... might g·ive some consideration. Even now, the truth had not reached: that the working people UWI L ibr ari es 130. were declaring against the oldC;::=:::::::::::::::-::::;:::,_ unilaterals in labour- employer relations. Industrial relations of the day went in be hind the whip-crack. A negotiated settlement of the troubles was as alien * to their "baccra-massa" thinking as rubbershod polo ponies. 1l When an elite special constabulary was later formed to protect the e s tates from the incendiaries of incensed workers, some t urned up for recrui tment wearing white polo helmets and pro­ vided easy tar gets fo r bricks in the dark. \ J,< Manley, that morning, "perambulated" to the fire brigade station wher e he met two of the city gentry, Audley Morais, a cinema operator and G. M.DaCosta, a store owner. Proprietors in the wood-&-brick city wer e especially concerned over b~e fire brigade strike. Both being of the particularly distrusted class and neither of them possessing the charisma to demand a hearing by the firemen, they saw the godsend in the approaching perambulator and fell on him. "They insisted that I break up the strike," Manley recalled. Morais, he said, was near tears. They pushed hard but Manley was reluctant. He did not, he pointed out, know the facts. Manley must have been conscious of the company he would be keep­ ing. Ile was not a St William Grant, so much obvj.ously a man of the people, nor of the flamboyance of Bustamante, who, despite his Cau- * casian appearance, r esided and moved with the prole t ariat. Supposedly, Bustamante lived "downtown" and was an habitue of Arlington House, a popular eating and watering-place on East Queen Street. however, if anley' s angel of destiny w_as prodding him towards politi- d Ol.i:-,v- :,f:i,. ·- C.J-V..,, -ff( o ev,c v.!.·e.. y ca l leadership, the heavenly but c=======:::~guide[was using the avail- able help. In those f a teful two days, Bustai.~ante's constant companion was Grant, an unmistakably black and a veteran street con1er battler for black rights; Manley was • lking with Morais and Dacosta, both UWI L ibr ari es 131. white or ably "passing". The newspapers too were leaning in for a kiss of death on Manley. H.S. "Speedy" Burns, a rising young jour­ nalist, was writing of "A Socialist Jamaica" and of "a Communist group" waiting to "make 1940 a peak year." Under the same dateline, a Montego Bay reporter was relating a belief that "Communists from Cuba were responsible for the recent Frome riots and other present strikes in the island." Cuba, where Bustamante was fresh from. A little detail not calculated to rest easy with the Establishment. To them, Manley would seem a safer repository for whatever small degree of will they would allow through to "the people." Nevertheless, Manley's growing willingness to be involved and identified with the unrest made him open to charges. He had to go into defence. "It has been rumoured," he was forced to state, "that I have advised some of the activities of the past few days. It is sufficient to say that nobody knowing me could possibly believe that I could think that Jamaica's interests would be served by letting loose the irresponsible pandemonium of the past two days. But I be­ lieve that the genuine labourers themselves are responsible enough to know that they can secure their rights by different methods and I be­ lieve that they will try to do so." Flanked by his two white companions and facing the irate fire­ men, Manley quietly spoke the rejoinder he was to offer so often in the years . ahead. "I believe," he said, "that I am a person whom you will trust." And with that confidence in his own ability that has often ruffled the feathers of friends and foes, he declared that they should "tell me your grievances (and they) will be rectified." But that day his listeners took to it. "They know me well." ------------ - ---------- UWI L ibr ari es 132. 'They spoke to Citizen Manley as if he were their elected leader, giv­ ing him all the data he required on wages, pensions and the new in­ surance scheme they had in mind. The brigade chief himself came out to the apron of the fire station and gave the Establishment's side to the self-assumed auxill.iary from Drumblair. Manley thus casually had assumed power at about the same time as had his Cousin Alec. Each had gone at it in his own way. Busta had leaped in to take over the march, shooting his sleeves for battle. Manley sat on the edge of a table talking long, easily and persuasively to the firemen. As he talked, the threat of strike receded. Bustamante would be called a grabber of opportunity. So was Norman Manley. Only men with no ear for that single knock are excused its tyranny. They strode into history because their genius allowed no other road. c9 The small exercise on Sutton Street that forenoon was to be a microcosm of the world that now sought him. The .probing questions acquainted him with what little machinery there then was for recon­ ciling labour disputes. He cooled the tensions by inviting the men to his office wher.e far from the noisy, uneasy crowd he could learn more about firemen's work and conditions. Then, thorough as ever, he returned to the fire station for a spot check. Only then was he ready to see the Mayor, Dr O.E.Anderson to report the men's case. The fire brigade episode was also to cast Manley for the first time in his 1938-43 role of putting the play together again whenever lead actor Bustamante came near to wrecking the performance by his . l, l!.,, predeliction for scene stealing. ·Between N.W's first and second appearance in the day's performance, Busta had stopped by the fire UWI L ibr ari es 133. station and threatened fire chief Mitchell with a work stoppage. "If this (raise) is not agree·d on by tomorrow, government will have only themselves to blame for what may follow." Returning after Busta's bellicose departure and recognising the danger of a collapse and a subsequent clash with the armed forces, Manley, who had already put the wheels for their job reform into motion, quieted the men. It was a small personal triumph; but in the wake of Busta's massive passage over the past two days, followed by great cheering crowds and hurling defiance against guns and imprisonment, it was an encourage­ ment. The stage was being set for the two main actors and the country needed both, then: the one of cool logic and the kinetic arouser hurl­ ing thunderbolts. The conflict of line would set before the wallahs in London the appearance of a political sophistication no more false or more misleading then their own reputation for colonial genius. It is not unlikely that the events of May, 1938, streamed some new light into the musty Colonial Office rooms in Londone and quickened, however feebly, the decision to dismantle the creaky old Empire. However, the two men were to be even more firmly planted into history with the arrest later that day of Bustamante; and Manley would become tactical leader in the moves to restore the people's * new man to the bosom of his public. The Colonial police in the racist tradition of their training clubbed . the black (St William Grant) . to the ground but quietly took the "white" (Busta) into custody. An old yoke tree was on the grounds of Drumblair. It was a conference-tree for Norma and Edna. Away from the house and kids and servants. That night . the garden was fresh from the Spring rains and scented with the magnificent rose bushes. They sat under the UWI L ibr ari es 134. old yoke tree and , talked about the day and the future. Some symbols won't go away: that night under the old yoke tree, Manley, after forty five years, at last fell into the political yoke that would never be unharnessed until his final days. "(We) felt very strongly that somebody (should intervene) in the interest of the workers. I had a profound feeling that I was going to make an offer that had uni>reseeable consequences." He did. He phoned the governor. UWI L ibr ari es 135. CHAPTER NINETEEN Governor Sir Edward Denham, that slow thinking but maligned and patient man, was worried at the lack of leadership among his people. He had been more than once berated by those whom economist/ writer J .A.G.Edwards called the "Company of Permanent Jamaica Governors & Privy Councillors." These were the leaders in local commerce and the multinationals who, for most of the time, were calling the -shots; instructing, by "advising", or the flexing of the raw power accumula­ ted when the flag followed trade into the underdeveloped territories. For Denham had a genuine concern to provide better wages, housing and education to the poor people - about 90% of the population. He had been forced, on a few occasions, to publicly remind his "advisers" that there was but "one King's House ·and one Governor." Although he had not foreseen the popular wave which would churn further beneath the country's surface than ever before, he had recently appointed a Commission to examine labour conditions and was now for directing that wave where it would do the most good. Many of his advisers spoke up for using force. They advocated turning the armed units loose on the people - the Kingston Infantry Volunteers, the Sherwood Forresters, an English line regiment on station in the West Indies , wearing "battle bowlers" and carrying machine guns, and regular and auxilliary policemen with Mark VII rifles. Denham was seeking to * find leaders and to keep in contact with the demonstrators. * At the height of the disturbances on May 24, the units on street patrol included 400 regular and 250 special constables, 100 KIVs, 80 Sherwoods. UWI L ibr ari es 136 . He had talked earlier that morning with the Mayor and Council­ lors at King's House but evidently had found a scarcity of creative thinking among the politicians; so the political head of the colony drafted Plain Citizen Manley to stem the civil upsurge. He was a trifle late. Bustamante and Grant had been arrested. Although as the troubles wore on, he took the then normal pro­ consul's route of arming the gentry and their approved servants with some legality, to aid the uniformed forces, he knew that in the last * analysis, the country would need not conflict, but compromise. He * Mayor Anderson's 3-day Ward Theatre economic and industrial conference, 6 months earlier, on ways to energise the island's resources had roused a great deal of interest. had shown during _his tenure an awareness of the hardheaded ways of the employing class, spoilt by having had it all downhill for genera­ tions and now in an obvious gamesmanship demanding that the workers ** return to their jobs before negotiations. C.W.Varney, the British The workers were for the first time to have their exposure to the sport by stubbornly staying away from work until Bustamante and Grant were released. manager of England's Royal Mail Lines and a large waterfront employer, stated that "We have all along been prepared to ... hear their griev­ ances and we still intend to." Then, apparently unable not to show his hand, added: "Our men are quite satisfied but they are prevented from working by others." An exposition disquietingly inconclusive about the future of those grievances. Local emplqers were not be- hind in whip cracking. Cried Charlie D'Costa of Lascelles de Mercado, the Jamaican wharfowners, "The strikers will only paralyse themselves. " It was to pull back the approaching polarity that Denham saw Manley. "He suggested that I act; he begged me to. I told him I would think UWI L ibr ari es 137. it over." Denham was looking for more than a city leader. Already the unrest was reaching once bucolic hamlets. Small outbreaks hadflcn:ed here and there ever since Frome and now were at the two next largest urban areas, Spanish Town and Montego Bay. Dockers were refusing to work the port in Montego Bay. In Spanish Town, a march of 3,000 workers closed down the Old Capital. A few railroad blocks were indulged in by tumbling boulders down on the track. Bustamante, as he led the heaving curb-filling march down King Street into Harbour Street in the earlier morning before his arrest, had mounted the walk beneath the balcony of the Standard Fruit Company's offices at the George's Lane corner to appeal for quiet from " ... this terrible noise which prevents me from thinking while our enemies are thinking against us~" Now the quiet had come - after his arrest. Sullen and ominous. · Manley, close to the city's pulse, sensed it. He moved swiftly. By evening he had called in the newspaper reporters and was publicly offering his services to the country. "Events have proved how necessary it is today that the people of the country should have good leadership and good advice in putting forward their grievances and making their demands for their better­ ment. I have received the assurance of (the governor) that the govern­ ment (desires)that the people should have an opportunity of making representations and that their grievances should receive fullest consideration. (The government) is prepared to appoint a Concilia- tion Board where both sides could be heard. One of the difficulties in the way of the government to assist is the difficulty of finding persons who are willing to assist the labouring classes and putting forward their grievances II UWI L ibr ari es 138. And in his next sentence, N.W.Manley made it official that he was in the business of public office. "If any labour group will accept my services in investigating their grievances, in acting for them, and by leading their deputa­ tions to employer interests, or to the Governor, or to the Labour Commission which has been appointed, I pledge myself to serve their interests fairly and properly, and to give every assistance to se~ that reasonable and fair demands are met in a proper spirit." A leach of the years ahead, the agonies and .the rivalries, the . gains and the foolish losses, may have passed behind his eyes. For conscientiously, and cautiously, he left the door ajar. "If (workers) can find the services of any responsible person who is willing to assist them in putting forward their case, I am confident that they will be heard." The real labour leaders could yet be Busta and Grant, and even "Fighting Barrister" Erasmus Campbell - although he had been booed into silence the day before because he proposed moderation. He knew the need for trade unions, the day-by-day monitoring of employers who had the rapacity of Barbary Coasters, a job he could hardly undertake with his weighty court briefs. "When these troubles are over, I hope that some group of responsible people will recognis the necessity for organising proper trade unions in this country." For .a few hours that day and the . next, Manley was the only working labour negotiator in the country - although he was working the noblesse oblige bit to death. It was,, on the face, an aristo under obligation; a mannerly bow to the court for permission to speak amicus curiae. / UWI L ibr ari es Legally and politically, it was an exotic night for Jamaica. For while Manley was giving his press conference, an unusual media scene for that time, a Night Court was in session. King's House pressure, with some Manley heft, had resulted in the hastily convened court to hear arguments from Barrister J.A.G.Smith and Solicitors Ibss Livingston and Allan Wynter for the release of Bustamante and Grant. Both had been held for disorderly conduct but by the time the case reached the court, Bustamante's charge was higher: sedition and in­ citing unlawful assembly. Grant's was the latter, plus a smaller one for refusing to obey a police officer which neatly took care of the reason for clubbing him. The hearing, held in the crowded little office of the police inspector at Sutton Street, was barred to news­ men. The Magistrate remanded them in custody, refusing bail for "though Mr Bustamante and Mr Grant might be willing to stand trial, the crowd would not allow them." The Magistrate was probably a his- * torian. The 1865 Rebellion Experience was somewhere in his ruling. Manley had also tried for their release that night for he "felt a martyr was being made." Denham had demurred. But why should a martyr not be made? Was this a torn Manley, responsive to the now and future call, but held in the time frame of his education and British upbringing? Since the French connection at Orleans the English psyche passionately excludes martyrs. The court ordered a bed put in a cell for Bustamante. Not Grant. *The"Morant Bay Rebellion" in 1865 had its immediate beginnings in the rescue of their comrades by Paul Bogle's men, who, in their opinion, were unjustifiably found guilty of offences. They res­ cued them from the courtroom and started the chain of events which culminated in the upheaval. National Heroes Bogle and George William Gordon were executed in the bloody aftermath. UWI L ibr ari es 140. CHAPTER TWENTY Governor Denham had a problem. He telephoned it to Manley early on Wednesday morning. He had liked the Manley statement the night before. But what about the usual proviso? He was talking about the mind-bender usually issued by the authorities which demanded that workers return to their jobs, at all the old dissatisfactions, before negotiations could begin. Manley's retort was blunt. He was acting for the strikers and would do so only if he had a free hand. Governor Denham took notice and _aoqui.esoed. He issued a statement from King's House declaring that "government welcomes the offer made by one of the most distinguished sons of Jamaica, Mr Manley, to represent the cause of the labourers and is perfectly willing to see that the fullest consideration is given to representations made." Manley was elated. Years later, he wrote, "I go to work feeling like a man in a dream." And the dream quickly became a reality; for he had hardly settled into his creaky office chair when the Duke Street door opened and in came his "first followers, four women cap­ makers." But that was only the beginning. For within minutes, the flood commenced. "Twenty dockers poured in." And so it went. He was especially pleased with the incoming of William Seivright, first of the middle-class entrepreneurial people he was hoping to recruit. He was deeply touched by the response. "My love and respect for that man grew greater and greater as the years went by." Seivright was later Mayor of Kingston, and in the House, Minister of Agriculture and then of Home Affairs. * UWI L ibr ari es 1 41. Problems were also pouring in. That May 25th, while he was being hailed for his "sincere and brilliant advocacy on behalf of the cooperative idea among the peasantry in the days when the fate * of the Jamaica Banana Producers' Association hung in the balance," * By D.T.M.Girvan in an article on Jamaica Welfare Ltd., Daily Gleaner, May 25. he was being denounced by word and pamphlet on the waterfront _as an enemy of "the little man~" The cause is traced to his appearance for the West Indies Sugar Company before the Freme Commission, and not unconnected with his general law practice whichcontained retainers from all the colony's more important corporations. Money had been ** raised by the Jamaica Progressive League in New York, led by * That the League did not discredit Manley as had been hoped by a faction, was because he was able to show the records of his two retainers from WISCO: the annual binder, and a special drawn up on May 5, with specific directions to represent the Company at the subsequent enquiries. As it turned out, Manley had, in fact, promised another barrister (and later Labour Government Minister) E.R.D.Evans to appear at Freme for the workers, but had been stopped in his tracks by a gentle reminder from WISCO that legally he was theirs. He had written to Evans a week later regretting the oversight and pointing out that he was "bound by professional rule not to appear for the rioters." And so ended what could have been a nasty imbroglio with the League, which, in later years, was a powerhouse for his People's National Party and the colony's progress to independence. novelist/historian Adolphe Roberts and journalist W.A.Domingo, both Jamaicans, to help in the provision of legal aid for the Freme accused; and his inability to represent them without a release from his prior commitments aroused a great deal of general antagonism. Mistrust of his motives dogged his movements about the city; but he had a good moment at Malabre's Wharf where a huge crowd of striking dockers heard him. An unusually subjective Press report spoke of thousands "obviously bona fide wharf hands" listening to him on South Street. UWI L ibr ari es 1 42 . He was remarkably fresh and easy-voiced, despite a rough day of conferences and negotiations. Leaning from one of the upper windows of the Adolph Levy building, he repeated his offer of the previous night, to lead if they required him. Mobile soldiers, police and special constables were parked in Orange Street ready to move in and Manley urged that the workers go home quietly. He would meet them at the Number One Pier, next morning, and commence the negotiations with the wharf owners. Meanwhile, Bustamante and Grant had been moved to Rae Town prison and J.A.G.Smith was in the corridors of the Supreme Court • I building applying every known legal gambit his high skills and ex- perience knew. Manley had not been able to engage in the matter all that day. His work had been made doubly hard by having to fight off some hawkish friends who were for wholesale military solution. What irked employers was the rash of lightning strikes, deliriously pegged to theiiea that happiness was a dollar-a-day. There were some who understood. "Cha,rlie Johnson was a tower of strength against (the use of) force," Manley has said. "He sees that all wages must go up. He sees very far." But ever scrupulous, if sardonic, he goes on: "So does R.F.Williams - who doesn't like what he sees and is forrorte." The opposition was not peculiar to business leaders. Richard Hart, the young lawyer who was to become a great political writer and activist and the island's most famous resident Red, and Hugh Buchanan, the first self-avowed Marxist, also held causes rooted in * Manley's failure to defend the Frome rioters. But an endorsement Buchanan, a bricklayer son of a successful May Pen farmer, was a dedicated Marxist who found his way to Hamburg, Germany for an International Communist conference in 1937. A man of strong UWI L ibr ari es 143. intellect and moral courage, he was not very personable and never attained popular leadership. He became the first General Secretary of the BITU and was once jailed for sedi­ tion. He led the groups that stiffened the strikers' resolve to stay out until Bustamante and Grant were released. But his stay in the BITU had never been happy; not surprising, considering he had been the General Secretary of A.G.S. "Father" Coombs' union which had expelled Treasurer Bustamante the year before for trying a takeover at "Father" Coombs' ex­ pense. Although Dick Hart was to become a member of the PNP Executive, Buchanan remained strongly anti-Manley until his death in the 'Sixties, soon after returning from a Moscow visit and disillusionment with Communism. "Not for blacks," he said. * from Ken Hill's National Reform Association somewhat eased the pain. * The NRA is resolved to cooperate with Mr Manley in his efforts and makes an appeal to one and all concerned to free their minds of any doubt. The NRA is so convinced of Mr Manley's sincerity and honesty ... that its (proposal) to the dock workers (to form) a registered trade union with Mr Bustamante as presi­ dent, was calculated to strengthen Mr Manley's hands in the negotiations with the shipping companies. The idea of a trade union for longshoremen is not new. Mr Manley and Mr Campbell have themselves so advised." Hill observed that Manley enjoyed "a unique position in this island. He is trusted by Capital and can be trusted by Labour as well." The Thursday morning meeting stood at over 2,000 waterfront workers but bore a mixed success. Public address ¥Stems were new­ fangled in the 'Thirties, a mechanical hoodwink used by nightclub singers to conceal the cracks in their larynxes. His suspicion of, *-A and failure to use the microphone made his reach all the more arduous. * A columnist next day sympathised with his dislike of this "instrument". He spoke from a coal car at Number One Pier flanked by Edna and W.A. Williams, · a worker delegate, and, curiously, the Director of Public Works, a man of the Establishment. He may simply have climbed aboard to escape the press, but he was Jonah on the bandwaggon. They would UWI L ibr ari es 144. calculate that the fix was in.-- The mood of the men hardened. No number of concessions would make them break the strike until Bustanante and Grant were freed. They would accept one shilling an hour (double for overtime) plus freedom for their leaders. It was time for him to make it clear that he. was not setting up as a labour leader. "The people," he said, "whom you regarded as your leaders had the misfortune to be arrested and put in jail. They are still in jail. In that situation, I felt that somebody who had the cause of the people , at heart should come forward ... and let you realise that there were intelligent people in the country (who) sympathise with your position and were prepared to put forward your case .. ~ to speak on your behalf." The indelicate but factual predication would not elicit zest for his leadership. But resolutely, he laid it on the line: "I am not a labour leader. I am a lawyer and my work is in the courts where I work for anyone who desires my services, to the best of my ability When the time comes that organisations are to be formed by labourers to protect themselves and their rights, I do not say it will be possible for me to form these organisations, but I am prepared to give my services free. Working people are entitled to elect their own representatives to lead them ... men who know their conditions ... their grievances ... men whom they can meet, men whom they can trust." Obviously, at this time, he neither sought nor expected a mass base for whatever future his insight reflected. He established his role at the outset. He would advise, not lead. But he was of course speaking to a worker-structure in embryo. The dependence of Jamaican politics on union power had not yet assumed reality. He was filling a breach, waiting for the release of Bustamante, a matter that was in UWI L ibr ari es 145. the "hands of a very great lawyer and a very great worker for the peoplet" J.A.G.Smith. As it proved, the Smith rescue was to break on a stubborn Supreme Court; both men would only be freed after some fast quiet work at King's House by Manley. At this point in the waterfront meeting, Manley stated that he had been asked by certain workers' representatives to negotiate a settlement with the shippers. He reported the result: twopence an hour more to make the rate elevenpence (lld.) It was rejected out of hand. For an hour he reasoned from the coal car. He reminded them that any increase in labour rates would be ultimately borne by the local producers - " ... your own people ... " But that homily was counter productive to the saltwater workers who had no identity with banana growers on the green mountains. He shook the record at them, pointing out that no previous negotiator had been able to secure even "one farthing"; but they shook their heads. Implacable faces turned up to him, they asked for the overtime. When they were told that not only the double time was · rejected, but that "nothing" would be added to the current o.t. rates, the planks of the old finger-jetty vibrated under their hurt roar. But after they had quieted down he faced them with the facts of negotiating. "Bargaining is a word you will hear more and more in Jamaica from now on," he said. "You cannot strike, and stick out forever (for) one price. There is more ... to consider. When the price of dock labour goes up, food is going to become more expensive (and) there are many people working ten hours a day in factories for ten shillings a week." It took a firm, disciplined resolve and a call on his reserves UWI L ibr ari es 146. of adroit advocacy to keep the big crowd in the frame of mind that would leave the door open for more talk. The crowd was discontented and uneasy but standing beside Manley was a workingman who would have a subsequent influence on the labour movement. Williams was a tall, powerfully built black man of strong personality and big impassioned * voice. At the end of a speech endorsing solidarity in their demands, * He was interned during the war with Bustamante, Ken . and Frank Hill and others. he raised the single song which above all else could be counted upon to put a grip on any West Indian crowd in the pre-World War II years. Hats and caps instantly doffed, the men whom Sir Leonard Lyle, the head of Tate & Lyle, owners of WISCO, had only recently savagely assaulted for "not remotely" resembling "the English labourer in life or mentality", stood at attention as they sang God Save The King, and dispersed quietly. UWI L ibr ari es 147 . CHAPTER TWENTY-om; Manley's moves took on new urgency. On Thursday at noon, he contacte d Governor Denham and "demanded" that a Conciliation Board b set up. Within three hours , Denham, now chugging along with un- ccustomed speed, had his s electees at King's House and the terms of reference drafted. With another dockers• meeting set for Friday night, Manl ey turned to the Bus tamante impasse . He offered a strongly worded a rgument for Busta's release . He saw that only then would the coun­ try be at work again. Bustamante, in his mind , was now the charismatic 1 de . So in roughly sketched ways, in that week of cris is, were the political lines being drawn . He had been moving quickly , but ca re f ully, since Tuesday, here and there crimping the edges to separate organized labour from orga­ nized politics, alien disciplines lN H IS R EA'i11-/(q _; at once tongue-lashing his friend Noel Nethersolo for talking of taking the National Reform Association into labour activities, then turning hotly to defend himself against lawyer Ross Livingston, already a Bustamante man; and ever watchful of the guileful J . A. G. Smith, his moat formidable courtroora rival who having lost supremacy to the brilliant younger man could not have taken kindly to his appear­ ance on the political field . The Conciliation Board was a triumph for Manley . Just two days --ro uGfl before, the Gove rnor had been"4r:ll~~~ in his stand against any show of appeasement towards the strikers until they returned to work. The Board was the first significant step in the direction of industrial arbitrat ion. It had settled well with the thinkers of the day and would have been effective with the actors too , if tha Supreme Court UWI L ibr ari es 148. had not squashed the plea for the release of the two folk heroes. (By now the rulers were muttering their . fears that once let loose, Busta would abscond, possibly to Cuba.). The popular fury now turned sullen. The violence of the preceding days disappeared. But the powder lay around and the situation needed defusing. But was he the one to do it? By his life-style and accomplishments, he had been chos~n by the upper elements as the safe layer against Bustamante, the dangerous fellow. Gleaner establishment writers were exhorting the workers to "Listen to Mr Manley~" An editorial titled Patriotism, lauding his integrity as it sought to soothe the dockers' fears, may have had * the adverse effect of inflicting more suspicions. In yet the other "Mr Manley is not the individual to shirk his responsibility because he happens to be counsel for a shipping company (or) organiser and chairman of Jamaica Welfare to which the United Fruit and Standard Fruit Companies contribute money ... " daily, the Jamaica Standard, a correspondent was giving a strong vote for leadership to the England-born journalist H.P.Jacobs over Manley: "Mr Manley ... is paying too little attention to the mentality of the workers, seeing that he already represents more Capitalist concerns than anyone that we know of, the thing is simply absurd." "Absurd" was strong but not unreasonable. Manley had been picked as mediator by the Other Side - the Governor in King's House. In contrast was . columnist Esther Chapman's sniff that Bustamante was a more "local labour leader who has been given formidable importance as the result of ill-advised publicity The charade had its funny side. " In a country hilariously shade proud, in those racially farcical times, anybody with a bone of hunour looked in awe at the goings-on. Bustamante, who had not hesitated UWI L ibr ari es 1. 49. to pass-for-white in his work among the bestially-bent white natives of the American white racist states, had cannily identified with the black power base in the island, while Manley, the darker-hued, a race victim in England, tenaciously fought for a footing. Education, commerce, politics, the church, and all else, had a racial bias. Every major religious denomination was headed by a white expatriate. So was the civil service. Black faces very seldom appeared among the staffers of offices and stores, and never ever in banks. No black reached officer class in the military and police forces. Social pro­ gress of the children of the folk was encompassed by a set of stiff rules understood by everybody - including the blacks. The 14 elected legislators, although mostly blacks, were second fiddlers to the cus­ todes (all white and appointed) or chief justice of the peace in the * parishes. Manley's press statement late Thursday afternoon made a * The prominent legislator H.E.Allan, appointed by the Governor to the Frome Commission, replying to a reporters' question on its work, ruefully said: "I must be careful what I say being the only black sheep in the lot." He was later knighted by his Sovereign, the "first black knight." subtle nod in this direction when he observed that the Conciliation Commission had come about as a result of representations from "those of us who are working in the labour interests and I believe supported by the employer interests." The Commission included a high court judge, the Collector General, two politicians, H.P.Jacobs and the ** head of the United Fruit Company, Kieffer. The Kieffer appointment, a notoriously anti-labour and racist employer and much disliked by the people, met with strong ob­ jection from the longshoremen. Manley was now in the thick of things. So thick, he was ask­ ing for more help while acknowledging the "valuable assistance" he was receiving, and sent out a call for those "sincerely on the side UWI L ibr ari es 150. of l'abour" to a meeting in his office oA Friday morning. High on his list of the most valued assistants was his wife - and a dockside laundress and caterer named Agnes Bernard. Miss Bernard, one of the . great and sometime forgotten patriots of that year (and in the other waterfront crises of the decade) was already known for "carrying" many a down-at-luck docker; many of whom, despite the much publicised one-&-six (15¢) an hour, often had no more than one hour's work a week. She established her own private soup kitchen at No 9 Princess Street, offering free hot meals to the strikers. But neither of the ladies would have gone as far without the help of the Revd A.H.Webb, head of the Children's Lunch Fund Committee, who stretched his terms of referen~e to the limit to put the Fund's facilities at their ser­ vice, producing, in the words of Edna Manley, "a meal for 1,500 at four hours notice." The Friday morning meeting at the Number One pier was remark­ able for the dockers' double endorsement of Manley and Bustamante. Over 2,000 were there when .Manley mounted the now familiar railway car which he had made his own forum - appropriate to the incoming industrial/union age as had the quiet redbrick Coke Chapel steps to the leisurely intellectual exercises of the oldtime political touts. Opening the agenda was the letter from the National Reform Association approved in prison by Bustamante, ;,;;f ,£,.,~ Livings ton, proposing/\ the dockers and read by his solicitor Ross "form themselves into a trade union and place Mr Bustamante as president ... legally ready and able to negotiate with wharf owners, shipping companies and government." The strategy, drawn up by NRA president Noel Nethersole and general secretary Ken Hill, was clear. It would give validity to UWI L ibr ari es 151. Bustamante's leadership and obtain consequent careful treatment from the courts. The court would be less likely to hit him with a massive sedition sentence. The road to decision was made smoother when Manley firmly re­ futed personal interest in office. "I am not going into politics," he said. "I have no time for politics (so) I hope there will be no jealousy or suspicion in this cause." Nevertheless, he required their support, and the mood was good, so he showed them the Buchanan­ * circulated pamphlet denouncing his motives. The workers shouted * Workers~ Do not trust Manley and Campbell. They are the tools of capitalists. Support Bustamante and Grant. their disapproval and Manley made his first full public statement on the Friend-of-the-capitalists spectre with which his detractors were continuing to haunt him. "It is perfectly true that as a lawyer I represent a great num­ ber of companies but I do not represent more companies than I repre­ sent poor people in our law courts;" and applied his lawyer's knack of turning the prosecution's case to his own advantage by showing how his close acquaintance with the employers would enable him to "go and speak on your behalf to men who will trust me to put your cause fairly." His speech that followed has been credited with being the clear­ est exposition up to then of a trade union. It was simple, deliberate, repetitious on certain issues, persuasive and urgent. He spoke with­ out a microphone but his passion gave him good voice and it carried over the great asphalted yard laden with goods sheds and rail cars idled by the general strike. "Many people have asked me whether they must put their signa­ tures on a piece of paper for the formation of a union. UWI L ibr ari es 152. "My advice to you is: sign it. "Because by doing so, you are only promising to join a union. "If you agree to join, you (must select) men ... and give them power "The strength of the. union is in unity. You must train your­ selves to be loyal to your union and to stand together in decisions. (You) have proved today that (you) can stand together and be loyal to each other. "Do not allow people to split you into groups. Do not allow quarrels to divide your ranks. "The first step, is to teach that difficulties can be adjusted by compromise. "Remember, you cannot all lead at the same time. I ask for a little trust, a little patience. "Be careful and wise in the choice of the people who lead you. not only men who can talk, but men who can think. "(This) may be the starting-point for (a better) island. "Trust your union, serve it, and you will (gain) security and hope for yourselves." cD Shrewd tactician that he was, Manley saw through what was the first strong effort of the employers to kill in the shell any seriousl organised move towards unionising. In. a play rigged to cut off the workers from Bustamante, the shipping men were agreeing to all.Manley•~ demands for the longshoremen, expecting, that as had frequently hap­ pened, a whiff of money would overpower principle. Manley, the ship­ pers hoped, would be the bagman. Manley, said the Harbour Street mafiosi, would shove it to the stevedores. "They had the idea that I was the best person to let the workers know (of the new rates) and would not only get acceptance but (was more acceptable than Bustamante) UWI L ibr ari es 153 . in their eyes." The dump-Bustamante-for-Manley plan collapsed when N.W. found it an offer he could refuse. UWI L ibr ari es 154. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Week was almost over. With Bustamante ruthlessly taken out by the authorities, Manley was the figure at the centre. He was now wholly engaged in the effort to return Busta to the streets; a * Bustamante armed with the legality of an elected union chief. * Another union leader, barrister Erasmus E.A.Campbell, chief of the white collar Clerks' Union, was of great assistance to Manley during the week. Campbell had been often attacked by Bustamante for what the flamboyant Busta regarded as his "jealousy". · Colour­ less but unabashed, Campbell would for many years be a factor in labour activities. The elected legislature was not part of Manley's forces. Except for Smith, most of these men, put into power by a better privileged minority electorate (adult suffrage would not be for another six years yet), saw their duty in arming "the governing body to deal with the matter," although they did recognize, as spoken by Trelawny leg- * islator Revd Maxwell, that "social and economic injustice" was the Father of Journalist John Maxwell. true cause of the Troubles and wondered aloud about "new legislation" to allow the establishment of trade unions. The brusque reply of the Attorney General was that such legislation had already been enacted - 19 years before. The English press, despite the reactionary ~ondon Times comment on "local firebrands and visiting agitators", was in favour of get­ ting at the economic roots of the trouble. The London Daily Express pointed out that Britain bought more sugar from Cuba than Jamaica, although selling less goods to Cuba. The British Communist M.P. William Gallagher facetiously asked in the Commons whether the Colonial Secretary was aware that "Empire Day was celebrated in Jamaica by the execution of a mother and child." UWI L ibr ari es 155. One settled area in the rumble belonged to the city government, whose bustling Mayor Dr Anderson had made his own unilateral moves by offering a 50% raise (to four shillings & sixpence or 45¢ a day) to his street cleaners and was conferring closely with Manley on ways to ease the tensions, especially among the fire brigade. But it was agreed by everybody who knew the streets, that the only road to nor­ malcy lay in freeing the two leaders, Bustamante and St William Grant. So when, on Friday, the Conciliation Board reported to Manley its decision to double the overtime rates on the wharves, acidly Manley told them the offer was too little too late. "I told them to release Bustamante or Kingston will burn," he has said. Dr Anderson agreed with him and the Board loaded themselves in­ to motorcars and sped off to see Denham in King's House. Manley stopped off first at the fire station to keep his firemen cool, then continued to King's House. He knew the dockers were the key. The tough, competitive, truculent longshoremen, unlike the itinerant sugar estate workers, were a cohesive group, kingpins of their enclave of winches and high-wheeled drays from Harbour Street to the sea. Ci> The lights were burning in Governor Denham's office where anxiou men worked to relieve the beleagured downtown - now dark and deserted under the smashed street lamps, save for police prowl waggons and occasional bands of youth bent on window-breaking sport. At King's House, Manley says laconically, "there is a mad party. ' They were waiting for him. Of the seven or eight men present, only he had been in close physical touch with the strikers all day. He had witnessed the moods, felt their approbation and disapproval. He had been in battle with friend and foe during the day and the night before. He had fought with fellow lawyer, the volatile and passionate UWI L ibr ari es 156. young Marxist Richard Hart, and Hart's friend, Buchanan, vitriolic and devotedly anti-Manley. He had worked to reeling, on the wage increase to the longshoremen, only to have the offer rejected by the immovable shilling-an-hour stand engraved by Williams, a resonable man turned intransigent by years of wharf owners' exploitation. He had crossed swords with Lawyer Livingston and rebuked Nethersole. Manley was annoyed with "Crab" Nethersole for "jumping in the union business" with his National Reform Association. He perhaps saw Nether· sole's action as liable to lose them friends. The catch-all NRA had brought together such disparate people as merchant J.B.Stivens and communist Buchanan, conservative U. Theo McKay and agitator St William Grant. It was also the crucible that had ideas and prepared the ground for support annealed the anti-establishnelt of the~ young Jamaica / Standard, the lively, robust and very professional daily then challen- ging the Gleaner. Only the cheerful and intelligent assistance of his wife, Edna, had lightened, considerably, the burden of the day; a good cheer, supported by the powerfully practical contribution of the feeding programme she had set up with the youthful, dynamic, articulate Aggie Bernard. ( . J ) t2tihlUJ "Her great work did more to help than all I did," he has said.' /\ As it was, he was an edgy man at the heel of the day when he entered Denham's office. To their anxious queries on the state of the city, he offered no comfort. With unkindly candour, he observed that even yesterday's hope had worn out. He could no longer promise a quiet city in return for Bustamante's release. Yesterday's failure to grant Bustamante bail had stiffened the strikers' resolve, and even convinced many that only a violent overthrow of the system would do. UWI L ibr ari es 157. This crumpled the Board. In rising panic, they threw the problen to Manley and made him a one-man Conciliation Board. They begged him to go to Rae Town. He should see Bustamante in prison and get h i s assurance that the system would stand. So long as he, Manley, was assured, it would quiet their fears. The missing essential was a rooted sympathy for the wretched conditions of the poor. While the arch conservative London Times, perhaps from new information, was scoring the "long years of neglect by the Colonial Office, local governments and employers" for the "standard of life of the West Indian labourer" which was far below even "halfway tolerable", the Jamaica Gleaner was blasting away at * the Coloured Social Welfare Societies in London and George Padmore Padmore, a Trinidadian, was a journalist, intellectual, his­ torian and fighter for black rights. A prolific writer, he went to live in Ghana wh~re he was much honoured, and die't. there. He was one of the important architects of black consciousness. for observing that "while Tory politicians sing of the glories of the Empire on which the sun never sets, for millions (of other) British citizens ... the sun never rises." The de facto if temporary abdication of the Board had been expected by Manley. He had been close to the action in all areas, with the strikers, the King's House strategists, with the Smith­ Livingston axis which he was meeting with an increasingly smoky eye, and had correctly judged the future. He had seen Smith and Livingston before the King's House meeting and put them into arranging an inter­ view with their client in Rae Town prison. (Bustamante and Grant had been transferred from the Sutton Street jail under cover of early morning darkness and a police/military escort bristling with arms.) It appears that while Livingston liked the idea of the Manley-Bustamante meeting, Smith did not. "In fact," Manley says, "Smith spent two UWI L ibr ari es 158. hours trying to get Bustamante not to see me." Hurrying across to Drumblair (his lands nearly adjoined the Ring 1 House grounds), Manley had a quick meal and change and was ready when the telephone summons came from the prison. Behind the iron doors and high redbrick walls, the cousins met and spoke at length for the first time in~ars. He had been consulted by Bustamante around 1932, just before going on one of his voyages to Cuba,· Manley has since recalled, but they had not talked since 1934 when he returned. They had passed on the streets of Kingston for years without a nod. "Well, Norman, I'm so glad to see you," Manley relates as the first words that night at ten o'clock in Rae Town. "It is our enemies who have divided us. Let us forget the past." "Okay," Manley said. The release of the two men was staged with the strictest legal protocol so as not to damage the system. Manley would go to theprisco, talk with Bustamante, and later assure the court in session "that in my judgment, as the person in touch with all the strikers in Kingston, it was both safe and essential to let him out c£ jail." He kept the ploy going by talking Smith, Bustamante's counsel, into overnighting in , Kingston instead of heading out to his beloved Clarendon constituency for his weekly political fence-mending. Gravely, and all according to the book, the two men laid plans for the renewal of the habeas corpus application on the new _evidence from Manley. Saturday's sitting in Chambers was of course a formality, since the application had already been_ granted by the real power sitting in King's House on Friday night although all this was not known then save by the principals in the cast. Bail went to Bustamante (:£250) and Gra.nt (:£50) and :they were released to a rocking, jubilant city. UWI L ibr ari es 159. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE A triumphant motorcade emerged from the penitentiary gates in the early afternoon and drove the mile to the Number One Pier. With Manley, Bustamante and Grant in the procession were Smith, Livingston and solicito Allan Wynter. Edna Manley was waiting at the Pier with Seivright, Ansel] Hart and Willie Foster Davis, the unofficial delegates from the middle class, declaring an intent to follow the Manley lead in forging a link with the folk. As it turned out, the middle-class support would be the binding strength of Manley's People's National Party in the years yet anc it is at least arguable whether this did not alienate the mass _support which adult suffrage was so soon to catapult into supreme importance. The meeting on the pier was a short one. Manley and Bustamante left for the Conciliation Board where, Manley dryly commented, they 'greeted Bustamante like a brother." So brotherly in fact that they agree to pay double for overtime on the docks though they would not budge from the twopence an hour straight-time increase. It was a gain anyway, and Bustamante was able to return to the piez with a fresh success to match and overtake Manley's. At that later meet­ ing, the strike was called off. Thus was begun the Bustamante legend of negotiating, more posture than skill, though posture encompasses a skill ; and a ubiety so. dramatic that at times it constituted a magic which nevez wore off, and was only stalled in two elections by the other genius of Manley's intellect and his organisation men. A time had ended. And begu~ The workers had won their l2st clearcut victory. A new kind of loyalty had emerged among them in which they stepped aside for principle. Disorganised, broke and hungry, faced by rifles and machine guns on land, a called-- up British cruiser offshore, and a hostile, mostly mindless UWI L ibr ari es 1 60. employer class with the economic power (and a kind of legal vigilante status which in emergencies was invoked, for them to bear and use arms) to bring them to their knees, the small folk had dug in, holding ground with the stubbornness of St Elizabeth mules. What was even more reward ing was that resolute, discerning leaders had been found among themselve men and women capable of resisting, and yet, in spite of their betrayed and exploited generations, also capable of trust. It was a good year for Manley and Bustamante to be ready in. And a good year for the dead ones, the executed resistance leaders across three centuries, whose in memoriam was the courage and the hammering spirit of the dockers and the sugar workers, the firemen and the banana carriers, and all those others who made their stand and singlemindedly seized the time. 0 On the face of it, the coal car party had a jolly time, with con­ gratulations passing among the leaders. But even then, on that railroad car (to which Manley with an athletic bound had led them), the lines were being drawn. There were already a few well defined ones, such as Manley noticing what he saw as Smith's studied avoidance of crediting him with any part in the successful bail application, and Busta's one- ' upping the Manley tuppenny increase with the promise of double overtime - a request the shippers had denied Manley in the earlier negotiations but which had been.agreed to on the Friday evening and kept quiet at Manley's insistence. Odd little quirks occurred, such as Bustamantee addressing the workers as Comrades - a word that was to become anathema for its place in the PNP tradition - and Manley advocating the forming of a 1'labour party", a form which Bustamante was to preempt for his own political force; and the country being aware for the first time UWI L ibr ari es 161. of the cousinly bond between the two Shearer descendants as revealed by Bustamante. The meeting ended. The crowd surged forward to the coal car, lifted Bustamante, Smith, Mayor Anderson and Livingston and bore them away on their shoulders. The main gladiator is left in the ring. They did not offer to shoulder him. Hurt, a little saddened, he walked away with Edna. He once said of this moment, "I go home sadly. The first round is over." UWI L ibr ari es 16 2 . CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR On Sunday, May 29, Manley called in the Press to his Duke Street Chambers to state some "planks (in his) platform for permanent improve­ ment." Although he was to again categorically declare that "this is not a political campaign," he added that it was a "golden opportunity for forming a labour party in Jamaica." It was "not to be a Party which • will supplant any other organisation working for the people of the country." He thought that its first and most important function was to "co-ordinate by affiliation" all the existing organisations of the people. Thus there would be a single central body "keeping in close touch with the active groups working all over the country for the good of the people." This puzzling if graceful sweep towards a one-party colony-state would draw immense strength from its affiliation to a "trade union with all their members, the citizens' association and all the leagues and associations which are working to a common end." He had the political strength. Workers' delegations from some 33 places of employment had already taken their cases to him for presentation to the Conciliation Board. The future passionate exponent of the two-party rule may have presumed that the forming of his "labour party" would bundle the enployers into their own political conclave and create the antithesis the method required. Whatever his reasonings, he pursued them in his own style of urbanity and of sometimes showing the steel. "It is gratifying to know that many employers are negotiating improvements for their workmen without the need of further strikes," he could say nicely; but also sound a note of warning to those who had not noticed the new wind blow­ ing: "There is no doubt ... that the hour ha:3 struck for improvement (and) it is just as well that employers recoqnise it and do their duty promptly. " UWI L ibr ari es 163. The Sunday conference was also made memorable for the uttering of the small credo (or the heresies, depending on where you stood) indicat­ ing his political road. And many of the perceptive, and the guilty, caught his drift and looked to their defences. "The country has got to realise that there is going to be an all­ round increase of wages (everywhere) and the cost of it has got to be met. This can only be done by increasing taxation on the people that can best afford to bear it. "Luxuries and amusements have . got to be taxed; and the taxes on food have got to go down because the cost of living is, in any event, going to go up. "Income tax has got to be increased. "Wage rates in Kingston have gone up and are going to stabilise themselves at a higher rate. This means that the tendency of people to come into Kingston to look for work is going to increase. It can only be stopped (by a) programme of land settlement and improving living conditions · (in the ruralsJ "The necessity for the development of agriculture and other local industries is imperative as an immediate programme. We have been talking about it for years ... and doing nothing." He called for unemployment relief meanwhile, an "immediate necessar measure. And that ended, Manley turned to what he termed his "planks in our platform for permanent improvement." Among several more, were required industrial insurance, ,old age pension, mminimurn wages. And he could hardly have endeared himself to the pukka-helmeted, upperclass bully-boys whom he exhorted to offer their Special Constable wages to the organisation fund of the incoming union since "who better than they should appreciate that with a strong trade union, special constables can UWI L ibr ari es 164. sle p in their bedo." I n the odd ways of the entrenched and t.~e privileged , the series vf\/S£ r-n.-1/..16· ,He s..,"=rr<.J~.:> of strikes in 1938, while roundly condemned for c·: : : :;.-: ;) was I\ a.c.11nowledged by them in private and public, as bound to yie ld s ome good. The Jamaica Times weekly pa e r had it: "But th.ere is every lik lihood that the recenttrouble wi ll lead to a beginning being made of s ocial and e conomic progress ... and that therefore good will come out of evil.• So, y t, a s trike for social and e conomic progress was evilC ll I/ An early good out o f t he evil was that an hour was cut from the old 10-hour labouring day for Public Works Department workers, and a 25 increasa on their 30 cents a day . And although the award applied in t he instance only to PWD people, it was a pacesetter. Private s ector HAb C,t,i,t_ I tJ i;,i;'")C.." employers could hardly ignore that the State set A / .----..--~ "'...-,:_~ Both Manley and Bustamante were conscious of the looming demand f rom the exploiteds that there should be swiftness in squaring the old imbalances, and so both counselled patience, to the barefoot victims . "Rome was not built in a day!" cried Manley at a 'l'rench Town street­ meeting. "Rome was not built in a day~" cried Bustamante in Mandeville, s ixty mi les away, that same afternoon . 0 June broke hot all over the country, with every town and big es- tate under armed protection of police, military regulars and voluntee rs. For that lovel y new heft to the PWD pay envelopes was not going unnotiood. As the demanifor a likewise consideration increased faster than satis­ faction, violence whipped the countryside from St 'l'honms, westward to Tr e l awny. .'?he earlier battlefields at Frome and in · Hanover, now a little spent, a little slower to challenge the bullets and bayonets, UWI L ibr ari es 165 . fared quieter. But the comb t style of the Kingston strikes was quickly adopted IN ---.... PB'Rl!."H the country ....,c:_: __ .. :_J; frequent invasions of -------.J towns P i t..L/, rnc.1LJI that Manley's role in the front of the May revolution had not come on I\ popular demand, as on a sigh of relief from the agitated rich and pro- fessionals. Although he was a folk-hero (athlete, scholar, gallantry nedal winner in the war, non-white),he also had establishment ties (cor­ )Oration lawyer, King's House invitee) and lived among the upper crust Ln Upper St Andrew. (Bustamante lived in Duke Street and ate in UWI L ibr ari es 173. proletariat restaurants such as the old Arlington House.) His choice of people to his committees reflected nothing radical in the lot. If_ he had held ambitions of instant mass acceptance, these would have been brutally shaken by the Pied Piper actions of the dockers the day Busta­ mante was released from Rae Town when he was "rushed off" from the coal car "in (the) enthusiastic crowd" as Manley himself puts it. The truth is, he knew his popularity would never be vulgar, earthi rooted in the "roots". Nobody would name a penny jaw-breaker sweet for him, as they did the "Bustamante backbone." Yet in those crucial times, he worked harder and more effectively than the rest, to establish "' the "New Jamaica" he saw more clearly than the rest. The "New Jamaica" *The title of a marching song later used at his Jamaica Welfare meetings and rallies. that would follow would be his creation as it could be any single man's. But the next round· would be far more gruelling. He was 45 years, thin and strikingly handsome; to most, aloof as a pine on a mountain; yet he could be jovial and even funny. He was long on wit but often hurtingly short in temper. He had a genuine liking for the company of clever people who did not feel imperilled by intelligence and hard work. It thinned his circle but strengthened his mind. sorption, obedient to the demands of himself. he once said of his law practice, )) the real sense . . He was a man of utter ab­ (must be)" "You A He spoke for all the disciplines that attracted his genius, the law,agri­ culture, sports, sociology, not least of all for politics. He was shortly to meet a man as politically "engaged" as himself. UWI L ibr ari es l 'l 4. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN O.T.Fairclough, who avows that his 8-year residence in Haiti con­ vinced him that Jamaica should be self governing, may not have been the first to see in Manley the "natural leader" of his country but he was certainly ahead of his fellows in doing something about it. Fairclough, a hardshell not given to sentiment, had seen in the maligned black re­ public, that "the average Haitian, man for man, of whatever class, lit­ erate or illiterate, was a better human being than a Jamaican," became convinced that the cause lay in Jamaicans being "colonial and the Haitians being a proudly independent people." He had returned to Jamaica in 1932, a young man to whom his island of the 'Thirties must have been challenging to sanity. The return lit no fires of loyalty in him. He was made more obdurate by the system of paternal racism which gently but firmly settled the blacks at the foot of the table. Poking about the mores was entering strange countl:y. Self dislike was endemic. The sickness was cultured in the . early years, in the schools, where black schoolteachers . selected white children for the front of the class, and gave them the prime parts in school plays. In the churches, white plaster saints and Caucasian Christs ensured that the faithful knew whom to look up to. The Haitian experience had wiped his earlier memories of the twilight in which the black Jamaican intel­ lectuals existed. Confronted by the old indecencies, he would have fled to Brazil but for his light pocket. The urge to run grew, when, in reply to his application (supported by top grade testimonials}, he was offered a janitor's post in the white & mulatto staffedKing Street ban1 In 1936 he went to see Manley. Fairclough had in mind putting together a "Labour Party" but de­ sisted when he discovered the existence, obscure but legal, of an in- UWI L ibr ari es 175. active faction of identical title. He saw his mistake seven years later when Bustamante "took it up with much success." Fairclough judged that Manley was the one man to. whom Jamaicans of all races, and positions on the social slopes, would address allegiance. There was wide acceptance of him as the citizen "with greatest wisdom, the person to whom you woul give your hand and go out into the dark." Approbation from Fairclough, a hard, often jealous man, who had not a mawkish bone, is of vintage value. He saw this belief in Manley not only as a brown, middleclass-gape at the towering accomplishments of one with whom kith-&-kinship could be claimed, but held that he was as popular with the peasantry, in whom Fairclough himself felt rooted. But he was soon to be rattled. For his talk with Manley discovered that the 43-year-old lawyer's reading of Jamaica's problems placed the blame on the "social and economical, rather than political (and) was not very moved by my observance that social and economic problems come from • politics." However, the meeting was not entirely unproductive. "He offered to take a subscription in my Public Opinion newspaper" which Fairclough was planning along with the political party. That was it. In 1936. But Fairclough was not finished. A determined, energetic man of I immovable will, he walked up Duke Street to see his second choice, J.A.G Smith; but the touchy little lawyer/legislator also had his own ideas. He was a formidable Anglophile; and the troubles, to him, lay not in Britain, nor in colonialism, but in the calibre of her proconsuls. Smith declared he had no quarrel with the colonial society; his criticis was directed at Britain who insisted on sending "fifth-rate" officials to her colonies. ~ritain should be sending the chaps she let into the Home Service. UWI L ibr ari es 1 76. Two years were to pass before Fairclough again met with Manley, C.ON~ IS -(E,vC'f ~ but he pays tribute to hisA-•••••• for meanwhile Manley had founded Jamaica Welfare, the movement harnessed to the raising of social and economic levels. Then, on the day of Bustamante's release, Fairclough was at Number One pier, standing close to Manley when he sent out his call -to ·."all people of goodwill to enrol" at his office for service. But in a turnabout, it would be Fair£lough who would proffer the roster. Fairclough is credited with founding the People's National Party but always denied that he was a Socialist; _ he was certainly not a Communist, although, as a young man he had been attracted to both ideologies. He regarded himself as a "humanitarian", a regard which would have struck an accord with humanist Edna Manley to whom he had been introduced at the Pier, and at whose instance he was invited to visit at Drumblair. Both Manleys were by then readers of Public Opinion and with her enthusiasm for fresh ideas and active people, O.T.Fairclough, the 34-year old political thinker, would be a lively accession. He * went to Drumblair next day. So did Bustamante. A few days later when *Fairclough regards that visit as his first real political contact with Manley - although N.W. was absent from home that day, likely at the law library in the Supreme Court building catching up on his case work neglected for several days. I ' Manley b~gan his series of roadside speeches in the countryside that included a call for a political party/ Fairclough wrote his first signed newspaper article intending to "hold him to the da:iaration," as he puts it. It did. He was asked to visit the Manleys at Arthur's Seat, their holiday place in Clarendon, to talk about forming a political party. Was Manley a Socialist thai? (He, as were all the young progressives of the day, was an _avid rearer of the works published by the Left Book Club.) Did he plan for the PNP to be a Socialist party? Fairclough, who was closest to Manley in the initial discussions, and certainly the co-founder, with him, of the PNP, said there was UWI L ibr ari es J. u . never any "large ideological" talk between them and he did not think that II Socialist II ideas were strong then. But he adds : 11 I have a strong feeling that since he was a man who took a brief very quickly, he was profoundly influenced by (Sir Stafford) Cripps coming here." Contrary to a belief widely held, Cripps did not come to Jamaica for the purpose of providing the PNP with a prestigious beginning. He had travelled, in fact, incognito, on a private visit for the wedding of his daughter to his adopted son, Lucien Weaver. Weaver was on the szikely. island doing a book with an Hungarian dietician named News- paperman Fairclough found Cripps on a tip from a waterfront Customs officer and with a little difficulty from the holidaying Cripps, set up the meeting with Manley. An interesting side issue of the Manley- Cripps meeting was that Manley, then troubled by a stomach ulcer, was Szilcely put on a vegetable and fruit diet by and also soon gave up cigarette smoking, asceticisms shared with Cripps. Four years older than Manley, Cripps had entered the British par­ liament in 1931 on the Labour ticket. He was also a lawyer and had * been Solicitor-General in the MacDonald Cabinet. Work on the creation *He was later to be British ambassador to the Soviet Union for two years at the start of the war and signed the Anglo-Soviet mutual assistance pact. He served in Churchill's wartime Cabinet and was minister for aircraft production and later Chancellor of the Exchequer. He died in 1952. of the PNP was now well in hand and Cripps sat in on the early Consti­ tution meetings, including the momentou~ conference in the Silver SliPPE Club on the Sunday morning preceding the evening launching in the Ward Theatre. His was a "considerable assistance" confirms Fairclough, in the shaping of the PNP constitution, and he delivered one of the two main addresses at the famous War.dTheatre conclave. The other was of course by the party's Leader-designate, Norman Manley, K.C. UWI L ibr ari es 17 8 . The old Ward had never witnessed a larger crowd in living memory. "8~; It was a vindication ■ I& according to Fairclough,. must have been Manley's change .of heart; a new conviction that the people were ready for a political solution. In so doing, he had cheated the predictions of several in high places, who, with increasing stridence, had divined not only a public disinterest in politics, but, like the Gleaner, had * invoked heavenly deliverance from it. *A recent. Gleaner editorial had ejaculated: "From complete self-govern­ ment for Jamaica, good Lord deliver us! ... We do not think that even one political step in advance would be justified." The Ward meeting had Noel Nethersole as chairman. Nethersole, a lawyer, former Rhodes Scholar, bon vivant and All-Jamaica cricketer, was a close associate of Manley's and more than a fair example of the ** "hopeful signs" which Gladstone Wilson had seen. Bustamante, Legislator C.A.Little, Ken Robinson, O.G.Penso, Anglin Jones, C.G.Walker and C.A. *~ather (afterwards Monsignor, deceased) Gladstone Wilson, then a young Roman Catholic priest and reputedly the most educated Jamaican, and of immense intellectual influence at the time, in a much talked about speech three months before, had lashed out at the indifference and "typical snobbishness" of the middleclass who "unless an adjust­ ment takes place within their ranks, of which however there are some hopeful signs, may shortly find themselves bound hand and foot." Isaac Henry, all of the minding middleclass, browns and blacks, sat on stage. Cripps for his part spoke eloquently on "the birth of a new political party representing all that is best and most progressive in Jamaican life." He was caustic on the morality of colonialism, declarin<: that colonies existed for the Imperial needs. "That is why self-govern­ ment is withheld ... especially where the numerical majority of the people are not white in colour." "Many," sniffed the Gleaner, cautious but unrepentant, "marvelled at his candour." UWI L ibr ari es 179. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT Mr Manley's speech at the Ward inaugural was a personal and politi· cal manifesto. It caught the imagination of the country with extraordi­ nary power. The ideas were sinewy, the words tough, and his proposition: for solutions uncompromisingly blunt and direct. The acclamations roare, from pit and gods of the old playhouse, echoed by the thousands whopackec the concourse and Park at the theatre front in a phenomenal display of support. He acknowedged the herculean problems facing the sleeping country but posited that to shake it awake, politics was essential. The true awakening should not be towards the old colonial hogwash of a happy con­ tented people, smiling and smiling in the sun, but to "produce a people with a national spirit." For this, they should possess, and all share in, a political organisation disposed to their own destiny. It also now appeared from his speech that Fairclough had been off target in thinking he had left Manley unmoved by his passionate prognosis of politics as the cure. He had indeed been moved to spending "long time and energy" thinking and coming to the political view. Manley's strategy was to face his detractors (they were already in position) squarely in his speech, dealing first with the press which had charged him with being a Communist, or having Red associations; and by even more obscene footwork, with seeking to dump the leaders of the trade union movement. Asserting that he had never considered himself to be a labour leader, nor wished to head a union, he pointed out that the new Party was pledged to "raising the standard of life of the common people of this country (and) the labour movement is essentially involved" in the programme. As for the. Red tag, he denied any knowledge of Commu­ nists among his company and explained his own belief: UWI L ibr ari es 180 . "I do not believe tha Jamaica will discover herself by attempting . to borrow the theories and social systems of other countries with totally different problems and a totally different social structure." Again and again he was to bid that national unity would come only if the people were taken beyond an economic identity with the country . "All efforts will be wasted ," he said, "unless the masses of the people are steadily taken along a path in which they feel more and more that this is their home and their country and (so) their responsibility to work for its future ." Colonial paternity had broken down the sense of indepen nee and responsibility and created "desires for help and assis­ tance and infantile habits of thought . .. benevolently led (beside) still waters, with no higher ideal than contentment and ease ." The offhand dismissal of the institutions, groups, and opinions, of the ninety percent black, poor , peasant , and proletariat, by the English, including the "liberal" Fabian/Socialists, preaching equality as they provided Imperial governors and senior civil servants to the colonial I") cadre, .drew his mordanc yin one of the slow, curving cuts which had tJ/rr,oJ.JflL- CR,lt.:.k{:3, c:..r-t,VTFUIJ l};,J'i::, fo/1 T..s:/nA/4.J almost been invented by his comrade, ;\Crab." Nethersole . "I was strongly struck by an observation made in a speech in the House of Lords by Lord Olivier, a good friend of Jamaica (hear, he~r) who is claimed to be a socialist (and who blamed) Colonial governors (for) not consulting the two mos t representative bodies in Jamaica, the Chamber of Commerce and the Imperial A~sociation . (Laughter) "What a contempt of our democratic institutions," he told the guffawing ~udience . (Olivier had for a long time held history bemused as he strode through, split seat and all. Thirty-seven years before, in 1901, then acting Colonial Secretary , as a Fabian-Socialist he had been invited UWI L ibr ari es 181, to chair the Pan African Association's first public meeting called by visiting organiser, H. Sylvester-Williams and the great Dr.Robert Love. *Sylvester-Williams, a Trinidadian barrister living in London, was the uncle of George Padmore, celebrated writer on Africa and close asso­ ciate of Kwame Nkrumah, president of Ghana. One of the earliest fighters for full democratic power to black Jamaicans Love was born in Nassau, Bahamas, in 1835 ~ became an Anglican (Episoopalian priest, pastored in the American South, studied medicine in Buffalo, N.Y. and worked as a doctor in the Haitian Army, came to Jamaica in 1889. He fought formidably for a black presence in the Jamaican parliament, founde the Jamaica Advocate newspaper and died in 1914. He had an influence on Marcus Garvey who took his great cry, "Africa for the Africans", widened its scope with "At home and abroad~" and started a continent on the road to freedom - and a race sown across the seas to identify and retrieve its pride.) "We must claim a voice in our own affairs," he said, "and face the hard road of political organisation and the difficult tasks of discipline To develop our own capacities, our own powers, our own gifts for leader­ ship, until out of our own people we can assume responsibility for admin­ istering our own affairs." It was September 18, 1938, the hundredth year and 48th day after • I the Emancipation, and the children of the slaves were going into their revolt which was at last to bring full freedom. While he was calling for the politics of participation, Norman Manley was mindful of the formidable enemies which the new order would ?R.OVOk£ I He lashed out at the corporations and power groupings that controlled both King's House and some legislators, and warned that "the masters of the lobby and the backstair influence will not face a decline UWI L ibr ari es . 82. in their power without a murmur and a fight." They were the .ones "who look back upon what they regard as the beautiful past of peace and con­ tentment, of freedom from agitation." They were the verandah romantics * "who love our thatched huts and the picturesqueness of Back O' Wall. * Back O' Wall was a shanty town in Kingston's west end off the Spanish Town Road. As with Cripps, his plainspoken avowal that he too had "felt those sen­ timents," must have tinkled the brandy snifters in his clubs; for he was after all one of the privileged, of country • holidays and racing at Knutsford who had lived with the barefoots about him long enough "to become complacent"; because, as he added, "what you see everyday, you regard after a time as belonging to the order and nature of things." But it spoke immeasurably of the man who with all his immunity from need was placing himself among the conscripts. "We are not going to allow the old spirit of complacency to return, he cried. "Others must live, and whether we like it or not, the old spirit which covered inequality with sentimental kindliness is gone forever. "The new spirit must live and struggle. "Difficulties and dangers are its hazards; more life, its aims. "And every man who calls himself a true Jamaican mu;t work to keep it alive and to encourage the masses of this country to reach up for better things and to work to achieve them." (9 The accomplishment of this would be his life hereafter, and so he explained the Party blueprint with great care. It would operate on "the old and well tried principle of beginning with small groups that form the cells out of which the (organisation) body is built," he said, open­ ing a word association that was to haunt the Party's future; since £ill UWI L ibr ari es 1 83. was the currently emotive kindling for spreading a Red scare. And when Cripps later in the evening addressed his hearers as Comrades, the old Bolshevik bogey took on new hair. (The Party would, in later years, facec with powerful and tireless foes, take the pragmatic turn and cut its policy coat to suit the electoral cloth.) The PNP as he outlined it, would be a political organ with any number of affiliated groups; from whom the Party would require only the "duties of mutual aid and loyalty." Its sides were adhesive enough to hold the trade unions, the citizens' associations, the schoolteachers' societies, and the aggressively searching National Reform Association and the Progressive League. Membership fees were a shilling (10¢) a year plus whatever could be volunteered "to the limit of (one's) capacity." It was an extraordinary evening in the Ward: tiers of faces from floor to ornate ceiling, solidly packed and engaged in a silence punc­ tuated by sudden throaty roars as he showed them the vision. Outside, the speech was received over the relay in the same intent, and clearly you could hear the rattle of the trams switching into King Street, and the clipclop of an occasional horse-hackney plying for hire around the Parade. He brought them a vision of a high but scaleable mountain and * many who were there remember with an embarrassment of emotions. *St William Grant, already being shouldered aside and piqued at being denied a seat on stage, had moved into the Victoria Park where he held his own meeting. But history would take note. The Park, named for Queen Victoria .a century before, would be renamed for Grant at his death in 1977. "I may be talking as a visionary, as a foolish idealist, but if this Party is to succeed (it must be) based on foundations of a thoroughl1 planned and widespread educational c:ampaign among the people to be taught the Constitution and what sort of Jamaica they should aim at for their children. UWI L ibr ari es 1 84. "We don't want a foolish electorate at the mercy of every demagog and unable to unravel the tricks of undisciplined politicians. Nor can we expect great things of (our) people until we have raised their sense of values to give them something to work for. Only education can bring our people to realise that this is their country and that they can and must work for its betterment and for their own." Hitherto their politics had consisted of 14 elected men, usually in disarray, . facing the welldrilled corpsmen of nominated and official status who were expected to, and did, vote as the governor directed. National issues hardly existed, and where they did, drew little public protest. The "ten-shilling voter" went to the polls with a shrug and a grin, still chuckling at the sallies of the hired political tout, who, in election years, appeared at the street corner with his three-pronged oil lamp-on-a-pole haranguing the virtues of that year's client. To­ night, they were hearing that in a Party, they could demand "discipline" from the men put into office by the Party. Mr Manley turned to another bad nub. "It has always been the unconscious wish of the privileged to prevent the common people of the world from becoming aware of the power of disciplined organised political life as the chief interest of their own progress and uplift. Education in political appreciation (and) in the practical needs of everyday life and how they touch on political affairs is a first essential (in) an efficient and disciplined Party." For there was "a growing number of people who would love to see every­ thing settle back into the old jogtrot. (They) prophesy failure for this movement." It was the scene as it stood between the haves and the have-nots, brought under frank scrutiny by a man who was himself elitist. What was crackling into life onstage had in it the seeds of the People versus UWI L ibr ari es 1 85. the Rest, a tussle in which the discontenteds would slit the fat cats for a portion. And Manley and Bustamante, together on stage (the family gauntness causing a startling resemblance) by their presence were de- . claring an intent to form a common front. Or so it seemed. And whatever may have been the secret fear or hope of the St Andrew gallery-dallier, or downtown Marxist-planner, the reasons behind the choice of the Party label left in no doubt whom it would represent. It was to be a mass party "Our larger aims ... are to be found in the name of this Party. It is called the People's party because it will unswervingly aim at all those measures which will serve the masses of the country - whose interest must predominate above and beyond all other classes. "Then it is called National (because) if this little island of ours is to be consolidated, together, and bettered, it must be by develoI ing the idea of Jamaica as a national whole." He would have brought some comfort to the foxtrotters of the Glass Bucket, Half Way Tree's glittering nightclub where the rich drew behind its stucco walls to escape the accusing stares of the wretched, when he asserted, "I do not say that Jamaica is today ripe for self-government but I claim that we must start a movement working which will help us to become ripe for it." It was not that he was having misgivings but he was by training and temperament a man of preparedness, and excellence in what he did. The paths he had pursued were taken only after thorough physical condi­ tioning, mental labour and seeing to his spiritual bearings. He was saying that "the more effort, the more discipline, the more honesty we can throw into that work, the quicker" the country would be ripe for it. "I agree," he said, "that it is particularly hard in the conditions which exist today to develop our own self reliance and independence to - -- ··-------·-- ---- --------------------- UWI L ibr ari es 186. the point where we can claim the right to freedom in our own affairs. -" He believed that the absence of self discipline was a mark of political unawareness. He laid the blame on "the remarkable and rotten Constitution" that was so much the "perfect instrument for the degrada­ tion of political life, it cannot have been devised in error." He said to acclamatory shouts: "It is, in its very design, a pretence and a shadow of the reality of democracy! It gives the illu­ sion of power, without the reality of responsibility! It turns decent men into rancourous critics! It betrays enthusiasms and destroys hope~" Condemning the bad franchise which allowed just 60,000 voters in a populat·ion of 1,200,000, he bluntly declared that the system led to futility, corruption and bribery. "There can be only one sensible system and that is to give the vote to all the adults of the country!" A report described the ovation as of "unparalleled enthusiasm and duration." His hearers celebrated by a spontaneous decision that made his speech the first political address ever sent to the bookbinders. Circulated islandwise, it was studied and quoted as B~.promissory note for the new Jamaica. UWI L ibr ari es 18 7. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE N.N.Nethersole, rumpled, urbane and looking like a malicious pro­ fessor, one day took the financial fabric apart and showed its weakness. Baring his find of "a most remarkable discrepancy," he revealed that a third of the country's wealth was in the pockets of less than one percent of the people. And that a third of the income went into the pockets of this less than one percent. And that the others, the more than 99%, paid taxes "vastly more in proportion" than the wealthy. Puckishly, he pointed out that in fact, the rich paid one-tenth of the taxes. Nethersole was to become the first finance minister in the first PNP government 15 years later, in 1954; and in five years to cast his stamp indelibly on the economic future with his advocacy and laying of * the foundation for a Central Bank. In that earlier analysis, he brought *He died in office in 195q) mourned by political colleagues and opponents alike. out that less than half of those fortunate few paid any income tax at all and then, only two percent of their income. Indirect taxation accounted for the balance of the government's revenue including over $3-million ex­ cise on rum - "the poor man's drink. The reason is that the privileged classes have representation (in the legislature) and the poorer classes have none. You will never (change) that unfair incidence until the peoplE of the country have the vote and are entitled to (choose)their representati\es He was a staunch advocate at the time for an adult suffrage, and considering that he, Party Leader Manley and most of the leading activists ~f the Party were among the favoured and franchised, it was a courageous ~dmission. It also could have caused the recantation among some of the ~arlier comrades. For some slid back. UWI L ibr ari es 18 8 . Mr Manley's launching speech had stated a warning, and a hope. He had cautioned that "so soon as ever a leader attempts achievement in this country, others press and surge to tear him down." His hopewis that the Party would make Jamaica "a real place and a real country." The first would be swift; the latter not late but lagging. Within months he was having to consider suing one newspaper for a "peculiarly vile" libel. But causing even more concern was the apostasy of early colleagues. He commented that some were scared and others apathetic. Personally, he was going strong. He had moved his dreams into the realities of the fleeced, the quashie whose trust he had to gain while not foregoing the occasional King's House dinner; a feat of balance somewhat overlooked in these later days of the trade union cocktail circuit, when delegates are equally at home in luxury hotel and at the factory gate. But if a few earlier supporters were weakening, some better timber, young and already seasoned in the field, were at hand. The National Reform Association (NRA) had dissolved itself into the PNP, led in by its founder, youthful, intense leftist Ken Hill, his brother Frank, younger, of harder angles and equal eloquence and only a little less an efficient organiser, the lean boyish lawyer Richard Hart, a fiery intel­ lectual, and others. They were the people whom Manley once described as "a united collective team of vigorous and able men." They were, he has said, some of his most valuable supporters. But the workload was appalling, whatever the aid he got. He was fully in the courts as he was being relentlessly drawn into politics. There was increasingly less time to sit under the old yoke tree at Drwnblair with Edna to talk about the future. His sister, Muriel (Dr Manley) was back from Britain where UWI L ibr ari es 1 89. she had been in practice for many years. A small, neat, nutbrown woman whose genteel good looks and beautifully modulated voice disavowed her quiet strength and mischievous humour, they were close in an unaffected way. He commented with pride and gladness that the English years had not dislodged her essential Jamaican. His own next year would be thoroughly unsettled by a full court slate while applying his furious energy in building the political party, a task which was proving tougher than had appeared. However, within a year there were over 150 party groups across the country. The idea of partisan politics had been accepted by the middle and even some members of the upper income levels; but the workingman, who saw his disabilities in the facts of the economy as it affected his earn­ ings, gave his main ear to the promise of payroll improvement by way of the union. It soon developed that the PNP was identified with the white collar worker. But there was no other political party alive so the effect was only academic. Except for the party in King's House, an inscrutable mandarin who was proving adept at the martial arts. in King's House, The governorA Sir Arthur Richards, was a man who absorbed power like a sponge. Dictatorial and vindictive, he sought, before his first year was halfway through, for such massive personal control that his usually docile legislative council at one time bucked under the saddle - for a few hours. It was to do with a new law to restrict the right of holding public meetings at the will of the governor. So solidly did the 14 electeds oppose, that, Richards, for the first time in the Council, gave way. But not really. "A pleasant little chat in private with the Attorney General ... brought them to heel," leered the Jamaica Standard. UWI L ibr ari es 1 9 0 . Nethersole, usually well-mannered as a bishop, found him "remarkable for the intensity of (his) invective and the manifestations of angry emotion. ' Yet Richards was a man of progressive outlook, who was publicly for adult suffrage, a larger legislature and a Jamaican civil service of fewer ex­ patriates. But his Smith Constitution Commission did not endear him to the PNP reformers. The proposals did not provide for immediate adult * suffrage. *A House Select Committee headed by J.A.G.Smith had been appointed to draft and submit constitutional proposals to the British Secretary of State for the Colonies which would be, in essence, no different from the pre-1865 constitution which had guaranteed representative government. The Smith proposals included provision for a two-chamber • legislature: a Governor-nominated upper council and an elected House of Assembly - elected by the same limited electorate until the ques­ tion of franchise was settled in England. Power would still remain with the Governor who would rule through an Executive Committee of Ten, half of whom would be his civil servants or other appointees. The proposals brought severe rebuke from Mr Manley, directed at what he called the "chastened Council" sitting under the "presidential imitation of Homer." He laid down the dictum to Richards that the formin g of a Constitution should be left to the legal experts. (In after years, he would be criticised by his Party colleagues for his dependence on • "experts".) He was especially acid on fellow lawyer Smith, who, he in- ferred, was cluttered with cant and scraps of half forgotten Constitu­ tional Law. He dismissed any proposals for what he considered a diarchical government and referred to a failure of the Ceylon government. You could not rule if wholly excluded from the body that sanctioned your plans. The procumbent approach to self government left him livid. "Do we want self government ever at all? Then ask for it now! To ask for less is political childishness. Do we offer any compromises? No! Let the Colonial Office say what less they propose to do." His anger was in mid-June, before the war in Europe, a happening that would soften the hard PNP line; but Manley was adamant in his demand UWI L ibr ari es 191. if not for an absolute independence, then at least for responsibility in internal affairs - although he was willing to concede a veto power to the governor. He trenchantly chided his critics, who cited the island's small size, that Newfoundland was self governing, "a population half as large and twice as poor as Jamaica." 0 That he had the guile and iron to lead, was to be established earl1 because of a Bustamante blunder. From Montego Bay, Busta had called a general strike for the sole purpose of ousting rival unionist, A.G.S. "Father" Coombs whose two-year-old Jamaica Workers & Tradesmen's Union controlled the northside port. The shippers, mainly the United Fruit Company, immediately ducked behind the gangling "Father" Coombs who was not only able to shut down the port, but above all, whom they wilily saw as a boom to split the rising Bustamante wave. It almost worked. Governor Richards in Kingston slammed down a State of Emergency edict, shut off wire service communication between Bustamante and his union * offices in the city and elsewhere. The shippers were elated. The tradt * A cautious postmistress, who knew where the power lay, held back the Busta telegrams until her superiors had ruled on whether to despatch them. Her superiors went upstairs to Richards. union movement seemed ready to founder. Busta, who throughout his caree1 was to sense danger with uncanny acuity, felt the wriggle along his antennae and sent for Cousin Norman. It could be that Manley's knowledge of Richards made him resist Busta's prodding to make a run for London and report the plight of the union. At any rate, Manley refused to embark for London and settled for a short trip to King's House. The infant labour revolution slipped close to disaster because of Busta's wildcat style and bad logistics. Drafting the military into UWI L ibr ari es 19 2 . manning the essential publiQrervices, and providing police escort for the hordes of hungry unemployeds ready to risk beatings so their familie could eat, the lid was put on the union - and then the employers turned sav~gely on them. Employees displaying the slightest union loyalty were ruthlessly fired. The lack of understanding or awareness of the social and economic vise that forced the barefoot rebellion against the system, was responsible for such dismal rationalities as legislator Harold Alla turning strike-breaker by inviting city wharfowners to deploy their ships to Port Antonio. When Bustamante hustled over to organise the Port Antonio workers, he was chased out of town. The workers were being divided and falling. It was then that Manley entered the affray with a virtuoso performance. It established with certainty the continuance of organised labour in Jamaica. Manley had a good reason for calling at King's House instead of taking the long safari to London. He went to see Richards because that brutally efficient governor had succeeded in recapturing power for King• ~ House from such old bastions as the Daily Gleaner company and the Imperic Association. (Richards once told Manley that he would break the power of the Gleaner, "and, 11 Manley says, "he broke them.") As the solus man in authority, his ego was enormous. Manley, the resourceful courtroom practitioner, went inside that ego with surgical skill. They talked for two or three days, several hours each day. Richards was angry at both employers and union although it was Busta who bore the brunt. At one point he was for locking him up, but Manley drove along with persuasion and tact. They reached a compromise. Richards agreed to pound some instructions into the employers which woul d take them off the union, provided Bustamante agreed to Manley's proposed Trade Union (Advisory) UWI L ibr ari es 19 3. Council to act as honest broker for the unions, to bring some order among the conflicting groups and to ensure the honouring of labour cop­ tracts. In exchange for calling off the strike, employers would be ordered to raise the siege they had fastened around the labour movement. Under the pressure of imminent collapse, Busta yielded; but held out against another Richards' proviso that he drop his name from the BITU. The TU(A)C accordingly came into being; it was shortlived. After months of uneasy sharing, Busta quit and founded his own set of advisers. How­ ever, the forming of the TU(A)C was to bring into active participation several of the younger men who had for years been studying trade union theories and were Sterling (who was eager to go into practice: Ken & Frank Hill, Ken • ~ k to turn out~a superb organiser and an important figure in international trade unionism), Frank Spaulding (afterwards like Ken Hil l , a Mayor of Kingston) and others, all to be of importance in the political course. So unionism was not only saved by the as yet unannounced Socialist, but also tacitly endorsed by the Colonial regent who years later was to accept a Socialist peerage. A few months earlier, Manley had wondered of Richards: "Does he know what I really think, or I he?" They respected but did not necessarily like each other. They were both men of stout egos; Manley has owned to "a great sense of superiority to most though I deeply admire all men of proved worth and value." UWI L ibr ari es 19 4 . CHAPTER THIRTY Richards' "worth and value" - he may not have wanted it so - was especially favourable to a rapid growth of nationalism, of a kind. The Jamaica Standard, in the summer of '39, grumbled that "Britain would never have won the last war if the press had refused to criticize the government of Mr Asquith." The paper was squirming under the strictures of the governor who was now soundly into the intransigence which would mark his regime. He was muzzling citizens and legislators by outlawing public meetings, and choking off debate he considered controversial. Underneath the facade of Oriental imperturbability, had been exposed nerve ends of violent reactions to opposition. The disclosure shocked his subjects. His bitter rebuke of those who criticised relief works (fifteen cents a day and a hot noon lunch for swamp clearance) rattled the few friends he might have made. Serving also to alienate was his legal kidnapping of such disparate people as activists Bustamante, Ken and Frank Hill and anti-labour newspaperman Gordon Scotter under war­ time powers of undetermined detention. He would unite as never before (nor since), the island population of blacks, browns, whites, Jews, Chinese, Indians, Arabs. The cautious and the bellicose would patch their differences and appear jointly in public for one of the most unusual civil rights protests ever made. But it was wartime. Richards could invoke his special powers and virtually rule by edict. Manley, himself a veteran and authentic war hero, and aware of the broad streak of sentimental Empire loyalty running through his future political constituents, issued a statement declaring the Party's opposi­ tion to any act inimical to Britain's war effort. It was apparently UWI L ibr ari es 1 95. * · survival and honest sentiment. He was aware that, as he put it, the *Mohandas K. Ghandi had no such qualm. His All-India National Con~ gress executive at the Allahabad Declaration promised not to support • the British war effort "unless Great Britain revises her policy and accepts the Congress' demand for democratic independence for India." "active and intelligent" PNP propaganda had "irritated" some. Yet, he added slyly, it had done good; he was not saying that the walls of Jericho were down, "but at least the men on the ramparts are listening to the noise." With no less speed and enthusiasm, Bustamante was also fulfilling a Gleaner backslapping prediction that he would be "actively recruiting on behalf of His Majesty's forces at no distant date." What Manley would not allow was the death of the year-old revolu­ tion or a falling back into the old laissez faire. And this would happer he saw, "unless vigorous political life develops and can ally itself to a strong labour organisation." A quiet remark which makes it clear that while it was early yet, he saw the growth of popular politics in a Party & Union alliance. The theatres of activity would be, on one hand, the mass employeds in the urban and plantation bounds, and on the other, the small self-employed cultivator, the great peasant culture of which, unlike most of his confrere, he was so deeply aware. He was working at the first in a kind of Christian diplomacy, being wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove, since already labour-leader Cousin Alex was displaying a strong inclination to march in front, and alone, to the promised land. There was no doubt, at that moment in time, whom the majority of the urban working class would have elected to be their Moses. But among the hill people, _the integrity of Manley's interest in them was unquestionable. Decently before · the '38 upheavals, while he UWI L ibr ari es 1 96. was yet shy of politics, indeed had rejected it as a problem solver, he had, by his own genius, created the unique Jamaica Welfare in the inter· est and for the enrichment of rural life. In the subsequence of the fresh look, and the new thinking, jolted into activity by the Mark Vlls of the Colonial constables, he was insisting that the day's politics, poor as it was, with no power to the people, be deployed to make land­ owners of the desperately disadvantaged "quarter to two acre cultivator , Unhappily for him, the loyalty this may have generated was not suffi­ ciently strong to resist the Bustamante campaign propaganda in ·the '44 general elections. By the time of that fateful year, the irony was in place; the same small farmer whom Manley had so doughtily championed in the voteless years, had succumbed to the agitprop which placed the PNP among the Communist predators waiting to gobble up even the miniscule quarter acre. But that was yet to be. So here he was now rousingly supporting the famous Orde-Brown Report, a document he regarded as the * closest of any official survey to his own and Party views. He agreed *Major G. St J. Orde-Brown, Labour Adviser to the Colonial Office. that land settlement should be people settlement; should be a stroke for social reconstruction and not an exercise to ease employment. And he charged that even in this undiscerning functioning, the wrongness wap heightened by the handlers who sold the best land to speculators, and the next best to farmers of medium prosperity, the scrub going to "the men who really want help." (!) The memorandum which he and Nethersole had sent to the Concilia- tion Board, plugging the need for a government labour adviser, gained the support of Richards who pressed for a first class man in the post; an insistence with which Manley concurred, especially after a letter UWI L ibr ari es 1 9 7. from Lord Olivier in which the gregarious ex-governor let drop to his friend that most of the advisers sent to the colonies were "ignorant * and helpless. 11 The concern for quality control was also entering the *They got a good one, 'FJ{~,JI-{ Noman, whose skill and enthusiasm established a useful and active Labour ~part:rrent. local political system by the self regulatory device inherent in growth. The lonely old thunderers, with their vituperatives fully reported in Hansard, the fellows who in return for a good record of Ayes to a gov­ ernor's proposals could successfully scout the corridors buttonholing the English senior civil servants for constituency favours, were still in the Legislature; but ending their days. A cadre of youthful, intel­ ligent, vigorous men - and a phenomenon in politics then, women - were reacting to a new kind of rhetoric which spoke with candour not only of "governments so obviously out to keep in the good graces of the upper classes," but bluffly of a programme of non-progress deliberately en­ couraged by a "Colonial Office still pliant to the wishes of the (British} vested interests." Wishes, that, in short order, had killed the hopes of at least four Jamaican enterprises before they could start: cement, cornmeal, condensed milk and a public transport service. The blocking of lo.cal entrepreneurs from the important servicing and manufacturing ventures in the colony, and the barring from shopping for merchandise in the cheaper competitive markets outside the Empire's tariff walls, may have been a reason for the PNP attracting spirits that by tradition ought to have been favouring the conservative right and not the leaners to the left. Some, of course, saw, in Manley, the acknowledged trend-setter now in identity with a movement which could be used to heal their frustrations at the supercilious English settlers soldiers and civil servants. Busta, with devastating consequences, UWI L ibr ari es 19 8. in 1944, was to seize the fact and tag the PNP for a "brown man's party" The label lost them the mass support then being assiduously sought with some success by the hardworking young Marxists in the Party. But before this came the September 1940 internment of Bustamante by Richards for fomenting strike talk on the waterfront, freedom of speech being an * early war casualty. Seized with Busta was W.A.Williams, the man who had stood with Manley on the coal car, by then a BITU vice president in charge of the maritime division. For exactly 17 months, Manley was alone, out in front, free to weld his Party into a politically educated, strongly disciplined organi­ sation, and to keep the Union strong and loyal to the political party since the hope had not yet been lost that the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union would be the mass arm, the\Oting machine of the PNP at the next general election which should have come in 1940 but for the war. The Union-Party alliance had its first modest success in elections through the TU (A) C's Nethersole. "Crab" had been named president of the TU(A)C with Florizel Glasspole as secretary of what was regarded as a -t1-1c senate to the unions, a clearing house for ideas and actions. In charge A of the trusted Nethersole, it was to have given the PNP a high-visibilit~ window over the affairs of the already sprawling and growing BITU and it~ -A maverick unpredictable leader who was running it like a "Joe Reid Court" ~*A legendary court set up by migrant Jamaicans in Panama during the canal building earlier in the centur y with a .Judge, Joe Reid, who imposed his own fines and/or unique sentences. *** and gaining a reputation for rictal comedy. ***Busta once fired his assistant St William Grant and himself from . the union. then instantly re~instated himsel.f as leader. UWI L ibr ari es 199 . Nethersole ;was an unli kely man to win an election, had it not been held under the old voter roll listing only landed proprie tors and "ten- * shilling" voters . He was an intellectual wit_,with an unusual capacity * But under adult suffrage, ha was to win and hold a St Andrew seat by virtue of a fine organisation and fiercely loyal organise rs. for making strong friendships . Throughout his tragically short political life, he was noted for frank , unafraid appraisals of men and matters . At a public meeting in Morant Bay, with Manley at his elbow, ha acknow­ ledged the l.>arty's "existence (through) the individual effort and domi­ nance of Mr Manley" but went on to assert that the "intolerable condi­ tions" WdS the "circumstance , perhaps above all .•• . that made t.11e orguni­ sation and the foundation of the Party so opportune and well timed ." Manley was the convenor , not the cause . The elements, already present , had gathered at the catalyst . Only Mr Manley applauded . appalled. The "Crab" ) .ttJ1Ji1, ~ by default ,~a seat on the city council Seymour, a tall, droll Jew who represented St Andrew in the legislature, had resigned his seat to take up the lucrative and influential post of Chairman of the new Water Commission. The Mayor of Kingston, Dr Anderson, one of the leading lights .:in the Federation of Citizens' Association, was put up for the vacant legislative seat by the ~ederation. Nethersole was the PNP candidate . Anderson , a bustling , tireless man with an old established political roput;;i.tion , waged a camI)aign t.;.at quite outmanoeuvmd the fledgling Party canvasse..-ra. In spite of a skilled profes.sional tout, Leonard Waison, on Nethersole's platform, to identif y with t.~e smallest Cten-shilling") voters, and the appearance for the first time in an elec­ tion campaign of loud- ;:; ak.er rigged cars, nothing could clea1:: the upper­ class taint from Nethersole or his woll-meaning friends . One newspapGr UWI L ibr ari es 200 . editorial _ gave as his qualifications for representing the people, his "high social rating, an Oxonian and plays the game of cricket." The paper also went on to obliquely call for class support by reminding them that the St Andrew socialites had turned out in numbers ten years before to elect Seymour-Seymour, the wealthy landowner. It was the kiss of death. Dr Anderson romped home by a comfortable margin 1,559 to 974. But the Federation did not oppose when the PNP picked "Crab" for the city council seat vacated by Anderson's elevation; and with only Independents in the field, the unlikely bellwether became· a shoo­ in. Now they had a voice, however small, in elected office. "I am . glad that we have started at the bottom of the ladder," Manley said, "for now we will climb steadily to the top until the Party becomes the instrument for good it is bound to be." The climb would not be orderly as was hoped; but as an instrument for good, the Party was getting closer. It was certainly on hand to save the labour movement when Bustamante was locked up. UWI L ibr ari es 201. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE In East Parade's redbrick Coke Methodist Hall one August evening in 1940, Manley stated in clear language to those who had "not hitherto (so) regarded the Party," that the PNP was Socialist. He should not have expected them to. When the Party was:teing formed its original pro­ gramme was not socialist. Its claim was reform thinking though it con­ tained elements common to socialists and liberals. It was the call to public ownership which brought the sourest puckers to the sugar factory owners and margin-gathering importers. Yet, mused Manley at Coke, such a policy might equally be accept­ able to a purely reform movement. So he proceeded at this second anni­ versary conference to a critical appraisal of some options. "Socialism is more than the mere reform of the existing system. Socialists and Liberals alike may agree on thinking that socialservices must expand as rapidly as can be so that better education and free and more easily available medicalse:rvices, better provision for old age and heightened standards of living may obtain for all. But all these things are perfectly consistent with a Conservative policy. "For that matter, ·they are not inconsistent with a Fascist policy. "Some countries which stand high today in the range of improvement in the standards of living of the common people and in the evolution of social services are dictatorships in principle and practice." His thin, highboned face wearing a light sweat in the hot, crowded hall, he spoke with emphasis on the consequences which could follow the adoption of his Socialism. "What I wish to stress (is) I do not wish these proposals to be adopted in a lighthearted spirit (but with) full recognition of the obli­ gation to learn what Socialism is, to learn how its principles can be UWI L ibr ari es 202. applied in this country and how they may be explained to the people." For now his innocence was behind him; he was already battle­ scarred from encounters with a .hostile press. He knew that in the long years ahead, he would be opposed by a free enterprise establishment of considerable force and implacability. He foresaw that he would need a power base, the support of an enfranchised mass that understood the issues and would bar the racial route historically always available, but divisive, at this hour. For above all, they must be prepared to face bitter opposition and disapproval from those to whom Socialism was a more "real enemy" because it "involved a demand for (utter) change" in social and economic conditions. "If it involves anything less," he stated flatly, "then it is something less than Socialism." He gained intensified applause from the back of the house when he hinted at nationalisation as a main plank in the Party platform. To him, Socialism was not a question of higher wages or better living conditions for the workers, although the latter was the purpose, but involved the comprehension of "all the means of production being pub­ licly owned and publicly controlled." Over the prolonged cheering, he cried: "You and I, all of us, have been bred in a system in which all the means of production are privately owned! All the sources of wealth in our country and in the British Empire are privately owned! It is not only a matter of saying you will distribute more of the profits of the business to the (workers, but that) the business should belong to the workers!" He saw that the way to insert mobility into a society notorious for its mindless hold to class and race was through Socialism since "we were born into a society in which certain classes unquestionably UWI L ibr ari es 20 3. enjoy enormous privileges which under this system, ~ill not be open to everybody. " near But this scion of 1landed gentry,· genteelly impoverished as that had been, beneficiary of an education on a plane out of reach to the vastest conceivable majority, sought-after solon of the day and now the courageous defector from his class, was not asserting a wholesale caste-less society. His political philosophy, he said, ie., Socialism, was "founded on a belief that it is possible to organise a genuinely egalitarian society in which all opportunities will so far· as possible be equal and open to all persons, subject to the basic necessities of preserving society." The heat of the day dictated the degree of his prudence; and it was a reservation containing no guilt, but rather, by his audience, judged then, a boldness; and consequently prolongedly applauded. Reality is subject to the moment. Some did not agree with the concession to prudence of course, and so the stage was set for the players to appear in order down the years, some to play it cool according to their reading, _others to hit their lines with .a passion for ideological purity; yet all safely inside the extensive perimeters enclosing the democracy of socialism. Such were the times, _with a world war escalating in Europe and visions of the apocalypse strong in men's minds, it waseasy to see the old world in ruins. Indeed, Manley saw the postwar governments divided in two camps: socialism and dictatorship, the .only exception being the United States and that only for "a generation" because of its natural resources and the power to expand its economy - and because that country * regarded Socialism "with far greater aversion than Nazism." With the *He was particularly severe on the U.S. at this period. "The system that they (the U.S.) aim to preserve," he once said, "is one in which the thing they are supposed to call freedom is said to exist at its highest possible value." He was not being unreasonably UWI L ibr ari es 20 4A. harsh since the record of l ynchings and assorted bestialities by white upon black Americans was, at the time phenomenal. It did not endear him to the Americans. Years later they wreaked a small vengeance by incarcerating him on Ellis Island, their migrants' pen, while passing through their territory. · future thus apparent, he was constantly urging Party members to study all facets of Socialism and help to educate their constituents. "It is the business (of leaders) to master our own methods, and our own minds, and our own ideals, so we may at once inspire our friends and confound our foes." But he taught that, whatever it was, the ideology was no rigid dogma but a principle to be applied to the particular situ­ ation. He warned eloquently against the doctrinarians. "When people accept a view that has the conviction of religion, you face the danger of allowing your thoughts to be tied into neat little packets, carefully labelled by other people and pulled out of the right pigeon hole at the right moment ... " He also had to bear the charge of being bloody-minded and an anti ­ Christ, soon to be the continuously carried cross of the Jamaican Soci­ alists, not yet in full yowl, but growling. So at that definitive PNP conference (1940), • Manley sought to calm his foes, and protect him­ self from his friends, by denying any bias for violence or irreligion, while frankly acknowledging the presence of some "intellectual camrunists" about him. Almost lightly, he dismissed their potency. He took a brief glance at their hereness and posited they would be working for PNP aims and not on edicts from Moscow. Well, they did work with and for the Party, giving strong assist­ ance through the years of bleak popularity following the break with Bustamante; building a credibility among the mass voters to which the rightwing arm of the Party would have futilely beckoned. But the time would come when their motives became suspect and he would watch them hustled into the political wilderness. UWI L ibr ari es 20 4B. He would have held an awareness also, close to him as it was, .of a crisis being wrestled with. The creative Edna Manley, although taking to her wifely leeks with public enthusiasm, had her private misgivings ~ 111111 politics. There is, she thought in a splendidly galloping hyperbole, a "complete extinction of the creative artist during wars etc." The M.,Vt.iL wars etc., of Norman's entry into politics ·-- chancing what she regarded as her "umbilical cord" which provided the specially translated ingre­ dients; the "one contact with reality and life and that is through (the creative artist's) highly sensitive and delicately adjusted sensory approach." And what happens to the artist in politics? Oh, rough, indeed. He (or she) starts "getting emotional experiences crammed down (one's) throat, through entirely foreign and wrong channels" and a creative damage, or death, looms. Edna, eminently tough when required, was not afraid of life. "The contact with life, however sordid, however brutal, is essential; but it must be through the creative awareness, not through any other way. 11 This was how she thought; and he was a sharply probing man with more than the shaggy interest in intangibles of the average fellow who .S HI-\K€$. ft off like dew the experiences and consciousness struggling towards perception. He would be aware. ■ II 'lCVIN4 /l The Union came under PNP leadership andAC:===:::::: :::=JJ;s the youthful, 1)1 IL..ITfl-N'TS O 'P Tlt6 c_t) fh tYIG' /.J<:.c7:> e..;-r ·17;,1~ intelligentk1,_.---------PartyA_....----ii:-~ into practice the theories they had so enthusiastically studied in the recent years . The PNP strategists saw sugar, the country's heaviest employer of labour, oi:: 'PcP. UN 101-1 () cnoA/5 as the industry,,most promis.£' ,._---------- and by the presence of sugar estates in all the rural parishes except Manchester, to be t.~e most effective medium for spreading a political gospel among the country folk . UWI L ibr ari es 2 06. As in the earlier global conflict, sugar had taken on wartime importance as a food staple and munition materiel. The steeply rising cost of living brought added hardship and offered an inducement to or- . ganising. But hard against these positives were three centuries of isolated communities lacking in national cohesion. It had hardly caused Harold Allan any sweat to talk the Port Antonio stevedores into working the ships the Kingston dockers had struck. The violent opposition of employers to the idea of trade unions was a constant obstacle, active and virulent after two years. Only tight organisation and total loyalty would decide success or rout. But there was an even more disconcerting adversary to face. Manley's probing noises about the low wages on sugar estates had brought quick reaction from Governor Richards. Surprisingly liberal in social thinking as Manley had found him, he was nevertheless the King's man in Jamaica, in the middle of a world war, and his job was to deliver sugar to Britain and other ports concerned with the Allied effort. That bespectacled vizier would chop any subject displaying the least leaning to sabotage. And unmistakably clear, he so warned the PNP/BITU heads. Manley's, he hinted, would be the first to roll. "It had the earmarks of a desperate adventure," Manley once reminisced, ."but a necessary one if unionism was to survive." It was a cliff-hanging scenario all the way while the country troubledly waited for him to join his cousin Bustamante in the army lock-up. It was a tribute to his grasp of practical consequences that he spoke and acted his role as leader with no loss in thrust, and yet stayed loose. It had to be cloak and dagger stuff, a melodrama played for real, .when he struck the sugar industry. He had seen how the BITU through lack of planning was clobbered in the longshore struggle. The disarray had lasted. He found the UWI L ibr ari es 2 07. Union without · .funds, small membership and in confusion. He countered with three priorities: re-organisation, generating stronger loyalty, and a study of strategic locations for launching the attack on the sugar manufacturers. The Party's long and close work in the rurals now stood them in . good stead. They chose St Thomas for the first battlesite. It was in St Thomas parish that the Party had established its first constituent structure to name a legislative candidate, Rudolph Burke. A team of fanatically dedicated young militants turned their obdurate faces to the eastern parish. They entered unobstrusively and commenceq. a back window dialogue that hardly ever rose above a whisper and scarcely ever waged in daylight. Secrecy was the strength. The threat of Richards' power and the fear of emotional excitement among the strikers that could , as had happened, stumble them into the paths of police bullets, made the strike-drill of tactical importance. Manley found careful men in the communities and appointed them delegates. He _slipped into the vil­ lages at nights and swore them on his King James Version by lamp or candlelight. Each drill-master received written details of the time and conduct of the strike. The strategy not only gave the workers a sense of purpose and responsibility, but a grounding and a belief in organisa­ tion - the nub of the political training so strongly advocated by Manley in those early political years. The St Thomas men were instructed not to gather in public but to stay indoors. By strike call, Manley himself had sworn some 500 people. Since 70 ·years before, men had been hanged in the same pa:r::sh for considerably less activity, the exercise was not * without personal peril. It was cloak & dag9er stuff but it worked. At the Morant Bay Rebellion in which almost 600 people had been massacred by the authorities. UWI L ibr ari es 20 8. The strike call was made by the force of young activists, going, the night before, from house to house, _slipping notices under the doors of the estate labourers' barracks. It was a clockwork device that assured there would be no crowds, _no machetes, _only a silence in cane­ field and square. And because of it, Frome was not re-visited: nobody was shot down nor canefields burnt. The strike was successfully launched and the agenda immediately lengthened. On the list to follow would be the vast sugarfields of Vere, which, like Frome, were owned by the West Indies Sugar Company (Tate & Lyle). But the cold efficiency of the "new" trade unionists had roused another icy strongman. The political minuet in which Richards and Manley had paired off took another turn that autumn. Richards had been in Britain and came back at the crucial moment of Manley's decision to shut down Vere. Manle1 was in fact evangelizing Vere with the now familiar black Bible, swear­ ing the delegates to secrecy, when he was summoned to King's House. The summons, conveyed by motor cycle courier, was peremptory; and being very aware of Richards' power to nail him under the wartime emergency, he lost no time. He broke off and drove hard for King's House, arriving around midnight. I Governor Richards again proved, _after much talk,to be the just, but devious, manipulator, whom, if Manley never grew to like, he could * respect as an intellectual opponent. He had the horsetrading instincts compounded of English egoism and Eastern guile. They talked about the *rt was during Richards' regime that Mr Manley was invited to become Attorney General, the lower of the 3-rung ladder that • would lead to Chief Justice ~nd a knighthood. He declined. war and books and music and anything else that rose in the conversation - but made no mention of Manley's Vere crusade , for a couple of hours. UWI L ibr ari es 2 09. In the middle of a dissertation on the merits of tank warfare in Burma, Richards suddenly broke off to say all that was fine, but what about the strike? They sat in easy chairs at the open jalousies while outside the ceremonial guards tromped the concrete d.ri veway. Manley spoke with logic and passion. He has since believed that Richards understood. In 1940, he placed Richards as one who had "adopted the goals of socialism in the language of a statesman and a thinker." His private ideology no doubt dictated his rule. He created his own system of checks and balances which was perhaps misunderstood because of the autarchy pro­ fessed in his ill-chosen style. He did much to knit the society - not by weaving its parts but because of his starchiness. It came unfixed at the first partisan heat. The ranks he closed by applying his deten­ tive powers in disregard of race or social place, broke when those powers were lost. It could be significant that none were packed off to his jailhouse for their Socialist avowals, only Communist suspects, a white man, and a wild, unmanageable one. What seems probable too is that in breaking an organised group (i.e., the PNP) which had produced a work stoppage without violence, Richards knew he ran the risk of let­ ting in anarchy and the consequences of local retaliation on the people by his law and order forces - an act acutely awkward for the British war image as crusaders against the Nazi racists. So, with Manley, he reached an agreement on a formula for settlinc the strike. They fitted together a system that tied wages to the cost of living, provided immediate wage increases, and set the sugar estates in categories - the estates would be classified and the large sugar makers would_ guarantee the small estates against losses incurred by the increased payrolls. Richards would "persuade" the big fellows to UWI L ibr ari es 210. fall in line and the_ government would bear half the cash burden.* Although Richards, later Lord Milverton, survived the eclipse which usually followed the last post of a Colonial governor, hi°s repudiation of the Labour Party in the British House of Lords at his resignation from that Party, drew the acid comment in the House lobby from an outraged Peer that "the denunciation came • from a man of no great personality or influence in the political life of the country . •11 • • • • • As had been his strike plans, the moves were covert: Manley solemnly negotiating for the BITU with the sugar manufacturers whom Richards had secretly summoned and enjoined. "We argued and negotiated but it was a 'set hand' , " Manley said with a twinkle. "We both knew, the SMA and the BITU, that we would agree." It was a triumph for collective bargaining, the first in the country, and a tremendous boost to the prestige of the PNP which had provided the leadership the BITU lacked. But a success that was never e xploited by the PNP since nobody seemed to have cast ahead to the time when the Union and the Party would be irrevocably split. Manley, in later years, often spoke with quiet satisfaction of those days of ascendancy, when, led by the PNP, the BITU never lost a labour dispute . Their fealty was his for the taking; instead they were firmly told "that their loyalty was to the BITU." He was still convinced of Busta' i disinterest in party politics: the PNP would be the political arm, ~nd, with the union, form the Us against Them of the future political struc­ ture. He constantly exhorted his people never to forget that "the Party would lose its function if it ceased to represent the cause of labour ~ .. 11 r) But it was a tough kind of representing, wheri some of your best representations were classed as diabolical tricks. "A deliberate lie," he fumed, "(to say) that I was personally UWI L ibr ari es 211. responsible .for Mr Bustamante not having been able to appeal from his detention order." Tough, when the truth was that on your own initiative, you had gone out to search and brought in such good sound help as the National Council for Civil Liberties of Great Britain, and the Parliamentary Committee for West Indian Affairs in the United Kingdom. They could not, of course, do a damn . A war made the gover­ nor invulnerable. Made his position so protected that one of . the ugliest repressions of human rights, in a society long inured to judicial injustice, took its place in the roster with easy assurance. It concerned a black Jamaican/American militant named Domingo. I • UWI L ibr ari es 212. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE W.A.Domingo was a Jamaican-born journalist who in 1940 had lived in Harlem, New York, for 31 years of his 53 years. Like most blacks his exposure to the American Dream had made him familiar with nightmares; as an expatriate West Indian, it had awakened a super-patriotism for his Caribbean homeland. Being black and a bone-deep Socialist was not a combination likely to find favour in the U.S., where better-dead-than­ Red was taken with deadly seriousness. A taut, blunt, outspoken man, best described as a pragmatic intellectual, he had, with fellow Jamaicans in America, author Adolphe Roberts and the Reverend Ethelred Brown, founded the Jamaica Progressive League and the West Indies National Emergency Committee. Both organisations worked for the heresy of in­ dependence in the British Colonies. The League was to be one of the key links in the chain of friends ; those boldly visible and the carefully covert, who helped establish and sustain the PNP through the hard years when few would openly ack­ nowledge a sympathy with the Party, and almost all would violently deny a card-carrying involvement. Domingo was a strong critic of the American racial polices, which, at that time, embraced segregation, and degradation, of blacks with some enthusiasm. ·Exposed as he was to the tricks through which his adopted land endeavoured to project an image of freedom, he adopted quite early the habit of fixing a sharp eye on any avuncular moves made by Uncle Sam in these seas. His watchdog WINEC was therefore ready to close in when Winston Churchill in 1940 commenced talks on his famous * destroyers-for-bases deal with American president Franklin Roosevelt. *"Epochal and far reaching," Roosevelt said of it. 11 Most im­ portant action (of defense) since the Louisiana Purchase." UWI L ibr ari es 213. WINEC worked furiously in the corridors of the Organisation of American States and with justifiable pride Domingo could observe that but for his Committee, the West Indies "would have been sold (to the Americans) lock, stock and barrel," instead of merely offering them as bases. The Americans had wanted more. The eminent historian, Adolphe Roberts, agreed that "the islands would have been ticketed 'underdeveloped colo­ nies' in the political sense and (then) arbitrarily occupied" by the * Americans. Domingo was heartened by the success of WINEC for "four later named the West Indian National Council. months ago (the West Indies were) voiceless crown colonies. They still • are crown colonies but their nationalism has been recognised and their voices heard in a conference of American nations (for) now they have leaders. We (have) succeeded in forcing the 21 nations to recognise ** our basic human and political rights." **The man who championed the West Indies cause at the 21-nation Havana Conference was Dr Leopoldo Melo, the Argentine delegate, who argued that English, French, and Dutch Islands should be self-governing. Domingo was one of the brilliant young blacks who contributed to the now famous Harlem Rennaissance as a director of The Messenger, a monthly Socialist magazine. The Messenger had a circulation of around I 40,000 and was considered one of the finest American publications, black or white. It was quoted by the country's national newspapers and had a long list of prominent American subscribers. Domingo was the drafter of the Socialist programme which had the uneasy distinction of being published in full in the national dailies when it was seized in a police raid. Manley had entered into frank and frequent correspondence with Domingo, an action that was perfectly reasonable since the PNP leader UWI L ibr ari es 21 4. found in the Jamaica-born journalist, a like experience in thinking. "Capitalism," declared Domingo in one of his letters, "offers (our people) no future." Just private talks and thoughts between two people; except that, being wartime, the beady-eyed censors in Kingston and Washington were busily slitting open every envelope and perusing every word. What followed was not solely blamed on the Americans. For, as Domingo observed in urging Manley to work against racial discrimination at home, bigotry rad gained as much ground in Jamaica as in the cracker South. At Newcastle, the Jamaican military hill-station, there were signs over the washroom doors indicating which toilets were "For Eurcpeans" and "For Natives." .. Manley and his Party were suffering through what he called the "stiff, slow years" of political frustrations and obstructions and wel­ comed any assistance. Moreover, with Party funds desperately low, the American chapter of friends, already trained to political ingiving, in activist tithing, to preserve their fraternities in their racially hos­ tile land, was especially helpful. Domingo was absolutely committed to the idea of self government for the islands - not as a federation, but as independent units. Proven in political and trade union organising, skilled and experienced in the media, he would be a powerful ally in the PNP pledge to blow up a storm among the apathetic colonists. The war was going badly for the Allies. Domingo wrote Manley on a strategy for Jamaica in case of a British_ defeat. He wanted a "frontal demand" on Churchill, a hard asking for independence; as India had done. He was not skipping pages in his book. Lord Lothian for one had recently told a Pilgrim Society meeting that Jamaica and Burma were on the way UWI L ibr ari es 215. to self government. But such distinguished collaboration was not familiar to the snoopers in the offices of the censors. It was O.T.Fairclough, that sophisticated and gregarious man who had hauled Sir Stafford Cripps to Drurnblair to be the most important consultant at the Party's birth, who now led Domingo to Manley. He proposed that Domingo be invited. Manley was in favour and so it turnec out, was Domingo. But wrote Manley: "We fear taking the responsibility of asking you to come before we are sure as to how we could provide for you. The Party is desperately poor." Diffidently, he offered "the assurance of a salary of f4 a week and something being paid after your arrival to take care of your expenses (travel)." He added that he would personally guarantee the first year's pay. "I can see as far as that, whatever happens to me," he wrote sombrely, thinking of the enthu­ siastic jailer in King's House. The reply was equally quietly resolute. "I regard your invitation as a call to duty, one that a real pat­ riot cannot ignore or refuse. The salary offered is a sacrifice on my part but I know it means one from you as well." Meanwhile, a 1941 modification of the old colonial constitution proposed by Britain, containing the adult vote but retaining and even increasing the English governor's power, was being readied for local debate. Domingo, away from the scene, h~d written excitedly hailing the "new'constitution - on information gathered no doubt from the foreign press. He was quickly put to rights by Manley who privately despised it as a sop to his country's hunger for self rule. "Logically," he wrote Domingo, "we, as a Party standing for complete self government, should set our faces against (it) but Jamaica is perpetually falsifying UWI L ibr ari es 216. historical precedence and this is a very .good example." He foresaw also that the elected Legislature would reject the draft; not because of violated principles but out of resentment, and fear. They would, · he said, be annoyed at the ejection of their own ideas; and above all, "ninety percent (were) bitterly opposed" to the one-man, one-vote caveat They would have reason to: he calculated that not more than three or four of the current legislators would be re-elected under free adult voting. He decided that the PNP would publicly back the proposed con­ stitution since it was "infinitely better than the existing" code. For now, he would consent to make the run on the ungainly, fake- . gaited "historical precedence" of full suffrageJ with an English governor seated in the saddle caracoling to his art's content. It would be a move towards a real political life. It would buy time for a disciplined momentum in the march to self rule. England was at war and would logically fold a fist over any political stirrings in the colonies. Refusal would set back self govern ment for an "unknown number of years," he told Domingo. Nothing daunted, Domingo was elated and even jubilant. He reckone, that any move that would draw the islands closer to nationhood would twist the bony fingers of his adopted Uncle Sam who was definitely claw­ ing into the Caribbean. He packed his bags and booked passage on the· United Fruit Company's Veragua, out of New York. f) Domingo had wondered at the almost casual ease with which, he, a citizen of limited influence, had secured a civilian berth on one of the few ships still plying the Caribbean. He was unaware that the Jamaican Connection of the American State Department, i.e., the colonial government, had accepted the contract to be hit man for Washington. From the time he boarded the liner in Manhattan, he had been packaged, UWI L ibr ari es 217. nailed down and readied for delivery to the English judges of the Jamaican courts. And as the Veragua nosed past Port Royal into Kingstot harbour, ending the 5-day voyage on June 17, 1941, a police launch haule alongside and Domingo became a victim. He was taken off in midstream and hustled ashore, tried by a kangaroo court and thrown into indefinite detention. Neither Manley nor PNP Secretary Vernon Arnett were called as witnesses, although by the intercepted correspondence, they were the two most involved. "Every scrap of evidence refutes the charges against Domingo," Manley stated, "and the refutation is so thorough and complete that one is forced to (conclude) the true reason for Domingo's detentior * (is not) disclosed." *Domingo, who had a son named after Stalin and fighting in the American army, was charged with engaging in "defeatist and anti-war propaganda to stimulate opposition on racial grounds" against the siting of U.S. bases in Jamaica. He had argued that the United States would send Southern whites to the islands and create racial tension. He proved true. Squabbles and small riots marked the progress of the American cracker soldiers in the streets and accom­modations in Jamaica. The affair was disastrous for areas of the American war effort. Black groups, which had up to then turned their influence into prosecu­ tion of the war, fell away; boycotting such pro-British bounties as "Bundles for Britain" and the "Committee for Defending America by Aid­ ing the Allies." Manley was deeply saddened by the squalid and cruel way in which the British and American governments had handled the Domingo affair. "Domingo came to Jamaica at my personal request ... " he said. "I sent for him because I was overburdened with trying to devote most of my time to helping the trade unions, to build up the organisation; UWI L ibr ari es 218. at the same time, trying to prevent Jamaica being stampeded into re­ jecting the new constitutional proposals. I have no doubt at all that the government knew he was coming to work for the Party, and so far from warning us that his presence was undesirable, I am absolutely cer­ tain that they took steps to ensure that he should be facilitated in obtaining a passage to Jamaica in order to arrest him." Domingo stayed locked up despite Manley's considerable efforts to free him, including questions in the British Parliament and caucuses in American politics. After his release he stayed in the island for t..1111N6 1A.1rr11 ,HE tnlfNLEys. a while~before returning to the United States. Unabashedly Jamaican, he continued to write hard for independence but remained a resolute foe to federation of the British Caribbean; a peccaddilo, which, in his declining years, saw him estranged in some measure from the devoutl~ federal Manley. He died in 19 ~ ~, UWI L ibr ari es 219. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Mr Manley's PNP accepted too many saunterers ·to be a Party ideo­ logically marching. It brought together a sheaf of paper factions in­ to a looseleaf arrangement, and, according to Arnett, tried to tap them into line through Socialism. "The Party was not organized as an elec­ tion machine," quiet but firmly dedicated Party secretary Vernon Arnett has said of it. "We were not interested in 'good' politics. We were a movement with new ideas, particularly that of self government, and we taught Socialism to the people." Osmond Fairclough, the original founder, had not foreseen an "opposition", the "Outs" of Party govern­ ment, when he took his ideas to Drumblair. The facts of the day asked only for food-and-face for the people, and so wages and identities were the goods the Union (BITU) and the Party (PNP) set out to seek in the only days of unison the two were ever to know. Negotiations on labour were conducted with ruthless skill. And in politics, the Party pushed its propaganda as it raised its network of neighbourhood groups and pursued its claim for Home Rule. It was a landmark year for Manley. His already towering prestige had secured a strengthened foundation by the union support which Busta­ mante's removal brought. Gains had been made in overseas liberal sup- ' port of his political intentions, and Party-men could name-drop Creech Jones and Stafford Cripps with the assurance of feet-up guests. And so the alarm rose among those whom Manley called the "old men of Duke Street", the entrenched financiers whose old-line families controlled most of the island's commerce. Old Duke Street was a street of whorehouses: a couple of big fancy ones once occupied the block between Tower and Barry Streets, in tall, ornate frame houses fronted by handsome updown redbrick Victorian UWI L ibr ari es 22 0. steps, and several small ones tucked in behind the lawyers' offices coming alive when the last of the buggies and automobiles left bearing the daytime solicitors. (Then the brigade of evening solicitors broke forth and the clatter of piano keys replaced the clatter of typewriter keys.) A high-class sporting house at the top of the street also saw service as a brief, discreet hostel. Old Duke Street shared its 24-hour prosperity with a few places of worship: the fine Jewish synagogue, a high-walled Catholic convent, a small, lovely fundamentalist Protestant chapel with a clock tower, a magnificent Presbyterian kirk, and an Anglican rectory. Neither did it neglect its politics, since the seat of all governing, Headquarters House, occupied a prominent site, the finest of a clutch of splendid townhouses on its length into Manchester Square. At its foot was the only architecturally important harbour landing­ place, the Royal Mail wharf, modestly towered and castellated. And once it had Bolton's big stable and carriage-hire barn. But mainly it was famed for its fancy ladies and financiers. Duke Street had seen lineages of riskless backers, financing, for sure profits from mortgages, commission agencies and imported staples, many of them monopolies by consent or amalgamation, with monies borrowed from the thousands of savings accounts of the working class. And who would themselves be firmly turned away by the bankers for lack of collateral, 0 A BITU/PNP monolith would not sit well with the financiers. The civil rights coalition into which Richards' efficiently repressive rule had driven high and low, rich and poor, powerful Jewish solicitors and struggling black barristers, had lost its cause for existence because UWI L ibr ari es 2 21. of two reliefs: the easing of the enigmatic, unexplained, sudden deten­ tions of citizens, and the thinning in the ranks of enemy subs when the Americans joined the conflict. Those dangers passed, now the heads of the authorities and the profit-makers could swivel in the direction of the new threat, the PNP; the Socalist provocateurs door-knocking through the sleeping town, rousing folk to mischief in the streets; rousing them to challenge and to choose and to change; the self-assumed auditors calling for the books which had served a ' 'happy')people for a century. Obviously, Busta was better. Whether there was talk between Sir Arthur and the money elements is not known; little, likely, since the great man was not one to flatter with an interchange of views, islanders for whom he held a hardly disguised disdain. But shared intents made it first-rate in the end. 0 Richards, a fit political animal who was later to make the peri- lous crossing from a Tory-appointed Colonial governor to a Labour peerage was not one to lose his nose on the trail because of concern about the other bucks. For notwithstanding his enlightened relationship with Manley, a PNP overgrowth would take with it into power elements he con­ sidered too radical for comfort. As early as September of 1940, Manley was saying that Richards had "adopted the goals of Socialism in the language of a statesman and a thinker." He was not an emotional man. He understood power. Power should be fitted with a snaffle and he prefer red the reins in his hands. He could, for one of the few times in his Jamaican career, agree with the Duke Streeters that the balance needed redressing. He turned Busta loose. Busta tells an engaging story of his release from detention; of being taken from his confinement for a recreational motor ride through UWI L ibr ari es 222. the city by an army officer and being set free on a side street. He stoutly denied any prior knowledge that he was to be freed. But it is held by his foes that Busta kissed hands, his knighthood already in trust (to which he would accede at his first political defeat; yet then he was 71, and properly considered finished) and came out with a sword that would be forever flashing in an I'm-against-communism crusade. What seems more likely is that hi..s anti-Red attitude was not entirely a fiducial arrangement as a shrewd grasp of a function that would be comforting to the upper crust and sufficiently evocative to the faith­ ful; thus securing the widest support. However that was, at his release, he set about the PNP. He de­ picted Manley as an arch plotter whose plan to take over his union was barely nipped by his return. Since Manley had earlier been constrained to complain of "the old-style scandal-mongering politicians" rumour that he was responsible for the labour leader's continued detention, cl, Busta's denunciation was acceptable to a fanatically dedicated vot~ry. "The lie affected the Party in its relation to the trade union movement and was designed to have that effect," Manley has flatly stated. He was, in part, understating, for the PNP's future was profoundly affected by the charge. The setback was to last a decade, until 1954 when its own National Workers' Union (NWU) had wrung strength for it­ self and was able to aid the boost of the Party into election victory. 0 While the Party did not abandon or slacken its urban work, the hostility of Bustamante's city forces (through the powerful BITU) sent it underground, moving curiously just under the skin of things. Fear of personal reprisals from Busta's bullyboys made its adherents, in public, take to furtive nods and recognition signals; they hinted at UWI L ibr ari es 223. their identities in cleaner collars or ambiguous talk. However, the Party could show its muscles at Edelweiss Park, the large open apron of concrete pavement where Marcus Garvey had made his headquarters years before. The ramshackle wooden galleries and stage became the forum for airing PNP opinions and ideas - and was promptly nicknamed * The Kremlin. But outside the Kremlin walls, Busta's rumbuAtious forces swept the city clean. Beatings of PNP followers were common and only * One of several. Any Party meeting place, including Drumblair, was dubbed The Kremlin. the unofficial bodyguards of stonyfaced youthful activists secured the leaders' safety. If the streets were closed, there were other places into which the JLP could (or would) not penetrate. These were the homes of arti­ sans and clerks, in the suburbs of Kencot, Jones Pen, Allman Town, Frank­ lin Town, Rollington Pen, Four Roads and so on, where nightly group meet · ings kept the faith with the caution of early Christians lest they at­ tract the attention of the strongarm goons who had attached themselves ** to "Labour". A development of these positions could have produced a ** Later when the PNP had acquired its own mass base, it formed its own retaliatory tough squads which became as notorious as their rivals. dichotomy in the "reasonable" classless society of Manley's hope. The PNP was mainly to blame for an angst that for some time threatened to divide the wageworking citizens (as distinct from the owners) into Neck- *** ties versus Iron Blues. The PNP, with its boast of "more brains" ***The coarse blue cloth used for working clothes by "blue collar" workers. than the JLP, its debating society accents and wads of "brown men" in its fold, suggested status and so raised the secret desires of all but those in the back-sweating, day-labour ranks for an affecting, if UWI L ibr ari es 224. assertive, lower bourgeois rating. Working-class would not refine its proud meaning until the rise of the unions affirmed its power. Manley frequented the group meetings for face-to-face sessions, wrote newspaper articles (for Public Opinion.) He was aware of the slippage, especially in the city. His deep affection for the farmers and the pressures he kept up for land reform (through Land Authorities and a State Bank) gained him ground among middle and peasant farmers; but the powerful voting blocs grouped around the sugar and banana estate system were locked into Bustamante's union. The legislators also were not his friends. His denunciation of the Smith Constitution, which would have left the ultimate power in the hands of the English governor, had firmly placed his Party in the role of unofficial Opposition to the elected members, many of whom, with a pragmatic bound, had made Busta's * bandwaggon as the general election under adult suffrage loomed. *In a speech at the time, Manley said: "The fear that the elected members have shown at the very idea of self government, has in itself proved that these men no longer represent the feeling of the country." ,... UWI L ibr ari es 2 25. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE Norman Manley entered his first election race at 51 years old._ A driving man whose energy was legendary, the six years since 1938 had been remarkable even for him. He was always the most sought after attorney of his time, and his present political leadership, with the attendant publicity, cast him even more strongly in the litigants' eye. He had fought some of his famous court cases in that time. In 1944, Douglas, his eldest son, was at Columbia University in the United States reading for a social science degree. Michael was a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force. Edna had commenced her free Art classes at the Institute of Jamaica two years before - a happening often used as the reference point for the flowering of Jamaican art - and was editing Focus, the literary anthology that has so well served the country's young writers. In that good year, too, she receivedthe * first Gold Musgrave Medal to be awarded. * 'Ihe Musgrave was founded for excellence in the arts and first awarded in 1897 (gold, silver, bronze.) Against that background - of wifely success and filial endeavours idol of the intellectuals and a grudgingly accepted flagstaff by the left - the campaign for the 1944 elections had a flair, a hope, a dis­ tinction, that Bustamante's hastily thrown together Labour Party could not match. For all that, only the disengaged believer could doubt that the Labour Party, with its heavy base structure in the working class vote would win a majority of the 700,000 voters who, under adult suf­ frage, would replace the less than 20,000 on the earlier rolls. The franchise had come with the British government's proclamation of a new constitution to the island. Manley had fought remorselessly for it and thus entered the election race with fine panache, to the anguish UWI L ibr ari es 226. of the palace guards and the outrage of the lesser nobility of economic exploiters who would not forget he had coupled the franchise with the equally detestable self government doctrine. But the Twentieth of November Constitution, _although giving some respectability to his colonial status, left Manley unsatisfied. ·Power still reposed with the English governor, ruling from the Executive Coun­ cil of five Civil Servants and King's House appointees, and five electec * members. What was as disturbing, it provided an elected member with *The old Legislative Council was broadened from 14 to 32 members and renamed the House of Representatives. A new nominated Leg­ islative Council functioned as a kind of House of Lords, with simple review powers. Voting age began at 21. an outage; he could shirk his duties or be comfortably inept. After his inevitable defeat at the polls, Manley was to sum up the Constitution: "Inside the Executive Council ... what is the result? When it suits them, the Leader of the Majority Party (Bustamante) comes into the House and says, 'I am only half a government. In fact, I am not government at all. Don't blame me.'" He added dryly that credit­ able legislation fetched the opposite reaction from the JLP. "And you cannot pin them down. Because aside from the fact that they do not hesitate to lie, they say, and say with truth that they are only half of the Executive Council." Strictly, they were less than half. The Civil Servants and the appointees would vote as they were directed by the Governor and the Chief Executive himself acing the deal. Ever a man of the hustings, Manley campaigned tirelessly. He had the happy facility of liking his solitudes, yet frequenting the market with apparent enthusiasm. But he soon saw that the bully boy tactics of the Labour Party militants in the city could not be handled by his own supporters, consisting at that time largely of housewives,intellectua UWI L ibr ari es 227. and effete clerks whose upward struggles to escape the mass class had sadly thinned their blood. They had learnt to "behave themselves." And were thus no match for the shirtsleeved hordes who sang as a state­ ment: "We will follow Bustamante 'till we die." Manley's belief in political planning and organising was not one to find favour instantly with the unreconstructed individualism of a people who had never seen any reason to take their politics seriously. Planning had brought success to the union during Busta's detention; but going for it at that time was a positive, quick payoff in higher wages and job security. It was now in the turn of events that the unions, which had been taught respect for organic politics through• Manley's commitment to political education for the people, was to use this knowledge to provide a fulcrum that would catapult• Bustamante into political leadership. For it was the organised foreshore and sugar workers who gave the staunch core to the JLP's loosely spread people - tledockers especially sharing the legend of their Leader for jugular labour negotiations. Manley saw this as basic training for any troops he could ever hope to lead to victory at the polls. He told the 1945 Party Conference : "This election proves that the group structure is (unbeatable) for poli­ tical development. Go through the constituencies where we stood and you will find we were never defeated where we had a good group structure . * And let Comrade (Dr Ivan) Lloyd be a witness to the value of (this, as he) got the biggest single majority obtained in any constituency *Lloyd, a medical doctor, of a St Ann constituency, remained the most successful PNP candidate in all the elections until - ;qiq when he defected, or rather stood away, to give his son, a JLP candidate, the chance to run. His son lost. in any election." The PNP won four of the 32 seats, JLP 23 and five to the Indepen­ dents in the 1944 elections. It was a r i nging victory for Bustamante UWI L ibr ari es ~ ~ 228 . and it rocked the PNP's confidence, especially as ~ Manley had failed to gain a seat, defeated by a city osteopath named Edward Fagan (who mmy years later was to defect to the PNP . ) The Party had contested only 19 of the 32 seats because of their Leader's obsession with truth - not a likely ally in the vote­ catching business: he sought seats only in the constituencies which had been made aware of the issues through the Party's campaign of po­ litical education . He would not seek votes from people unaware of the questions this election should answer . Where the PNP had done no po­ litical tutelage, they would have had no group structure from which t o choose candidates - in a democratic way . Busta had no such compunc­ tion. He lit out after those loose seats with a yell and a clatter, s tabbed a finger at the candidate of his personal choice, set them before the electorate, and returned to the Duke Street legislature with his winners triumphantly chained at his waist. ·'wl.c;:v.._! .e ... (tr (l. ~,l .gf thoughts on honest civics found~echo , in Edna . In the middle of the war, when the outcome was still unclear, she had reasoned that Hitler had failed because against "the great unexpressed need of the masses to erupt into leadership", the Fuhrer had "produced a labour­ ing class that is not fit to govern . " Stalin and Russia had made the grade because the bridge of ~~fr.te::J.lectual middleclass" effected the transition . There was ~@l\ag~ement under the old yoke tree . Manley's PNP had no real wish to govern under the 1944 Constitu­ tion . He was in fact deeply dissatisfied with it. "We despised it and were contemptuous of it . " But Bustamante, less moved by the moralities of lib~~ ty and independence than the pragma of using what you have, picked up the despised corpus juris and ran like hell . At his retirerrent from politics in 1969, Manley paid handsome tribute to the practicality of Busta. "We did not regard the 1944 Constitution as enabling anyone to form a government , " it into a government . " at work for the better he said; "but the fact is that Bustamante turned In the far time, however, Manley was impatiently Constitution which would make an elected Executive Council the "principal instrument of power," a phrase that would circle · * the globe .as British colony followed colony into independence. *Manley first used the phrase at a canferenoo of Iegi.slative Council rrenbers called at Bournerrouth Baths in East Kingston to discuss the 1944 Con.sti tutian then being offered by Britain. UWI L ibr ari es 2 29. Manley had organised his own constituency well enough but the need to engage in personal combat with the spread of Bustamante-ism in the other constituencies the PNP were challenging made him an absentee candidate in his own territory and that took its toll. He failed to win his own seat but he was in no doubt of the value which had flowed into the Party by its campaign probe into the nooks and crannies of the ~ rugged home island. He saw that the Party's ~11-structure would be the heart of their future at the ballot. The cells or groups would pro­ vide the leadership spread required for more wisdom at the polls. He said that the "Bustamante mass-hysteria" or the "god-worship" of one man could only be answered by people "who can find their own leaders and spread them wide and deep" through the communities. There was no alternative. No other road. Some of the people closest to Manley think tha: the early months following the 1944 elections found him at his most unsparing, of himself and his comrades - save the period that followed the Red Purge in the / Fifties. The Party had been clobbered almost insensible. But not be­ fore he had seen his opponents' style and the terrain they chose. He * had studied his counters and would put them into practice. There were * One of the counters was to out-tough the Busta toughs. He said later: "When they tried to drive us off the streets of Kingston, I and Comrade Arnett and a couple of others organised bands in Kingston that would fight (our attackers)." no comforting words. Ahead was the tough work of organising cells in every town and village. It was at the post-election evaluation that he made the famous "infiltration" declaration. It was to give his enemies grist for years, grinding out the charge that the PNP was Red-riddled. It is true that • • ofly, the circumstances were inculpata ~ since Manley had himself remarked UWI L ibr ari es 2 30. on the possible presence of "intellectual communists" in his ranks. But what he stated in the "infiltration" speech was no worse than the best advice at a Conservative rally. But it was set to go off into the heartlands, the beloved rurals. "In any movement that is good in your district," he told his pha­ lanxes, "you should be the foremost leaders in that movement. The fact that you are a PNP member does not mean that you must withdraw from other public duties in your district. On the contrary, you should be prominent in it. "If you are a churchman, you must be prominent in your churchwork. In any movement that is for the good of your community, you should take an active and leading part in its development and progress. "Go and work and be leaders in agriculture ... housing programmes co-operatives ... work fearlessly. "Don't let them fool you about infiltration. When a man goes and does work in another organisation, his job is to do it honestly for that organisation and (so) honour your conscience." The message was uncompromising, much so for his purpose. Out there in the social and economic boondocks were his countrymen whom he loved in his own deeply flowing way. It was the way his emotions looked if you were not close up. The content was rich in scan. ~ ~~ce ~ He angrily•••••• the Bustamante personality cult~after the election; blamed not on the people, but on the legacy of the Colonial years which had destroyed the will and left in its place "an instinctive desire to say, 'We will follow (one leader) 'till we die'," instead of selecting to live by acknowledging growth and change. And so this brough him to the passionate cry at the outrage to a people done by subjugation and vassalage; and it shook his hearers: "You destroy the institutions of a people, you destroy the UWI L ibr ari es 2 31. opportunity for leadership and government among the people, and then you suddenly confront them with a free choice~ And they naturally out of the depths of their despair, and the legacy of their past shame and misery, look for a messiah, for a Moses to lead them. There are no Moses• for modern man and the promised land will be won under the curse of Eden - the sweat of our brows: That is the road~ They will find it out in time but let us hasten the process by the value of our work." The work he embarked on during those early years of full suffrage was careful and imaginative. The Party now had legislative identity * from the five "Opposition" PNP members led by Dr Lloyd whom he con- * F.L.B. "Slave Boy" Evans, elected Independent, joined the PNP. sidered "one of the best politicians in Jamaica," and Florizel Glasspole another entitled to that tribute for his remarkable achievement in securing the East Kingston constituency to an unshakeable Party-group foundation. UWI L ibr ari es ;). 32. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX Absorbed though he was with national politics during the first 5-year majority of the Labour Party, the legal career of Manley, K. c·., flourished in vigour and brilliance. He was boldly from that time too, endorsing West Indian unity. He had for certain accepted that somewhere in the future he would live in a W.I. Federal climate - and could not know that the rigour of it would prove politically appalling. He sent a Party delegate, Richard Hart, to that dayspring of the Federal reality, the Caribbean Labour Congress held in Trinidad in September, 1945, who urged what was no doubt also his Leader's views, the development of the Caribbean area as an economic unit. The PNP delegation saw as ideal for federation, a development and expansion programme "under the unified control (of) a Federal Constitution with responsible government." Actua­ lity would modify Mr Manley's views a decade and a half later; but for now he was cordially welcoming T.R.Marryshow, the Grenadian journalist * and eloquent "Father of West Indian Federation" on a Jamaica visit. * Federation, so long in coming and so quickly gone, had been urged since 1920 by several West Indian conservative groups including the Jamaica Imperial Association, not for the common people's benefit but at a quiet nudge from the Colonial Office who foresaw a saving in the British budget for the colonies. Although he was not a member of the Jamaican government and was making his living from his private law practice (and ploughing back much of that living into keeping the Party financially alive), he was officially at the first modern and serious federal effort, when he attended the now famous Montego Bay Conference on Closer Union in 1947, called by the British Government. He was there in the curious capacity of a British delegate, being the British representative on the multi­ national Caribbean Commission which had been set up by the British, American, French and Dutch "landlords" in the Caribbean (and whose UWI L ibr ari es director of research was a It was at the CaribbeanA 2 33. named Dr Eric Williams.) eeting in Kingston, imme- diately preceding the Montego Bay Conference, that what some view as the Federal kiss of death was inflicted on the PNP leader by an enthu- d.L&.trttCP... f' siastic Eastern Caribbean _ p Coming from territories that in a real sense formed the South American archipelago of small islands from Trinidad to the St Kitts-Antigua cap, and who for generations of inter-coastal travel had lived a form of social and economic federa­ tion, and speaking in a country which could hardly be capable of requit ing a passion for linking destinies with strangers a thousand miles away, whose neighbourliness had only been figmented by a British Imper- * t:Ue_ff de_ ial necessity, the a ·• hailed Manley, then out of power, as the *Not until the establishment of the University College of the West Indies and the influx of Caribbean young people did Ja­maicans begin to know, or in most cases, see their fellow West Indians. "one who is well able to shape the future we aspire to." It was a remark that would not escape the notice of Busta nor extract his zestful support of proposals for unity from fellows, who, from the public platform, repudiated his constituents' choice of rulers with the idiotic assertion that "we who come from the various islands are not so much interested how you feel about Norman Manley" since, ,as far as they were concerned, Manley would be the Federal head, not Busta. And so Busta's subsequent slashing attacks on "pauper islands" were not annulled by his subsequent votes in favour of the resolutions establish­ ing closer ties. The kiss was already in. The East-South Caribbeane-rs carried their anger. Manley's contribution to the Montego Bay conference was a finenes s of debate and reasoning that made clear why such articulate leaders UWI L ibr ari es as Marryshow, Grantley Adams, Albert Gomes of Trinidad, F.L.Walcott of Barbados and the rest saw in him the one who would "shape the future we aspire to." In the narrower but more intense field of home politics, he was providing a formidable if unofficial "Leader of the Opposition" out­ side the Assembly. One of the major preoccupations was with the effect that England, embarrassed and bewildered at its parlous postwar fiscal fix, would have on the Jamaican economy. Manley was relentless in pointing out the major defects in a Colonial system where decisions of deep effect upon a people were made in a capital halfway around the world. He had no doubt that any British move to ease the economic strain would be guided by a consideration of what was best for Britain. He declared at the time: "The West Indian problems are a signal example of neglect and administrative incompetence; a modern proof of the fact that no people can become a nation save under their own leadership and by the power of their councils and their decisions." He was, as usual, being pre-eminent in both fields of present endeavour, politics - and law. His court appearances lost no frequency in spite of the daily increasing hold of politics. Spectators packed the galleries at almost all his cases, from bizarre murders to dull civil suits. One case of the time (in a career of particulars) was the trade mark concerning the Vicks Chemical Company and its product, Vicks Vaporub, sold in Jamaica since 1919. Against Manley was his fellow West Indian, Sir Lennox O'Reilly of Trinidad, appearing for the defendants, Cecil de Cordova & Co. Ltd. O'Reilly, a tall, truculent * white Trinidadian was one of the Outside barristers whom Jamaican *Sir Hugh Wooding, later Chancellor of t h e W.I. University and the younger O'Reilly were others, both of Trinidad. UWI L ibr ari es 235. litigants, unable to secure Mr Manley's services for any reason, were being obliged to retain if they would offer reasonable replacement to the brilliant Jamaican. It was a fight in which neither lawyer gave quarter, a policy displayed in the opening salvos: Manley: (to a witness, druggist F.B.Francis of Buff Bay): Have you known Mentholatum? Witness: No O'Reilly: Please don't lead, Mr Manley Manley: I was not leading. I asked him if he ever knew a preparation called Mentholatum. The answer is either yes or no. He said, No. interrupt me unnecessarily. Please do not .0\.- l'l~I> He won the case and the appeal to the Privy Council~in London) * at which he appeared. *oescribed by the Lord Chancellor as "the best argument (I have) ever heard in a trade mark case." Manley in full courtroom flight was unforgettable. Like all great courtroom lawyers, his cases were clinical experiences of prac­ tice and experiment. In the letter of the law, he was of great strength an omnivorous reader and possessor of a fantastic memory, but in court, his cool incisive mind and quick clear thinking enabled him to seize ideas and work them with grace and ease for his own causes. Of no dis­ missable account also was a gift for histrionics, which, combined with native good looks, persuasive eloquence, _and the panache of wig & silk . gown, was known to disarm and capture the toughest judge and jury. Sir John Carberry, a former Chief Justice of Jamaica, has said of him: "Perhaps his greatest legal attribute was the ability to discard trivia and quickly see points which he could develop." Carberry also discloses a Manley superstition. · "He always carried UWI L ibr ari es 2 36. a lucky charm in his breast pocket in court. The charm worked for him but he worked hard for the charm." And that he did. Through long spells of little sleep and incred­ ible applications of trial-and-error rehearsals until the courses the case could take were examined and cleared. Later, when the pressures of politics began to interfere with his case preparations and he "made slips in court" as Sir John Carberry puts it, "he could usually spot them himself. For example, there was a case in which he went off on the wrong track completely, caught himself and then said to the court: 'This is what my opponent would have said. Now I will present my own case. ' " One of his "own" cases that brought him political felicity was his successful defence in England of Donald Beard, a Jamaican R.A.F. serviceman on a murder charge. Heard in Manchester, England inNoverrber, 1946, the case gained him tremendous goodwill among the new and growing migrant Jamaican population in Britain, and a useful feedback to their voting kith-&-kin at home. But in his criminal practice, the Alexander murder case in Mandeville eclipses most. His winning defence of the Rae Town socialite charged with shooting her husband, was described by trial Justice Sir Adrian Clarke as "sheer genius." He must have lost, some sleep of the normal allowance (four hours a night, 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. except when he luxuriated in six hours, midnight to 6 a.m. about every ten days in his simple system of what he _called "catching-up") as he studied the elaborate ballistics by which he befuddled the opposing proctors. Naturally, the sharp young attorneys of his day, on the ladder's early rungs, were not allowing him out of sight. They took to grabbing at his coattails, waylaying him in the Supreme Court library and at the doors of the robing room. "So ~~e started going on Sunday mornings," Sir John once reminisced, "until the solicitors caught on UWI L ibr ari es 2 37. to this too." So Mr Manley developed the oddity of choosing his books and standing by a window to read, rather than at the affable tables, When, for the better light, they sought the same window, he would po­ litely move to another. Even those brash young men at length accepted the hint from the K.C., that he was decidedly opposed to his brain being picked. He was essentially a solitary performer; not because he had no faith in the band but his purity of sound required the advantage of the concerto rather than the grosso of the symphony. "Many (of us) leaned on him in those early days," says Sir John Carberry of the time when they were young men in practice; "he leaned on nobody." Douglas Manley says that at Nomdmi, in the evening concerts on the mouth organ, "we would be banging (the rhythm) on a table but he would be the solo performer. It wasn't a band. I think he was a solo person. I don't think he was ever really a team man. Not really. He was an individualist His judgment was severe on bad courts and in privacy he described some judges as "jokes". He once ripped into a Court of Appeal as "a lazy court, entirely ignorant and none (of the three judges) reading more than a page of a textbook. In fact, they are scandalous." One curious Df facet of his court work was an intense dislike •••••••murder cases A. and yet these were the cases in which his labour and genius turned pro- bable losers into fantastic triumphs. He .found that homicides demanded in his words, "an intolerable degree and ~ o,D {{g_ -ll.e the young (35) alert accountant who had won the East Kingston & Port Royal seat with a phenomenal majority and was just starting his never­ defeated stay in the House, was pursuing his role as minority leader with the polished directness that would mark his political career. UWI L ibr ari es 247. The pungent Wills 0. Isaacs on the City Council was lambasting the likes of the Lord Bishop of Jamaica for "soaking" the Council Ll,650 ($3,300) for lands owned by the Anglicans at Bishop's Lodge. And with the imprisonment of Party-activist, poet-writer-painter Roger Mais for his denunciatory "Now We Know" article in Public Opinion, and the death of Samuel Constantine Marquis from an illness brought on by two years of internment, the Party now had its authentic martyrs. The PNP bloc in the elected council of the Kingston & St Andrew Corporation, led mainly by Wills Isaacs, was winning valued notice for the Party by taking audacious pokes at the Establishment. Such Isaacs' heresies as his motion to throw Custodes off the Parish Councils was hailed as a break from the Colonial system, now being rapidly discredited. In an election year (1949) and with the severely limited publicity the capitalist-owned newspaper gave to the Socialist's tiny minority in the House, the PNP's verbal dominance of the City Council by Isaacs, Mrs Iris King, Noel Nethersole, immensely benefited the Party. Signs of disarray in the JLP faction on the Council, and better yet, rows be­ tween Mayor Newland and Social Services Minister Frank Pixley, top ran- * kers in the JLP, gave comfort to the PNP. *In such ill-repute was the KSAC, with accusations of graft fly-ing about, that when the JLP-majority Council sought "a few days loan" of $26,000 to pay for a coal shipment, nervous bank officials phoned the Colonial Secretary for his okay. The furious Council voted to change bankers. N.W.Manley's law practice, however, brought mixed blessings to the Party. His retainers often deposited him on the side least likely to guarantee his popularity with the proletariat. His skills were not always available to the prosecuted; he was sometimes required to join a Crown attorney in working for the locking-up of a loser, the synpathy­ arousing "little man". And at which time hi:3 most loyal political fol­ lowers among the poor, his largest constituents, suffered l:ewilderment. UWI L ibr ari es 248A. Some political observers at the time insist that the two rejections of .the PNP at the polls was because the masses could not identify with Corporate Lawyer Manley. His appearance for the Crown in a 1949 radio fraud case (the defrauded company was his client) must have been a reluctant duty. Needless to say, he did it well and won. But there was another side to the coin; carefully, in character, palmed away by N.W. himself. The fact .was that several of the briefs in his satchel bore no fees. Down at luck, indigent liti- gants, fearful in the courthouse where hostility to the barefooteds _~ nakedly paraded from the Bench, frequently had a bemused public wildly guessing at the source of funds to afford the country's most eminent and sought after King's Counsel~fighting their hard cases, tooth and nail, sometimes all the way to the Court of AppealJ --{or clients, who were obviously destitute. Manley took care that nobody knew. The habit, not one to gain approval in a profession mostly shorn of sentimental consideration, would have won much less than approbation from his colleagues had it come out that in their Learned Friend was kindled a similar charity towards the causes of trade unions and unionists 1 who ·always enjoyed free days in court. Another source of unhappiness was the takeover of his beloved Jamaica Welfare by a Social Welfare Commission, a dozen years after his talks with Sam Zemurray had borne fruit in a social organisation without precedent in the Colonies. By its stress on self-help, it had inspired people to build houses at Bonnett and Labyrinth, etc., establish community endeavours at Porus, Guy's Hill etc., and fostered a season of hope in the depressed rurals. Run for nine years as a UWI L ibr ari es 248B. private project on funds from the banana companies, the government had entered into its management in 1943, upon Welfare's acceptance of a mandate from the Committee of Development & Welfare (C.D. & W.) to carry out its programme in Jamaica. Now a new (1949) Commission was sending the earlier concepts out of existence and putting the politicians, i.e., the Bustamante administration, into the saddle. ~~ Busta made no bones about his reasons for ifllDl:uuf control of Jamaica Welfare. He charged in the House that it was U It used as a propaganda arm by the PNP - although such of his own loyalfi~S as St.Elizabeth's Cleve Lewis denied they had discovered any laches in the conduct of the Welfare officers. Lewis, an urbane political survivalist>asked instead that Manley tc;ike himself off the Board, a little garnbi t that would certainly~ for Lewis the goodwill I\ of such influential voter-getters as the field officers~L.Oadmi\€..d.. fY\a"'-lelf. Manley was himself working the "excursion circuit" with personal appearances in country parishes on one-day Party outings. rural At the same time, with sure political savvy, he was lacing together the /4 UWI L ibr ari es St Andrew constituency he had failed to capture in 1944. A new warmth in his public relations was replacing the old courtroom exactness as he joined the Party excursioners on the train trips to country towns·. His love of fun and mischief, carefully unrevealed away from Drumblair or Nomdmi, was breaking out with more frequency. But it was a serious year in spite of all. Already the electoral office was brushing up its final list of electors and the House was passing amendments to the elec­ toral code. Busta was also doing his own fast-stepping footwork througt the countryside - and bitterly complaining about the expense of politic~ as he had to "pay for the travelling out of my own pocket with money I A.Jzt,wl.) brought from abroad." Odd as it may A the virtual prime minister of the country was receiving no allowances from the State save his salary. Never a place for kindness, acrimony in the House increased as electi:>ns drew near. Fantastic accusations and personal abuse took over the dialogue, to the extent that in desperation, Ulric Simmonds, the Gleaner's political writer, strongly advocated recalling the Afternoon Tea of the Crown colony years. Simmonds was an anti-colonialist and a short-drink man himself, but he urged the return to crumpets if it would "help the members to get to know each other better." The world was also gettin'/2know Jamaica better through its I as yet sketchy tourist industry; but moreso, through its artists. Its * writers, poets, painters. NEW DAY, the novel of the Morant Bayuprising, * By Victor Stafford Reid had inpacted on the fledgling nation to an astonishing enthusiastic accep­ tance (a tale told around Gordon and Bogle who would become the first National Heroes of Jamaica in Independence). Langston Hughes, the American black and great folk poet, had brought out his anthology of UWI L ibr ari es -2 50. Afro-world poetry with Jamaica's contribution strong in room and quality including works by George Campbell, the Jamaican poet with the greatest influence on Manley. Edna Manley's "school" of young painters whom she had so considerably helped to bring along, were now reaching into the country's consciousness; and even better as original canvasses were now being bought by lower income wage earners. A deep, if somewhat private love for all art forms, made the period a rich mine for N.W,Manley in which he could replenish his spirit off the political stump. And Drum­ blair was good to go into; the music, literature, paintings and sculp­ tures was a safe-house for the spirit of a highly civilised man who S.:Otne1ff1NG required 1 ,above the political caper. E) The 1949 general election was fought against the background of federal talks and bauxite investments, two matters that would profoundly influence the future of Jamaica but of dubious value in that year's polling. For these were not yet elections of issues. The Montego Bay Conference of the year before had ended with Busta still folded in his hole, knees flexing, eyes shifting, ready to take off in the direction best for his leap. Manley was also as wily; he appealed to the parochial side of his constituents. The plans of the Reynolds Mining Company to obtain $10-million , (U.S.) from the Marshall Aid Funds, for working the 20,000 acres of Jamaica they had bought with hard cash paid to the money-poor St Ann farmers, would not do much for the PNP propaganda. Neither would the cement company, now engaged in raising $2-million capital in London for a factory. Both were credits in Busta's accounts. Cement and bauxite would be the nucleus of the island's industrial emergence; massively assuring to the future. However, neither would be made relevant to this election. Tomorrow was a far day. The reward UWI L ibr ari es 251. of record was now. The politician who would be durable and yet res­ ponsible, must straddle two ladders to his rooftop: the expeditious and the conceptual, the devices and the durables. Politics is an art, not a morality. To cope with fickle public approval, he must kiss hand: or slap wrists where and when it does good. A kind of timing thought to be a gift, but occasionally learnt. N.W.Manley, often frosty, never ebullient, learnt. He went in for organisation; Party and campaign mobilisation, that, in the end, gathered them more votes than Busta, and sent them clenchingly close to elected. 0 The enthusiasm of the Edelweiss Park crowds as they approached the election, was exhilarating. The fun might break out into stone­ throwing, with the big new White buses of the Jamaica Utilities Company lumbering past the Park's Slipe Road gate, as the prime target. But then it must be considered that most of the bus crews had been organisec by that enemy union, the BITU. The street-corner meetings were hearten-· ing too. Fine, strapping singing and some bursts of eloquence by visit­ ing young guest speakers such as a recently robed British Guianese lawyer, intransit home from the Inns, named Linden Forbes Burnham. Bustamante, also aiming for the younger votes, had chosen his , first election candidate, a 26-year-old Union executive named Hugh Lawson Shearer. Edna took to it with elegant zest. She, even more than Norman, had years ago recognised that "Jamaica" needed "big people people" and had no confusion that she and N.W. were. They could, had and did ramble the ballrooms at Myrtle Bank, Doctor's Cave and Shaw Park, walked of right the rare earth in the Enclosure at Knutsford, had flown as befit­ ted the fete-set, the pre-war seaplanes of Pan Am's record-breaking UWI L ibr ari es r 52 O "Jamaica Arrow" fleet (3 hrs 20 mins from Kingston to Miami!) And if big through his fine highly-paid mind, they were nonetheless people. And as proof, they both knew how she worried that Norman should seek to "try the trains" of the Neanderthal American South on his journeys from New York to the Miami sea-plane port, the one-time popular mixed transport mode. They were symbol and engine, flag-bearer and drill­ sergeant and if she watched lest the gods should strike (a primitive fear up out of the fey Cornwall woman), her life-joy and vitality de­ obeahed it. For they had come at the turn of the year when kings take the field. Of no small consolation to Manley around this time was the nip on the nose given by a British court to the London Daily Graphic, forced to run a retraction and pay damages for calling the PNP leader a Communist. It sobered the stridency of the Red-baiting newssheets for a time both at home and abroad. Another consolation, in a hair shirt way, was that his insistence on more power to the people had sent vibrations to Busta's sensitive political instincts; the Labour Party contrived to go to the country on a platform of Constitutional advance . The JLP amendment would drop all officials, except the Governor and Colonial Secretary, from the Executive Council. Eight ministers ! would be appointed from the House, constituting an elected majority in the Executive. The residential code that required members to be elected only in their constituency of domicile would be removed. The power of the upper Nominated Chamber to delay bills passed by the Elected House would be reduced from a year to six months. And it was good political strategy to invite public comment on the proposals be- * fore the House voted. * Public comment however turned out to be less than good when UWI L ibr ari es 253. controversial British MP Tom Driberg, returning home after a Jamaican visit, made a House of Commons speech excoriating what was to him questionable politics by the Bustamante government. Only Lady Molly Huggins, extrovert wife of replacement governor Sir John, and N.W.Manley, got the Driberg approval. Driberg hoped that "those people will have the sense to elect the kind of govern­ ment" which he implied could be had from "Mr Norman Manley, K.C., a potential leader of the highest intelligence and integrity, the finest and most brilliant man in the whole West Indies;" and coun­ selled that "if they do elect (him) they will be taking a great step towards ... the fully self-governing Federal Dominion of the West Indies whose birth is not far distant." In view of the un­ popularity, or, at best, indifference, of the Jamaicans to Federa­ tion, the Hon. Member for Maldon, England was not his usual clear­ headed self. Another gratification for Manley was the growing favour of the farmers to the Party's stand on agriculture. The Party policy, he said, had been proposed by farmers and accepted by the Party planners. "My Party has taken great pains to teach itself the wishes and the needs of farmers." But he kept a strong patrol in the back pastures, where the wire-cutting plantocrats unceasingly invited a bolt. Equally, unceasingly, he soothed the small farmers' fears. "My Party does not intend to nationalise lands nor disrupt established and productive efforts." Fortuitously in that season, he proved that productive efforts of farmers came in various guises. It was this way. An Hanover small farmer was convicted for using his coco-macca walking stick on an officious busybody of a district constable and fined $40. Both were Hanover men and knew each other . well. The farmer had been arguing over the sale of a cow when the constable attempted to arrest him for disorderly conduct. The farmer reckoned that an arrest was the kind of disgrace difficult to live down in his small Hanover district, so he fetched up his coco-macca and de­ livered a blow for respectability. It was, after all, a "civil matter," as Manley pointed out in court, and unworthy of being handcuffed for. An unimportant case on the face of it, but Manley argued for two days before the Court of Appeal that l'if I believe a constable is going to UWI L ibr ari es 254. arrest me illegally, I am entitled to resist. Nothing in the law says I am to wait unt~the arrest is made." The Court of Appeal (including the Chief Justice) agreed and reduced the fine by half - a necessity to secure the constabulary from excessive exposure to walking-sticks. It was a landmark decision; the judiciary had declared a citizen's right to defend his good name. It is doubtful that legal fees had importance in the case of a humble peasant farmer. It is likelier that Manley could not resist disentangling a knot in a law long interpreted in the interests of the wielders. He was that kind of advocate. The law was only as good as it was used for good. UWI L ibr ari es CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE Claire Boothe Luce, a famous American Congresswoman, told the girls of Montego Bay High School in 1949 that her "favourite saint is Saint Augustine who was a black man from Africa (and) one of the giants of the world." A winter season visitor to Jamaica, Mrs Luce, a promi­ nent Catholic laywoman, confessed that whereas until 200 years ago everybody knew that Augustine "was black, they don't mention it very much now." However, Mrs Luce, who had a formidable reputation for speaking out, allowed as how she always reminded them "of it for only the masses can do things (and) the people who are down are coming up and the people who are up are coming down. It will take great wisdom (to prevent) bloodshed." But, she added, as Colonialists "the British are not so bad." Especially when the neighbours were watching. The British West Indies, geographically reposed in the arms of the U.S., the wealthiest state in the world, were half naked, half educated and half starved. Selfish greed and long neglect had turned them into an embarrassment to their British owners, into whom they had fed fortunes for centuries as the "sugar & spice islands". And the neighbours were seeing it all - and talking. Claire Luce was the wife of the founder and publisher of Time, the most influential newsmagazine of its time. What she said was, or soon would be, the U.S. public posture. A war had just been fought arrlwon against the Nazi imperialists. The United States was moving into its leadership role and learning to speak loftily, archly, above the herd. Britain, quite bled by the conflict, knew that the time had come to wash her hands of the islands, after a decent interlude, a few new gifts, and proper murmirs of regret. American public cx:oscienoe UWI L ibr ari es 256. unpredictable as a Texas tornado, was entering upon one of its curves of high-vocal morality - a quadrant that wo_uld lead from Marshall to Marshall. It would start at the General George Catlett Marshall Plan for the economic wresting of Europe from the Soviets, to the Thurgood * Marshall-led assail in the courts on racial savagery in the South. *Marshall, a black American lawyer, argued all the important civil rights cases in the USA including the watershed Brown vs Topeka Education Board in 1954 in which1he Supreme Court rejected the "separate but equal" doctrine which had held the blacks to second class citizenship for generations. He was the first black American to become Solicitor General of the U.S., and, afterwards, to sit on the Supreme Court. Under the Marshall Plan, :z'welve/illion U.S. dollars would be distribu­ ted among the wartorn nations of Western Europe, including the United Kingdom, for economic recovery. So the British lion was resigned to lose its roar and be shoved into line. It heeded the American hint that doing something about the eyesore, ramshackle settlements it had caused to grow so close to Uncle Sam's property, would not go unregarded at largesse time. Like Congresswoman Luce, the U.S. was recognising that those who were down were about due up. In this hemisphere of freedom, everybody knew that the only significant territory still held Po Li 77 (iji ..... by imperialists were the islands of the British West Indies - except i\ for the handful of French and Dutch islands. (The American-held Puerto Rico continued to be undefinable until 1952 when it moved from the vague ., "American Territory" to the 6commonwealth of Puerto Rico"; in the fact of U.S. suzerainty over the island, a term as precise as "over there".) Shedding the Caribbean portion of the Empire became a British activity at the Montego Bay Conference on West Indies federation. The Conference had been firmly coaxed into session by the U.K. as a prelude to independence. Hard on its heels came investment grants from the U.K's Colonial and Development Corporation for the funding of industries UWI L ibr ari es 257. that would create revenue. Jamaica had a mark for $4-$6m to be used on tomato growing and canning, a cold storage plant, irrigation schemes and saucily collected an additional for its own "colony", Turk's Island1 to help fix its salt industry. The general aim was for an independent Caribbean dominion, a separate and equal member of the British Commonwealth, the idea of these seas of Simon Bolivar and George Washington harbouring colonials having become repugnant to the neighbours. Forgotten was the British/ American harassment of W.A.Domingo and others, who, during the war, had been agitating for just such a notion. However that may be, nobody foresaw the final outcome: the foundering of federation in a sea of little nations snaggle-toothed with importance, each jealously guarding its own small sovereignty. It was a situation not unlike that of the other former British colony to the north after its 1776 war of indepen­ dence, whose several bickering states might have broken apart but for the necessity in the face of common peril to hang together, or separately. 0 While Manley worked at and waited the outcome of his second election year, he lived as fully as he ever did. The rose gardens at Drumblair, his music and books, lost no claim on him. He sat in at the bicycle races at Town Moor (the old Kingston Race Course) for the "Manley Cup" run-off. As chairman of the Jamaica Boxing Board of Con­ trol, he welcomed world heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis visiting for exhibition bouts at Sabina Park. He was a dance-floor athlete, C,{,(,~U, --zc. ~ long legs flailing - like an ■~shot-putter at the'Manley Honour Party" they held for him one Saturday night at No. 5 Upper Musgrave Avenue (at which they drummed up patronage by a blunt slogan: Are you his friend? If so be there to tell him so:::) UWI L ibr ari es 258. The number of his friends was increasing. Thanks to some gaffes by the JLP. The JLP had begun alienating the civil service by what Gleaner's Ulric Simmonds called "arrogating to themselves safeguarding and overriding powers" and exhibiting "a strange complex whenever the civil service is mentioned." And they voted funds for public endeavours with the down-the-nose severity of grand-aunties; or, to quote Simmonds , "like bounties handed out to subservient people by a benevolent" JLP. Another agent of their growing rejection by the public was a paranoid objection to criticism - a lurking disease of political parties. It was this that led Speaker Aitcheson to a violent outburst of ill-temper and scurrility when he attacked Manley who had written a critical arti­ cle in the Jamaica Times dealing with the House debates. • Manley, for the opening of his election campaign, chartered a British Caribbean Airways plane to fly 25 Party members to Montego Bay on one of the Party's beloved "invasions." Previously, they had invaded by bus and train and great thundering "Mack" trucks full of sound (drums) and fury (clashing coconut palm fronds). And while still in modern America, the candidate's railroad coach and the whistle-stop was still a Yankee norm, so progressive was our own PNP they flew up in airplanes, flying the campaign trail. It was the opening to an imaginative campaign that flung their rivals into a tailspin and put ' holes into the Bustamante legend. Montego Bay had never seen such crowds. While the Party leaders were aloft, long trainloads of supporters were snaking into town from Kingston and Port Antonio. Manley's devotion, between elections, to his political future was taking in dividends. Denied the frequency of access to the newspapers which was enjoyed by the party in office, he had kept his Party and policies in the public eye through the forums at the · party headquarters UWI L ibr ari es 259. in Edelweiss Park, and the streetcorners and village square meetings where his theme of power to the people struck rousingly at frustrations and inequalities. At Barnett Street, for the triumph of the day, he ­ stepped into the saddle wearing his own special riding outfit of city tweeds and waistcoat, and led a massive "victory" procession through the streets of the northside capital. The equestrian adventure also had its sly reasons. It showed that 65-year-old Cousin Alex was not the only macho on the family tree. (However, both Manley and Bustamante, fine horsemen in their youth, were now city-cast and awkward on the short farm beasts. Not vaquero stuff at all.) Bustamante, in the city, was panicking. Ken "The Whip" Hill, a candidate of rare eloquence and gutsy beyond safety, showed every sign of pulling his West Kingston seat from under him. With the residential qualification for candidates now removed from the statutes, Busta could place himself in any constituency. Anywhere seemed better than facing the capable and harddriving Ken Hill. The JLP leader was sending shiver through his colleagues as he swung about seeking a safe seat. The whole city was now uncomfortable for him. His Minister of Education, St.Thcxna:: Jehoida MacPherson, saw, in the increasing frequency of his "Chief's" visit to his constituency, and the damning with faint praise of his ' efforts in education, a clear indication that he was being plumped up for the sacrifice. With his close and powerful friend, Isaac Barrant, they told off the Chief in no uncertain way and killed that little plan. The disarray in the Party was so far gone that Minister of Agriculture E.R.D.Evans, who had walked out of the Labour Party but who could not be fired from his ministry since Busta had no such "cabinet" power, was being sued for slander by Chief Minister Bustamante. UWI L ibr ari es 260. 'Ihe Manley-led cry for "Elections before Christrras" was neanwhile gathering momentum. Petitions were fired off to the governor in Executive Council claiming that later elections would allow no time to the new government to prepare a proper budget before the fiscal year began on April 1. This was the front office explanation, the parliamentary objection. What was more to the point was Manley's fears of an enormous porkbarrelling by the JLP over the Christmas season. Being the season of goodwill and so forth, a tradition of "Christmas work" had been developed in Jamaica, an arrangement for handing out special work projects to unemployeds so they could earn their "Christmas money". Manley saw the possibility of a runaway season of vote-catching bribery by the Party in charge of the purse. Pausing to pay a gracious tribute to his courtroom arch-rival, Sir Lennox O'Reilly, the eminent Trinidad barrister who had died in the sister colony, "a man of remarkable advocacy and a profound lawyer," he once again plunged into the campaign to short circuit the Labour Party plan for post-Christmas elections. The PNP was playing it rough, hitting hard at Bustamante from platform and parliament. Among the weapons was a newspaper write-in campaign complete with tear coupon. It may have got to the JLP Leader, a man with a short fuse, for before long he was to explode in the Legislative Council during a con­ stitution debate that he was against self .government because "we have not proved we are fit and proper persons to govern ourselves." It did not occur to the Chief that as head of the elected governors, he was the most likely candidate to blame for any self-rule incapacity. Sur­ prisingly enough, he was at the time supporting an independent candidate in the Eastern St Mary constituency, a chunky mulatto land baron named Roy Lindo, who saw self government as a breakaway from the Commonwealth. But as Florizel Glasspole asked in the House: "Arn I to understand that UWI L ibr ari es 261. because any nation asks for self government, you are breaking away from the Commonwealth? Am I to understand that Canada, New Zealand and Australia are breaking away?" Glasspole's passionate polemics was aimed at the unthinkable: no proper, i.e., orthodox, politician gave thought to dumping the Mother Country on her racist butt. Elsewhere, the reality was different. The breakaway was already established in the minds of several Jamaicans, the black and poor, who, in a prelude to the phenomenal back-to-Africa movement of later years, were opting out of their British citizenship * for settlement in Liberia. The West African republic, first settled *Laws that did violence to the poor were not profitable to patriot­ ism. A new ordinance declaring it illegal for a canoe to approach to within 100 yards of a tourist liner in the harbour without be­ ing invited by the ship's master, lost a Jamaican fisherman his canoe and a narrow escape from imprisonment or a hefty fine, only, as he was informed by the Bench, because his was the first case under the new statute. by freed slaves from the United States, had declared itself willing to accept settlers from the British Caribbean colonies. c) • Manley's proposals for constitutional change would abolish the Legislative Council (the nominated non-elected chamber), two additional constituencies in St Elizabeth and St Ann. Each of the 14 parishes would elect an additional member taken on a parish-poll rather than the normal constituency divisions. He would remove all nominated and ex-officio members from the Executive Council, leaving only the Q)vemor (and elected people), and he, without either an original or casting vote. Busta on the other hand wanted the Ex Co to include the Governor, Colonial Secretary, two nominated and eight elected members. Power, in both proposals, would reside in the elected members. The differentia lay in Bustamante's circumspect call for a monitor by his former masters UWI L ibr ari es 262. of the way he wielded the power they were handing over. The 1944 con­ stitution had been an acknowledged experiment by the British govern~ent Now in 1949, both PNP and JLP were agreed on one principle: they were against the continuing residence of authority in King's House. This was the only area of accord. Partisan violence sprouted all over in that Jast springtime of the "experiment. 11 All Fools' Day that year, the fiery Wills Isaacs, a KSAC PNP Councillor, joined the "jail martyrs", Bustamante and Pixley, when he was pulled in on charges * of inciting to riot and assault against the JLP Rose Leon. Defended by Manley, K.C., he was freed of the charges and escaped the "exemplary *Years later, after a falling out with Bustamante, she was elec­ ted on a PNP ticket and was a minister in the Michael Manley government. sentence" the presiding judge later confessed to having had in mind . . The popular support for Manley against postponing the elections gained momentum. Tens of thousands of write-ins for the straw-poll flooded the PNP office and almost totally against delay. It was a triumph for Manley's insight that, against ridicule, he sensed the common man's interest in the issues and pushed for an opinion poll - itself an object for levity since that windsock of client preference had never been hung out before, and few thought there would be a sig­ nificant response. In a sombre way, he was also testing another kind of triumph at the takeover of Jamaica Welfare by the hostile JLP government. His farewell speech to his staff in the wooden hut at Mona (once a wartime barracks for Gibraltar refugees and at the time in use as the West Indies University's first buildings) showed a depth of patriotism that dumbfounded friend and foe - as it would again, a dozen years later, at UWI L ibr ari es 263. tha~ other, more final, poll, the referendum that decided the Federa­ tion. In the Mona speech, Manley declared himself in support of the change which was "a perfectly sound and good one." He sought to dis­ avow the minds of his friends that the "changes have been brought about with some desire of hurting the work." However, to heal wounds and strengthen hearts, he showed the success of the venture in the fact of public funds being now the whole support of the organisation; and this in spite of them being "constantly and falsely accused of using your various offices for subversive political ends. I can assure you it was not your fault. It was mine. It was mine for holding as I had held for many rears, the dual position as Chairman of this organisation and leader _. of a political party." i ., Edna's fears that Welfare would backfire had. come halfway true - ten years late and not from the source she had feared. From somewhere in her Methodist-Christian genes she had picked up a pathological fear of Zemurray, the United Fruit Company's chief. She was a daughter of the ethnics whose finest genius .had impugned the Jew; and made Shylock a name to lay unused in the lists fond parents choose from. N.W's involvement with Sam Zemurray at the birth of -welfare had thrown her into a mind-spin of doubt and direst thoughts that made her blood go"coLo:! ... " in terror that her Norman .was "in danger from" the Hebrew. It had not, of course, ,proven so. It was the Bessarabian peasant, that child of hard times, who fell to Manley's persuasive mixture of logic and geopolitics. Yet, Edna's fears could have been simply that of a wife and artist for the reputed rapacity and ruth­ lessness of Jamaica's first and most powerful transnational enterprise. UWI L ibr ari es 264. Years later she was on record as stating: lt.r am utterly pro-Jew and have always been ardent pro-Israel.~ would "not be inti~ted by any Minority Party." The Bloomfield Motion charged the PNP and the TUC with having inflicted "a reign of terror" during the Myrtle Bank strike. The debab that fall.owed was curious, in that, the JLP left its case to three limp speeches from three backbenchers. They were savagely slaughtered by Manley who replied for the PNP. Only Mr Bustamante among the front- benchers, who were keeping a discreet silence, essayed interruptions; UWI L ibr ari es 281. but these had no muscle and were deftly twisted into absurdities. Manley had expected the event and had readied his flea. The debate is worth retelling as the first speech by Manley in Parliament. THE DEBATE Mr.Manley: Mr Speaker, there is an old saying: "It is an ill bird that fouls its own nest." This resolution is in my judgment framed in language unwarranted by any facts before this House, and only calculated to provoke the very mischief which it is supposed to avert. If this House (considered) that a matter had happened which required investigation and if there were no ulterior motives behind the terms in which the resolution was framed, surely what would be done would be to ask that an investigation take place and then when the facts were disclosed and ascertained the matter could be introduced again before thi..s House to express its opinion, whatever it be. But what is one to think of the Mover of the motion who introduced such terms as "reign of terror and vandalism", a favourite word apparently on the other side of the House, when there are no facts at all before us to warrant such observatirns? It is all very well to come here and talk about the tourist trade (and) of course the tourist trade is important to Jamaica Everybody knows it; but those who, and they are not very far from me at this moment, those who provoked a situation that led inevitably to a strike at the Myrtle Bank Hotel, might have stopped to consider the interests of the tourist trade before they arrogated to themselves the right to attempt to deny elementary trade union practices. UWI L ibr ari es 282. An organisation, oddly enough called the Bustamante Indus­ trial Trade Union, and its leaders, were the persons respon­ sible when with sublime indifference to the good of the country, and the proper development of trade union practices, they created a state of affairs which directly led to the strike. They must have known when they did, what they were doing; that it could have no other but the consequences that ensued. at the right time for the interest of the island Had they cared Mr.Speaker: May I point out that the resolution asks that an enquiry be made. Mr.Manley: No, no, the resolution adds much more, it only asks for an enquiry to be made ... Mr.Speaker: It is part of the resolution. (To Mr Manley: Please sit down Sir.) It is part of the resolution and you are stating who is responsible for what happened at the Myrtle Bank Hotel. Mr.Manley: That is what the resolution says. That is what happens when people frame resolutions in ill-considered terms ... Mr.Speaker: The resolution does not state that. The reso- lution in the end is asking for an enquiry to determine the facts. Mr.Manley: The resolution itself, which you should rule , out of order, has assumed all sorts of "facts" such as (that) a reign of terror and vandalism became the order of the day. This House is asked to commit itself to a statement as to what happened and then to ask for an investigation as to whether it did happen. UWI L ibr ari es 283. Could anything be more ridiculous? It is perfectly obvious that the intention of the Resolu­ tion is not to have an enquiry, but to get the most responsible instrument of government in this colony to commit its.elf to a finding on "facts" not the evidence of an investigation. Per­ haps the mover did not appreciate the implications of what he is doing. Perhaps now I have called them to his attention he should be good enough not to demeanthe House further but with­ draw the Resolution. The Resolution was, of course, not withdrawn. If I may resume. I have heard, further, many observations on the necessity for preserving the good name of this country. May I say, in case Members on the other side of the House are unaware of the facts, that the people of the U.S.A., a country with a very robust democratic tradition and not given to mealy­ mouthed talk and mealy-mouthed observations, are very familiar with strikes. I seem to recall I saw photographs in the news­ papers of tourists beaming with amusement at what was going on, quite unperturbed at witnessing in a British colony what demo­ cratic Americans are used to seeing in their own country. There­ fore these suggestions of hurting the good name of this country, which we on this side of the House have cherished for so long in the face of so many things that make decent people feel ashamed of the processes of Government in this country, we yield to no one Sir in our concern for the reputation of our people; and we ask this House not to behave like that evil bird that fouls its own nest by going on record in condemnation of your own people {if you still think them your own people) UWI L ibr ari es 284. before the facts are known and ascertained. Where is the evidence of these acts of vandalism? Not . one single incident has been verified of a tourist molested or injured. Not one single instance, and you wish to go on record for the whole world to hear that some sort of terror (occurred) Is that what you want to do to your country? Is that the reputation you wish your country to get abroad? Shame on tactics of that sort. A responsible House would call for an investigation. It would not condemn its own people with false charges before the accusation was made. I daresay there were certain instances of ebullient action on the streets , it happens in every country in the world when strikes take place; and men who sit on that side of the House and pretend to be labour leaders, should know it has happened hundreds of times by their own actions and not always without provocation. It is easy to come here now and talk about law and order, but who taught the country these things in the first place? I admire repentance, but I admire it more when it is not hypocritical. I congratulate all who wish to repent now but let them repent openly and with some sense of decency and not in this form. You may injure yourselves by bringing the contempt of good minded citizens upon you. If you are indifferent to your own reputation that is not a concern of mine (laughter) and indeed it would not be surprising to me (renewed laughter). Men can only cherish those things which are of good repute. You can hardly cherish a reputation that does not exist (laughter) UWI L ibr ari es 285. If you think this will injure the PNP and the TUC, allow me to assure you that you will fail in your mark. The reputation of the PNP has been high everywhere in the world. Mr.Bustamante:- On a point of order. Thereis nothing whatever in that motion about the reputation of the PNP andthe PNP has not been mentioned in it. Mr.Manley: With the greatest respect, I am amused at the state of confusion that the other side of the House is thrown into. You say the PNP is not mentioned in the resolution. May I be allowed to read from it?" ... when disorderly bands of PNP and TUC sympathisers II Mr.Bustamante: Not its reputation. Mr.Manley: Am I really hearing with my ears? (laughter). May I ask the Hon. Member for Southern Clarendon: How does one identify a person in a crowd or in a street as a Member of the PNP? Years ago when times were so very different from what they are today, it used to be imagined by my friends on the other side in the House that the Members of my Party had a peculiar mark on their foreheads (laughter). For the first time in five years of the new politics, the PNP was strong in numbers and quality; and clearly an overmatch for the Labour benches. That was not to say the pattern of parliamentary wins and losses stuck consistently. As the Majority members overcame their awe of N.W, Manley's presence among them and shed their defensive cast, they too got in their lumps. UWI L ibr ari es 286. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO And even before the release of the JLP from the poor-me-boy mold into which a timidity, an oldfashioned country fear of the erudite, was reducing .their puissance inside the House, out on the streets the old vigorish was as potent. In one overnight stroke, they calculated to avenge the Manley tongue-lashing by punching a hole in the PNP treasury (already lower than the usual low after fighting an election), and chopping a limb from the TUC's proliferative hotel section which had recently unmanned them. Manley had planned a railroad excursion to Montego Bay with sev­ eral coachfuls of comrades. The purpose of the victory invasion was twofold: to pull in about $600 profit from ticket sales for Party funds; and, even more important, to provide a psychological boost for the * Sunset Lodge Hotel strikers who had been led out by the TUC. But as *Manley had not thought the strike a good idea and had advised the Hill brothers and Roy Woodham of the TUC to play it with caution. The employers were powerful in the northwest and he was not for put­ting the union into a position to be clawed - and lose the nice plume they had won in the Myrtle Bank affair. Nevertheless, he sent down Florizel Glasspole, a TUC man of more cautious bent, to assess the situation. Uneasy, he later took off himself for Montego Bay. His fears were realized when he met a "glum" Glasspole on the road, re­turning. It was later settled. it was, next day the Myrtle Bank debate was not renewed and a govern­ ment ban on political demonstrations was announced. Manley believed that Bustamante, still smarting from the debate, had once more cosied up with the Governor and manoeuvred the embargo. However, his stay in Kingston produced a good occasion as he was to meet the man who would play a profound part in the government he would lead at the next election. The man was George Cadbury, then the UWI L ibr ari es 28 • Economic Adviser and Planner to the Saskatchewan government. After hours of talking into early Saturday morning, Manley said of him: "He was a man of fine, clear mind and a good socialist," giving him the highest compliment of the day. "I wish we had a couple of that calibre here." It was a good occasion that helped to offset the petty annoyance of the embargo. Manley, in a way, took over the mantle of his fellow barrister/ politician, J.A.G.Smith in the House. Like Smith, he was putting a mind, honed in the precise definitions of the - law, to work on those im­ precise "facts" and figures slipped into debates by smart politicians who are expert in the laws of expediency. He was very unsparing of min­ isterial motions "conceived in haste and written in confusion." Where he differed from the great Clarendon legislator was that he was a wittier man, possessed of an easier personality, and backed by able, hard driving comrades disciplined in Party loyalties. And freed of the repressing weight of a constitutionally imposed English governor sitting in the legislature, Manley's opposition was effective in a way that Jag's could never be. If Smith were a rapier in his time, Manley, the old artillery­ man, was both gunlayer and blade. He not only had armament, i.e., col­ leagues, to marshal as he needed, but as a trained enquirer, he excelled at working over utterances and revealing fumbles. He was too healthily arrogant to be pugnacious but he could destroy with grace and eclat. A couple of High Court judges of his time, despite the panoply of nigh absolute power that surrounds the Bench, were known to say the Yes, Mr Manley (the traditional invitation from the judge for a defending coun­ sel to rise and open his case) with a trepidation difficult to disguise. He took his understanding of histrionics into the House and often seiz.ed * the dramatic and held it tenaciously until the point was in. UWI L ibr ari es 2 8 8 . * Gully government," one of the slogans that was credited with help­ ing to bring down the Bustamante administration in the 1955 elec­ tions, received its first creative touch in the early days of the 1950 House when Manley spoke about "the legacy of unfinished gully works." Repeated over and over, it stuck. One of his early legislative wins was the Unemployment Committee bill asking for island-wide schemes of productive works along with spe­ cial relief through provisions of food, shelter and cash benefits. It was a horrendous motion to be put by a Socialist minority to a legisla­ ture which prided in its Conservative tag - even if the label had been contrived through a desire to appear capable of an alternative idea. And especially after Manley had opened his argument with a denunciation ** of capitalism. "Nowhere in the world can free enterprise deal with II the problem of unemployment, he said. But he knew that the pragmatic **He once described that bastion of the system, the United States, as "that blessed land of prejudice and free enterprise." fellows on the other side of the Chamber would never forget, nor ever grow unaware, of the blows they had taken in the elections just over. None would dare oppose his motion, however couched, if it promised ' benefits to the unemployed. On other matters, however, the Opposition received short shrift. One of these was the important House committees. •The PNP was denied , the right of choosing the committees on which Minority members would sit. When Manley wanted to go to the Agricultural Committee with Percival Broderick as the two PNP members, he was barred by Bustamante. The result was that the PNP functioned little in the infrastructure of the House and so moved Manley to describe the Committees as "functionless, barren and useless." UWI L ibr ari es 28 9 . CHAPTER FORTY-THREE An ugly old redbrick building belching flame and smoke, night and day, across the railway tracks at the end of Barry Street, housed the city's gasworks. Blacksmiths, bakers and all sorts of minor indus­ tries depended on the coal-fueled works for industrial coke and gas. It creaked along on its 70-year-old machinery, with gaping holes in its ancient walls and was itself a minor miracle in that it did not blow up the railway yard and adjuncts. Like the railway, it was costly to the government, burning out its subsidies at some $40,000 a year to service about 1,500 customers and a few hundred street lamps. The works were run by the city government, a body in no good grace with Bustamante since it was dominated by the PNP. He was therefore for scrapping the whole outfit. Manley used the old gasworks to make an early statement of his own deepest interest: the broadly employing husbandry of an island with little or undiscovered mineral resources, and an implausible industrial hope. Believably, he had already made up his mind that whenever his Party came to office, agriculture would receive the chief regard of his government. In his time to come, he would make strenuous efforts in oil exploration and raise the levy on bauxite (then in production ~INC€ i q ~ ).,) I fo:r:=::==;z:ears::;::)~ But for now, the plough ran ahead. Manley, the ex-woodcutter legislator from Guanaboa Vale, argued eloquently to keep the gasworks, pointing out that cordwood was getting scarce as the remaining forests succumbed to the axe. Fuel, he said, would soon become a real problem to the city housewives. He got wide support, even among his opponents, when he observed (in the 'Fifties) that electric stoves would never be on many shopping lists among the "ordinary people." His advocacy stayed Bus t a's hand and saved the UWI L iba rie s 29 0. ancient works for a while. But even more importantly, since gas was to go anyway, it enabled him to put the future problems of agriculture before the people. He argued for the retention of remaining woodlands as a barrier against continuing land erosion - woodlands which would be sure to go if the gasworks were suddenly shut down. Agriculture was his great concern and he could talk and scheme through the night with such committed men as Arthur Thelwell and Harry Dayes (who had a pineapple project for the East St Andrew hills) - although, due to the pressure of politics, he was thinking of selling the small herd of cattle he had kept at Drumblair for 12 years. It was a fine, carefully bred herd and it took a long time of talks with his - friend Richard Williams, before the decision was made; a decision no doubt helped along by the fact that the Drumblair mini farm was tyrannnously claiming Edna's time. As ever, her work and future were foremost in his mind. She was into much: sketching, painting, carving, editing the literary magazine FOCUS which she had founded, youth clubs, art classes He concluded he would cut off at least the farm-drain on her energies; she would not, willingly, give it up. There was much Edna could not give up. He was a strangely lonely man, a tragedy finely drawn, and in the impact of his integrity and intellect, capable of escaping the closest scan. He was clumsy at deviousness, uncomfortable in dissembling, often unwilling for company new and unknown - and of a great and just belief in his capabilities. "Fortunately, he has learnt to make people laugh," says the elegant but tough lady whom he had the good fortune to have love him. But there was yet much work to do for the man. "We're happy and full of confidence and we aren't fighting a losing cause," she explained later to the audience she best understood, when Douglas and Michael came home UWI L iba rie s 291A. from college and war: Douglas from Columbia andLiverpoal.Universities, Michael from the Canadian Air Force (Pilot Officer, 1943-45) and London School of Eoonornics. A~ She could not give up for there were matters in the "cause" that only she of the Manleys, could meet. "This morning, people poured in. Women with (hungry) children, men wanting (employment), men to say thanks." And these were the real drain on her energies and emotions. "Faith," observed Edna Manley looking out at the springtime hills she loved, "is a state of being whereby we achieve a harmonious sense of reality." Farming, sculpting, writing, praying, there was a sense of reality. She was about to work on her Christ, the now famous carving in West Street's All Saints church in Kingston. An awakening creativity occurred in Norman Manley's Jamaica, be­ tween 1938 and 1962, unmatched in any period. Writers, painters, sculp­ tors, dramatists, athletes, poets, dancers began appearing in numbers and quality unbelievable in a time before. It was a flood released, an outburst of expression previously dammed by the inhibiting banalities that had summoned them for service to the feudal lauding of winter snows They were the children of the blue-eyed books which the alien masters had given them, to school their ways. It had been unrelentingly hammere, into them that "loyalty to the Crown" was the highest reason for their existence; it fell somewhere between the pre-Hiroshima Japanese deifica­ tion of the Emperor and fetish worship. It had enabled them, without much pain, to sweat in the fields producing primary products for England * and bled them in her wars. The recognition of a national identity, *The West India Regiment for years did duty in Africa subduing black nationalists fighting against England. UWI L iba rie s 2 91B. caused by the new (PNP} Movement, was the cutwater for the appearance of George Campbell, likely Jamaica's most important 'national' poet, the Ivy Baxter dancers and the early and young Nettleford, then a UCWI student at Mona, bullying his classmates into discovering The Dance, h . . d . d . . ¥1with a wry laugh for our bull-ways: "And (which else) became a member of a Federation based on a law of the Imperial (British) parliament, which did not contemplate secession, (yet) contrived a way of breaking it up and (become) a nation by the ballot box ... ? )} 0 Once before they were married and Edna in London had this tiny flat in St John's Wood, they would sometimes sit and talk in a small cemetery. One day he talked to her about his uncertainty that law should be his career. He wanted, he said, "to do politics." So now he had. He had come out for self-government and given not an inch to the pressures for preserving a Colonial society, so ancient it was sacred in the eyes of its defenders. It was the oldest continuous government in the Western hemisphere. The 1955 election came in the 300th year of English rule. UWI L iba rie s PART 3 DAY OF THE BROOM (2) UWI L iba rie s 315 . PART 3 THE DAY OF THE BROOM (2) It had been a long day but less disorderly than most had feared. The Russian ship which had docked in Kingston harbour made no more ripple in the day's affairs than a pebble dropped in the Volga. (Two elections later, in 1962, another Russian which steamed into port on Polling Day would be credited with blowing the PNP's show because of a JLP-rigged howl that a Commie take-over was on.) Nobody worried in 1955 that the Reds had come to town, for the PNP had already cleaned * house. The Split had purged them pure. *Of more interest was another incoming vessel, the Fairsea, the first all-migrant ship on the Jamaica-England run. It had been a long day but the campaign had its moments. Busta, in the end, feeling the surge from his foes, had hurled all his weapons into battle, including aircraft to "bomb" the doubters with his Vote Labour leaflets. But Civil Aviation in Montego Bay grounded the JLP airforce for flying without permits. Two earth tremors were recorded on the seismograph at St George's College; and a smaller one occurred in May Pen where Busta and his body guard, roving inside his own con­ stituency, was roughed up when he drove his car through a PNP meeting. (Young kinsman Michael Manley on the rostrum at the time, saved the day with a powerful exhortation to allow Elder Cousin Alex through.) Norman Manley had fielded 32 candidates, one for each constituenc The Labour Party sent in 31• UWI L iba rie s C, . 316. The PJP-ousted Hill brothers' party, the National Labour Party, s e lected three; and the Independene, in the last serious -i. '- election try by that hardy breed, turned up with twenty four on the C t= -, .,., ,:::: ·.:) ·, L---lcvs.c- S€rJT.s'1 /tJ.J &>Utcr REvEl:>'c oF Tif[ 14,-u 7; s late. -rue Pl\.lP wcN it; , ,,'"' .70'- - ✓ r · ' n • CP Q1tce. ~N, A Cayman Islander once owed Norman a fee and with a twinkle far ck in his eye he took his fee in kind: a rowboat he named Tom Tiddler. One rough windy day, Tom Tiddler broke its moorings and disappeared. Manley advertised the loss of his fine boat and afterwards, a man in Li ttle Cayman picked up a piece of newspaper fluttering past, smoothed i t out, and read about the loss of N.W. 's boat; and by the Great Blue W'nale, wasn't it the one which had washed ashore on the Cay some time before? So Tom Tiddler came home again, aboard the steamer Cimboco, N•W• to that ardent boatman, QManley. It was a dramatic demonstration of the power of information. and in By two a.m. the PNP victory was clinched••• the dark early hours of the Day of the Broom, Manley issued a statement to the news­ papers informing the nation of his tenets and intents. Now that the s t ormy campaign was over, he wanted the nation to know his intent and of the principles which would guide his rule. "I stand now," he said, "stripped of rancour, or remembrance of hurt in the past, and offer to one and all to go forward from here for a better Ja.~aica. '! promise honest government and fair play forall. "I approach t.1-ie task with a call for unity, and a prayer to God to bless our people, our country and our cause." UWI L iba rie s 317. He looked rumpled and at ease as he spoke. As a young man he had loved good clothes. He still bought Irish linen and tropical suits but he had a genius for ripping his jackets. He chose the very outset of power also to state in categorical terms that the Party was a "moderate socialist party." He was prepar­ ing an open field, unbound by rigid dogmas. The Party had stumbled badly on dogmas, had almost fallen flat on its face. It had found its footing and escaped disaster by ejecting elsewise valuable players . from the field. The Manley game plan needed freedom to explore outside of asserted doctrines and to accept if necessary what he called "normal methods where these are best and promise most for us." Normal methods of course meant the old and abused capitalist channels and essentially bespoke gradualism. But whether right or wrong, he could not be fairly accused of expedience since it was a position he had taken much earlier , fourteen years before. Then he had observed in almost the same words that socialism was not a "rigid dogma embodied in any finally revealed biblical text" but a principle of social organisation, shaped in the end to suit the circumstance. Manley was at the peak of his mental powers at 59 years old, and in good political shape after 16 years in the arena. Years in which he had gone up against Colonial dissemblers, partisan frays and intra­ party foes. All his life, he had been a · winner. As athlete, scholar, lawyer. His political defeat in 1944 had for the first time sent him into the ranks of the losers. It must have been an initial occurrence that irked. "He was taken aback," O.T.Fairclough once wryly remarked. The rebuff of his Party again in 1949 had placed him in danger of slip­ ping from legendary to legend. Fate had not seemed fair or graceful. UWI L iba rie s 3 8. He had supplied most of the intellect, vitality and faith which had propelled the people up the road to self determination. His proud PNP, hailed as the hope bringer by the middlebrows, had been the apostles of planning in government - and consequently identified among the Reds by a reflexive society. And brought close to crumbling. The purge had left scour-marks that would be unhealed for years. But none of this was evident the morning of January 13, the first time since 1938 that the power of his cousin Bustamante could have been said to be broken. The PNP still held, to the chagrin of its pragmatic adherents, the reputation of being a home Dr intellectuals; projecting a relevance to militant youths with a glint of Lenin in the eye. (The thinking of the day made only the slightest reference to race relations in the country. Very little in politics did. A few in the local chapter of Marcus Garvey's UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association), such as St William Grant, had thrown in with the political talk around, but even less found anything in the game to warrant a real stake. It was the period of the black civil servant going on "home leave" to England.) Clerks and clerics, artists and artisans, this had been the stuff of back in 1944 and 1949 had been the PNP. Going to the polls for the JLP~ .... the army of urban labourers, ironically, , sugar estate workers, longshoremen, whose enfranchisemen-tfhad been won for them by N.W.Manley. It had taken ten years for them to turn their heads to the left and see him and the PNP. 1 The turn of the mass vote had come of several causes; least of which was not the sobering intransigence of the Jamaican "small man" who enjoys swinging a swift chopper at the heels of a high-stepping neighbour. Issues, while not unknown in Jamaican elections, have a rarity. Democratic elections in the America.s, north, south, or the UWI L iba rie s 319. C ribbean middle, rouse an emotional enthusiasm of magnificent propor­ ~io s . Our triba l r ituals include the assassinations in t he north, t.e revolutions in the south, and the hymn-singing, brick-throwing streetcorner conclaves of the Caribbean. But the single, univer a l issue that has never failed to influence, wherever the freedom of poli­ tical choice occurs, is the cooking-pot. On polling-day, the level of past conce rn with employment is cal led into accoW1t. If the public works have been candidly labour-intensive , in the interests of the mass voters , the chances of being elected increase. politicians 's public works is what politics is abo·t. Ulric Simmonds , t h n the Gleaner's Poli ·de a l Reporter, commenting on why the JLP lost t e elections , wrote: "Too few members of the JLP paid any attention to their constituencies while they were in office." He pointed out too that "the PNP had to wait unti l the events of 1938 had been dimmed in the minds of the electorate before they could get their programme to penetrate the almos t hypnotic spedwhich O Bustamante's exploits had woven into the minds of the people ." /' (,J S' .. , c._Nc. i-<11« To ~Rte.. 1m 1J1ti;..t£>0 The scandal of JLP Minister l. L; Simmonds'/\ conviction for sell- .:.ng State secrets through a clandestine sheet c :<:; :,,.,. '::J * ( ,= . : : · · ) t:o selective clients, and frauds in the *Several big businessmen suffered ulcers during the Si:mr.ionds- Truman trial and one ot two became devout churchgoers as the investiga­ tions continued but none was ever publicly touched. The fix was indubitably , in. dispos ition of benefits by the Hurricane (1951) Housing relief agency had also spread disenchantment among the middle-Jamaican supporters of the Labour Party. Manley had exploited the matter in the House to the discomfiture of the other side but, Edna loyally thought, with "drama and r estraint," no doubt quite appreciative that the latter did great service to the first; exactly as N.W. would have wanted it. UWI L iba rie s 320. Manley's reading of the economy combined happily with his own honest instincts, and preference, for agriculture. It was, and is, the livelihood •Of the voting mass. Many years earlier, when he wrote for Public Opinion, he stated that land was "the only source of the material life of a people. It provides food and shelter. It furnishes work and wealth. Town should support country, and country, town. But poverty in town supports nothing. It bleeds to death." The PNP victory was not a week old when he announced: "We start with agriculture." 0 The island's hard times were perennial. Thousands of women do­ mestics slaved for five shillings (50¢) a week in the city, less in the rurals. (A household help worked nine days to buy a pound of ham for the Christmas dinner.) A labourer's day on the farm, from first light to dusk, brought him 40 cents. These were the fortunate ones. Figures - such as there were in the creaking British outposts where the keeping of economic statistics was not encouraged - indicated that one in five was out of work. Manley saw that the solution was to multiply and increase work opportunities at a fast rate. He would start with agriculture but therE would be hard economic planning as they went along. He needed people. People with a knowledge of planning and some sort of socialist dedica­ tion. He knew just such a man. He was not worried about his thin majority (of four) in the House. "A majority of four is a working majority," he said after the election. Nevertheless, his Party had its doubts. There were nervous suggestions to offer the Speaker's chair to a quiet, respected country lawyer, a Trelawny JLP man named Allan Dou9las. But in the rough UWI L iba rie s 321. realities of partisan politics, the thought was as fleeting as it was footling. Calming their fears, Manley set about with speed and audaci t ~ to put a team together. First of all, he "wanted a man with a very unusual combination of qualities and experience." He knew such a man. In February, 1950, he had briefly met George Cadbury, economic adviser and planner to the Saskatchewan Provincial Government. Manley was at the time preoccupied with the strike at Sunset Lodge Hotel in which things were going badly for the PNP-supported TUC, he could comment on Cadbury's "fine, clear mind" and on the pleasant fact that he was "a good Socialist"; and even went as far as wishing "we had a couple of that calibre here." Cadbury was one of the five-year-old United Nations Organisation's travelling repairmen whose skills were being hired to help square the lopsided world and raise the odds against future wars. Manley had kept in touch with him. He determined now to close the contact, and, within a week, flew to the U.S.A., to seek out Cadbury. He was also visiting with his great and good friends in that country, who, working through the Jamaica Progressive League, had so strongly supported his cause and Party. He had always had a special affinity for America; not for its glitter but its knack of hustle. He held a great admiration for black Americans; the skill and resolution with which they had begun the brutally punishing task of teaching their white fellow citizens the meaning of the Republic. In a time when the black Americans held small respect among the "English" West Indies blacks, he spoke often about enlisting their resources for the economic and political development of Jamaica, particularly in tourism and in­ dustry. The racist disregard of the black tourist market by the Jamaican-funded Jamaica Tourist Board, also drew his ire. UWI L iba rie s 322. It was in Manley's character that the first apparatus of his new government to engage his whole attention was a Central Planning uni · Nothing would enter the development streams without the approval of, or creation by, the unit, He had set his eye on the magical figure of 150,000 new jobs in five years. He intended a feed-in of £55-million ($110-m.) to generate the jobs. Statistics were scarce and he hungered for them: unemployeds, skills, the job-increase rate he should gun for and the state of the international money market where he expected slippe.1 footing because of the Red-smear which he charged Bustamante had made, against the PNP on his overseas visits. His practicality, with which, because of his native creativity, he was hardly ever credited, made him step back from his well favoured social welfare subjects and face squarely the requirements for produc­ tion. Welfare required wealth, and wealth came from work and produc­ tion. He would concentrate his energies in the moving of more people from the flews to the thews of the society. UWI L iba rie s 323. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN The blend of caution and aggression with which Manley chose to launch his regime certified his commitment to moderate socialism. To­ day, the revolution then seems small, and calm, and not a revolution at all. Then, it warred against reason as the empire-loyalists saw it. They saw a scion of the system, of Jamaica College, and Oxford, of Flander• ·s Field and Gray's Inn, of "Upper" St Andrew and the Jockey Club enclosure, turning from the Mother Country (England) and going to * wander in the wilds of America seeking aid. It embarrassed or out- * A parallel ironic reaction was to occur two decades later when Jamaica, led by his son, Prime Minister Michael Manley, and pass­ ing through a recession, accepted loans from its Caricom partners, Trinidad, Guyana and Barbados, instead of asking the, by now, tra­ ditional loaners, the United States. raged the gin-sling gents who still clubbed gamely along, unaware that in the face of the new trade realities unveiled at the Ottawa Conferenc and the subsequent hammer-blows from World War II, England was for saw­ ing off the "backward and impoverished" islands the instant it decently could. Such was the time that Manley was forced to explain that he was "not turning my back on England! Not at all!" And all this merely be­ cause he sought an "expert" other than the usual Whitehall choice. His aggression was delicate. He never belonged to the power-tool school of politics. He had a tough, sinewy erudition that raided the past for reconnaissance and soon was back in the present action better equipped, stronger than before. Land, for example, especially in Jamaic: and agricultural people and economy, belonged "to all the generations past, present and to come." He was passionate about its good use. He knew of the ex-slaves flight to real freedom that had made them seek the limestone mountains. The years of hacking at the infertile knobs and the denuded end, the equally worn people and eroded hopes. And UWI L iba rie s 324. . -w tha • to destroy land was to destroy mankind. said so. And sou ht ya system of taxation, acquisition and education to put it :It ·nto h althy service for m· n. Acqui s ition would, of course , in Manley ' s ~ And even devising his own clea:c if a,·1kward slogan: "Every ac:e has a use, e ve ry acre needs a man.u emocr cy, be par lleled with compens tion, whether cash or government boids , at market value. He ws s.owing a great respect for capital and giving guarantees o::: abso utc prote c tion . The guarantees would be c a rried out; he had roe - hard honesty in ~ransactions; but the noisy guarantees were a l s o o st t e scene f or the United States audience, t he world' ewes t, wealt hies t t heatre of patronage for poorer countries . ....e::--=--=---;_,~ C ------ : : :::::J C---:..--------JJ The Commie taint, so irresponsibly spread by the ocal opponents to Socialism, including junketing Labour Party members, n ade scrubbing. He was s preading the word that his Party would not only welcome private investors but would be a partne r in e nterprises ; with as fi ne an eye for the gatherable margin. Profits which he inten­ ded to plough back into idl ing fields. 1 •' ~ '; One field that was made considerably poorer by new Chief Minister & - Premier Manley's entry into fulltime politics, was the law. The a ccession signalled his departure from t.~e Courts and indeed e very legal activity. What may s eem peculiar is that he departed with alacrity. The truth is that ha had gro-vm weary of the practice of law. He had been ready since 1938 to pull back and put more of his energies into social work. Jamaica Welfare had engaged his passion. The possible s cope of that project would have engaged his relish but for t he financial UWI L iba rie s 325. considerations. He was still a wage earner, of necessity; and the law paid his bills. 0 The high, square rooms of the Supreme Courts Nos 1 & 2 in the East Public Building block on King Street, had been witness to his most famous triumphs. And even his occasional defeats, were often wrestled back into wins in the Appeal Court room, a few yards north up the corridor where airconditioned insulation blanked out the down­ town traffic noises. There, in quiet, almost casual tones, he had argued the landmark cases, on pure law, almost always with gaggles of lawyers in the gallery to catch the great sweeps and power of his mind, and the capacity for the delicate and the particular, that marked his fine moments. He now gave up the law. No longer would-k_stride into court, torn robe flapping, eyes giving that fast quizzical look at the Bench to see with Whom he would deal that day, notes tidily tucked in his hand, a loose armful of books - and the wave of excitement or apprehen­ sion that entered with him. There was no case he did not enliven. The Baird trial in London turned on the bloodstains on his client's shirt. ' Manley, preparing for the trial, procured a syrup of the approximate viscosity of blood, poured it into a skinbag, and stabbed away as he sought to establish the splash-patterns to prove his case. (Michael, in London, was his assistant, holding the sheet of paper representing the shirt:) L 7 a • 1 -In the celebrated Alexander murder case, Edna provided the clay heads into which he fired bullets to observe the effect. She was frequently UWI L iba rie s 326. in Court in earlier days at his request, putting her intuitive techni­ que to work for him; maybe watching Juror Number Three to see whether t e fellow was cool, warm, or hostile. He could say he had never defended a guilty client, because he - and the culpables were not addicted to admissions. never asked/ ~ ~ .... ..,,. ... ,,..~ . '' ,, . *'-:\" --~·~ , ... ,,, .,_~,_~"~~-,-. ~~ ";¥~~~- .... • .---~-~~ .................. -- . ........ ~~___,. r-t::::·-::::·=== ·===-2~ "My grandfather," Rae e l, his frequent confidante, vers, "once said to me that the difference between truth and legal truth is that truth is straight , legal truth is one that you can bend but not bre II Rachel, with the devastating innocence of a favoured child, • ad asked whether when he knew a client to be guilty, was he not also uilty by endeavouring to prove innocence. "He told me he never wanted to know whether a client was guilty. He just took the evidence and searc· ed it." One of the world's more widely read men, he has said that expert witnesses - doctors or o ' ~e r forensic attestants - 1ost to him because they had hardly read since chool. He counted on this; and so he came in well prepared. In Court , ne of his strategies was to appear to be ozing on his seat (the K • ,. . Counsel bench inside the Bar) until the witness , or opposing counse l ., .- :-oke or even bent the Law of Evidence. ·· en, almost feline, he would . · se for the kill. Judges who knew him, if so disposed, anticipated and quickly admonished the offender, saving /Yl£ Lu.cl he sinner from destruction but also to show that IS S a toovwas awake ./ \ J and alert. People had a desire to do their best in the company of Manley. Now he was walking away and the cou,.itry would be poorer in its leg 1 texture. Yet, the tasks ahead allowed no less ~ from the coronary His recovery/had been excellent. ~ ~·,.-" ~,.,._,..._,,.._...._,.,_ -----.-:_...;c...-,'....," His brother-in-law Dr Ludlow Moody UWI L iba rie s 327. and Edna, his round-the-clock nurse, had kept himstill for the healing; but, as Edna said, looking at her ex-patient stalking life again, "He has a chronic tendency for doing too much." The trouble of course was that there was much to do. He needed all the help he could get. UWI L iba rie s 328. CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT In six whirlwind hours in New York, his search was over. Register­ ing at the famous old "black" Hotel Theresa in Harlem - rather than in the elaborately expensive downtown watering places that his predecessor~ * (and successors) usually chose - he hustled ahead of his own and Bri- *And beat Fidel Castro by a decade when the Cuban leader also de­ fied the tradition by staying at the Theresa when he arrived in New York for a UN meeting. tish Embassy aides through the icy streets of mid-Manhattan, his an­ gular figure and loping strides always in front of the pack. He ate lunch in the UN b~ilding with Arthur Goldschmidt, Acting Director Gen­ eral of the Technical Assistance Administration, and talked into even­ ing on the East River. The UN people reluctantly agreed to lend Ceorge Cadbury, the six-foot-five scion of the millionaire chocolate Cadburys, a Quaker whose formidable credentials included service under Sir Staf­ ford Cripps in the British Socialist government. But lest anyone should think that his steps were being guided by doctrine, Manley brusquely told an interviewer on New York's WRUL station: "Never mind about Socialism. That is a theoretical idea. Practical development is what we want." Cadbury would head his Central Planning Unit, the adminis,tra­ tive brain of his government. In the preparation of this book, a few people have been intrigued by the question, that, had Jamaica been independent then, would Manley have pulled up his drawbridge and tried for working out his socialist fortunes at home, near to closing his borders as possible. His finance minister "Crab" Nethersole, at length thoroughly disgusted with seeking loans and grants from the richer nations, broke down subsequently and declared: "I do not believe we should go begging forever ... the UWI L iba rie s 329. potential resources of the island are sufficiently great that we need not lose our self respect. Otherwise, why talk of nationhood at all?" But Manley's "practical development" had to face the fact that for de­ cades, people had been voting with their feet against the persistent poverty. · (Migratory waves frequently swept the island, taking off great chunks of workers to Cuba and Panama, Costa Rica and the United States. And nearly at crest, now, was the long, disquieting run to London. The new black wave was hitting the Britons hard, breaking forth racist howls from the once stiff upper-lipped natives and causing much palaver in their Westminster tribal councils.} D Manley reasoned that the need for swift solutions outpaced the ideological cause. One nation's socialism was not necessarily anotl'Er' ~ and nobody's was for export. By his magnificent, relentless fight for the vote, he had shaken the people out of their political lethargy. Now was the time for polarity. He must meet the problems with skill and resource. That was it. So he took his majority of four into the House to govern with every ounce of will, energy and capability. 0 A minute to noon on Wednesday, February 2, they elected him Chief Minister at the official request of Governor Sir Hugh Foot. His longtime friend and political colleague, Noel Nethersole, spoke in the Chamber of him: "I need not, and indeed it would be an impertinence for me to begin either to assess or to describe the various qualities which so eminently fit the Honourable Member for the position to which he is UWI L iba rie s 330. about to be appointed. His qualities, his record, his reputation, his unbounded energy, his zeal and his remarkable capacity for hard work, all combine to make him pre-eminently a person who in this House should occupy the position of Chief Minister." Manley, at the Majority-end of the horseshoe benches, stood,lean and angular, to make his acceptance speech and a few tentative cheers rose from the gallery but Speaker B.B.Coke reprovingly shook his be­ wigged head. {In Parliament, any sign of Life in The People is frowned upon.) It was on this occasion that Mr Manley made his unforgettable amd much quoted words concerning The Case Of The People, the time and place which curiously enough seems not to be widely known. "At this moment, we face a period of immense opportunity. The next five years, we are to achieve full self-government for this countl'.} In the next five years, we are to achieve a Federation of the West Ind.ie In the next five years, we are to strive with all that we have, to main· tain and advance the social and economic life of the country ... "All my life, I have carried responsibilities on my shoulders. I have spent my life on many cases. And now I turn my back for good and all on that life. I take into my hands the case of the people of Jamaica before the bar of history, against poverty and need. The case of my country for a better life and freedom in our land." The gallery stormed alive. Speaker Coke was on his feet, in robes and full-bottomed wig trying to still the gallery, a majestic figure. He remained just that, a majestic figure. The people had * come to parliament. *The take-over included the removal of the portraits of the previous English governors which had adorned the walls of the Chamber - a move agreed on by both PNP and JLP. UWI L iba rie s 331. CHAPTER FORTY-NINE Manley named seven members to his Executive Council (or Cabinet): Noel Nethersole (central St Andrew, finance), Dr Ivan Lloyd (eastern St. Ann, education & social welfare), Florizel Glasspole (eastern Kingston, labour), Wills Isaacs (central Kingston, trade & industry), Dr Glen Logan (northern Manchester, local government & housing), C.L.A. Stuart (western St Mary, health) and A.G.S.Coombs (northwestern St * James, communication & works). Besides being Chief Minister, he took *Other PNP members in the House were: F.L.B.Evans, Westmoreland; E.V.V.Allen, northern St Elizabeth; Dr Eric Campbell, eastern Hanove: Max Carey, eastern Westmoreland; Ken Clarke, western St Thomas; B.B. Coke, Speaker, southern St Elizabeth; Melbourne (Ben) Cox, north­ eastern St Catherine; Jonathan Grant, southeastern St Catherine; Winston Jones; southern Manchester; Rev Cyril Morgan, southeastern St James. on the agriculture portfolio. It was an executive arm of considerable talent and was to make a good reputation for itself through some sturdy legislation. But the debates could have been more soul-searching had the Opposition been more penetrating. Relieved, however, by some hearty ** Jamaican ribaldry and flashes of wit, the term left a legacy of _ **On one occasion, in answer to fellow lawyer Allan Douglas' obser­ vation that the revised Law Editions would soon not be enough for the fast rising roster of solicitors, Manley replied that "apart from an insignificant creature known as the onychophora, I don't know any animal that proliferates more rapidly than the members of the soliciting profession." important laws and actions which were to markedly change the country's course. In his own ministry (agriculture), Manley increased the work­ ing capital of the Agricultural Development Corporation to over $1.6 m. much of it flowing to the rice planting ventures at Vernamfield and Amity. UWI L iba rie s 3 2. From his new position of strength as the island's elected head, he was also engaging, quietly but strongly, in the Federal cause. A task that was not herculean since the Opposition, up to then, was equa11, stout in support of the Pan-English speaking Caribbean. As the JLP's Edwin Allen said in the House during those agreeable days, it "trans­ cended the bonds of party politics." The unanimity was over a year old. The Federal proposal had been approved at the 1953 London Conference. Manley was such an ardent advocate of Antillean accord that Grenada's T.W.Marryshow, the most devoted Federationist of them all, exulted in a cablegram to N.W. at the time of the PNP victory: "Praise God from Whom all blessings flow!" A questionable invocation, since the PNP would, in less than its allotted two-term span, be swept out of office on an anti-Federal back­ lash. Soon Bustamante would commence to itch under the uneven harness the proposed federal code would lay on him, the outlandish amalgam of self- and sovereign-ruled island governments, all poor, but many poorer. Making it together in creeping squalor And badger Manley into the statesman's would never be caught dead in. in the richest half of the world. -tf(a,t_ r?::> ~1-c)i-zr (.-L~~.i , '\ [-"(_ ) behaviou1J\- the cunny-man, The Federation would be an experiment in colonialism since it was to include from the tiny islands in various stages of legislative swad­ dling, to the two or three constitutionally advanced ones. But whether the federal idea faded o_r held, the drive for self-rule in Jamaica was not being neglected. Manley was making it a matter of record that Jamaica' ~ progress to full independence be allowed to continue unimpeded. Indeed, UWI L iba rie s 333. on his accession to the executive, he discovered that a curious piece o f ove r s ight had occurred. A resolution from this country, at the time of the approval of the federal proposal, seeking a firm and clear assur­ ance of an open path to self-rule, directed to the British government, h d not been answered a year later. He immediately set to prodding for a public reply that would separate our own campaign from t..'lis II strange (f ederal) march to Colonial status." f 'f' • (:)f A source o grati ication or 1'y12.- office was the~election to the Hous e Manley during his second term of of C ' W'lliam Seivrigh:, /omrades since the knobbly days of 1938• C:-----·~ c==- • ________ : ..... , ..... : ...... :: __ • _: _. ·-· __ _J ._Er-~:_:::::::,::;:::;::::::::::_:-_...,.•=•::::::::::::::::::.::•:::..-.:.-•_: ____ --~''1J The ta11, severely-elegant master-baker, C - 1 ,.,,. . : :;=:.:) ~~ (:_--__ __ - _¾ ___ * ____ •_ • _.--::-, ,_:_•_3 a former Mayor of Kingston, c:==::- , ... :) the ~On-, agriculture portfolioQ Manley who could now devote himself to the politics of change in the constitution. (The JLP too had made a formid­ able gain with the bye-election of Donald Sangster, later to be Prime Minister.) Seivright was an unlikely Socialis1:, C: ·•: :> a man of seem- ~ ing conservative c:::::::l but for a startling evangelical c::;hent. He was a successful businessman and would fetch capitalist savvy into the Cabi­ net. Manley was finessing a situation. No job is as nakedly up for grabs as is the politician's; and like some crazy actor, he frequently pauses in the play to explain his role. N.W's socialist reputation had remained ata constant high in the rest of the Caribbean, even in the years when he was restlessly roaming the legislative wilderness. His posture had invited such public acco­ lades as Grenada's Marryshow's extravagant statement to a Jamaican audience that "we who come from the various islands are not so much in­ terested in knowing how you feel about Manley. We look to him as the UWI L iba rie s 3 34. one to shape the future we aspire to." But these stirring alleluias from the founding Socialist fathers had come before the 1952 ideological sundering of his own Party. Seated now in the saddle and faced with the practical job of winning the race, he was redefining his political road. Not in content, but in degree; the degree of public/private mix. So borrowing a line from his friend Sir Arthur Lewis, the West Indies University's Vice Chancellor, that "Socialism is about equality," and declaring that "a Socialist believes that the purpose of human his­ tory is to achieve a society dominated by the concept ofequality.," he set about stating how he would seek that equality. He claimed that "capital resources _and investments" were the only capable tools to increase production and enlarge the national income. Money and venture. The fact and the act. New jobs would generate the new revenues his government needed to heighten the quality of life. No­ body questioned that the life-style needed heightening. It was true that prime rib roast was only 30 cents a pound, but most household help made less than a dollar a week. He conceded, to any outraged apostles of the far left or right, that he was not finding it "difficult" or con­ tradictory to invite capitalists into Jamaica. For then, in given cir- set cumstances, he fully intended to~ his government among the entre- preneurs, to develop enterprises or put them under public control. Be­ cause he was a practical visionary - one of the rare men allowed by life to possess that winning combination of mind and will - in the arrogance of the well coordinated {the believed and the revealed, one never knew in Manley which came first}) he could knuckle the skulls of the "muddle­ headed", who found him "confusing", and the "biased" who were simply dishonest. What turns out is that Socialist N.W.Manley saw in capital­ ist investment the only road to prosperity. That was identified as heresy by the ideologically chaste; and was a future spectre. UWI L iba rie s 335. "I am content to remain where I am," he was however saying, "where these seeming conflicts are resolved by accepted principle and where practical reason may safely influence methods. I remain a Social­ ist because I have a conviction that the society the Socialists believe in, is just, acceptable and historically inevitable." That society would come, he predicted soberly; then, with a chuckle: "But by then we may be calling it by some]other name." I UWI L iba rie s 336A. CHAPTER FIFTY N.W.Manley did a little minor adjustment to history by being the first minister to locate a ministry outside of Kingston. He moved his ministry (of agriculture) up to Hope Gardens in St Andrew and ear­ marked a bulky eight million dollar budget for . it. But it was to bauxite he turned for his most dramatic modification. Mining has been a Jamaican industry since the 16th century. The Spanish search for gold had sluiced a little out of the Rio Minho and Hope rivers, dug a little out of the Rio Cobre valley and the Liguanea hills, but altogether too little to -sate the Hispanic appe­ tite for the metal. A tithe of iron and some not inconsiderable cop­ per had been dug up in Spanish times; but in the English era, came the discovery, that infinitely greater profits resided in slaves and sugar. So mining became just a hole in the ground and there stayed for a couple of centuries. . * Although bauxite, the principal ore of aluminium, was identified * Named for Les Baux in France where P. Berthier discovered it in 1821. in the extensive redlands of the central parishes since the 19th century, the deposits were unexploited until a serious survey of a _St Ann parish in the 1940's enabled its "rediscovery"; and drew the attention of the multinational aluminium giants. The small agrarian island, hitherto industrially insignificant, was now known to possess the world's largest deposit of aluminium ore · (some 600 million tons of reserves) and would soon be agead of the #y]J previous largest producers, British Guiana (Guyana) and Surinam. UWI L iba rie s 336B. · The approach of the new industrial age was less clangorous than had the coming of the new sugar age, a decade before, in 1938. There was reason for caution; a cause for the less spectacular colloquy. Sugar had set off a charge at Frome that exploded into the new Jamaica. But there had been violence and casualties, as companies of unemployed and marginal earners descended on the Frome estates for a share in the bonanza. And with thatf williwaw well within recall, the new political rulers, many of whom had assisted mightily at blowing up the wind of social change that swept the country on a new political course, were understandably cautious in unwrapping too much enthusiasm for what could turn out to be a new Frome: a tumult that could mark them for the new monsters, mark them for the new imperialists. Be that as it may, the opening of the bauxite mines was a kind of opening of the new industrial age and entered the Bustamante government of the day upon the unfamiliar territory of royalty and tax. They did not do very well in the new territory. Reynolds, Kaiser and Alumina Jamaica Limited were the big three corporations that had swivelled their sights to the new Jamaican source. Out of the negotiations with the government, the companies succeeded in extruding agreements about which the Jamaican head of the Bauxite Institute, Dr Carlton Davis, reviewing the affair many years later, was moved to exclaim: "While primary aluminium averaged about $400 per ton, Jamaica was obtaining, in taxes and royalties, $1.50 for the bauxite required to make one ton of aluminium!" But in the Forties there were no Jamaican experts. UWI L iba rie s 336C. And neither were there in 1957. Yet, by the third week in March, Manley, as Minister of Development (and Chief Minister) had concluded his search and analysis of the bauxite status, and was ne­ gotiating expertly with the American technocrats-. For so soon as he had decided to go after the companies, he -had taken his familiar position of/ the need to know the facts. All the facts. The style that had worsted his adversaries in the courts for 30 years. In the search for that edge of knowledge he valued, he had sought authorities. In his former judicial days, he would have mined the law libraries and professional sources for informatbn and ideas. But this project was outside his field and negotiations with powerful conglomerates, whose armour went deep in all kinds of skills unfamiliar to raw Caribbean troops, required experienced auxilliaries. So he went looking for mercenaries . . "The first step," he explained to the rapt House on that memor­ able March day in 1957 when he disclosed how he had done it, "was to engage the services of a consultant to advise the government." And mused aloud: "This was not as easy as might appear." He was understat­ ing his case. Twenty years before, also on a March day, when he had begun negotiations to man the most significant social +evolution since ~mancipation (he had taken care to "record as fact" on March 31, 1957, that he was now seeing the first possible recruits to his "Banana Fund rrust", i.e., Jamaica Welfare), he had been dealing _with one of the fruits of his earth, and with an industry already 70 years old. As root a Jamaican discipline as the almost indigenous sugar-cane. He had ploughed into the business by learning from men who were 1omegrown proficients. Bauxite, although notoriously, indeed, outrageously Jamaican, UWI L iba rie s 336D. the very earth on which all things stood, was mysterious country .. Opening it up profitably would require men .of special skills; skills_ that lay not here, but abroad; and,worse still, lay in the lairs of the brokers. Cheekily, Manley entered the den for a look. ~ Samuel (Sam) Moment, a lean, sandy-hair American marketing economist of excellent credentials, had earned his reputation through several prestigious connections. He had been with the Bonneville Power Administration, U.S.A. In 1945, he held a responsibility in the disposal of post-World War II (U.S.) aluminium plants. He served · with the U.S. Department of the Interior for the expansion of that country's aluminium industry during the Korean War. And, of peculiar import, he was a consultant for multinational corporations when he was tapped by Manley. The singularity of his choosing lay in the unease which an American functionary for large American companies should have caused in Manley's mind. After all, was he not asking an American citizen to instruct him in ways to gouge more profits out of Sam's compatriots? The answer lay in the valence of the men. Like Manley, Sam Moment was a thoroughgoing professional, the breed for which Manley held a respect, and even a fondness, being himself of the blood. He met Moment; and, as more often than not, with his fine eye for picking quality, his acuity scored. Sam Moment's special knowledge was supplied fair and square to his employers. Manley's genius for logic and argument and negotiation did the rest. UWI L iba rie s 3J 6E. "Broadly speaking," Manley went on to tell the House, "the bauxite and aluminium industry in America is controlled by four very large companies. There are very few people in the world today, un­ connected with the companies, who have detailed knowledge of this industry." Teamed with his American fact-gatherer, Manley said, "information was collected from all sources, checked, classified, analysed and studied and by the time negotiations (with the companies) were to commence, there was very little of interest to us that was not known about the intricacies and vast ramifications of the industry." The investigations satisfied the interlocutors that the 1950 bauxite deal had faulted on the Labour government's lack of information and advice from expert sources "to enable them to negotiate on equal terms with the companies engaged in the business." (.0 The 1950 agreement had fixed a royalty of ten cents a ton on exported bauxite, and eight cents a ton on aluminium. The royalty was to remain fixed for five years. Income tax was at 40% of the profits. The profits being assumed at 60¢ a ton of bauxite, the tax­ able income yielded 24¢ on each ton. So the combine of royalty and tax totalled 34¢ on the ton of bauxite. With the presumed profit of 60¢ a ton being fixed for 25 years, the earnings to Jamaica would be growthless for much of one man's lifetime. And, indeed, with the inevitable natural world economic inflation, would rapidly dwindle to dwarf. It was clear to Manley's team of civil service and hired experts that scrutiny was required, on both tax and royalty; but while the government possessed the right to amend the law as needed, they pre­ ferred the path of negotiations - although neither Manley nor Moment would have had any doubts as to their fitness for that road. They UWI L iba rie s 336F. had the knowledge and skill. The investigation was afoot for a year, guided by Moment's familiarity with the terrain, while Manley prepared himself for the final assault by absorbing the details of the trade. He was ready in January and closed it by March. Starting with the Reynolds company, the dialogue shortly called in the Kaiser company and concluded_dealing jointly with both concerns. The earlier income tax agreement was proposed to have a life of 25 years, and royalty five years. Strong arguments for the time frames to remain were put in by the company. Manley applied a modi­ fication. "It is usual throughout the world for royalty to be fixed on a long-term basis, 11 he explained to the House; "however, this govern­ ment does not consider that it is desirable that income tax should be fixed for so long a period of time." But "consequent on the exist­ ence of the original 25-year income tax arrangement (we protected ourselves) by providing an escalator clause whereby one-half of the total income tax and royalty is to vary with the price of aluminium itself." Further protection was provi<;ied by computing profit and tax payment in u.s. dollars - the British pound had been under blows ' for some time in the world money market. Furthermore, 11 in the event of any further devaluation of ster­ ling, the yield to (the Jamaican) government (would) be increased in terms of sterling." And so there he was, soundly roofed. The Manley plan would increase the "assumed rate of profit" from the Bustamante 60¢ a ton of bauxite, by 600% to (U.S.) $3.8.5 UWI L iba rie s 336G. for income tax. The old royalty of ten cents (Ja.} on alumina, and · about eight cents (Ja.} on bauxite, rose to 40¢ (Ja.} a ton where production was less than a million tons a year, and 30¢ (Ja.} a ton where it exceeded two million tons. There were also added benefits to the producer if the tonnage rose still higher: "The new formula for the first time (provides} an incentive for higher production." Nevertheless, here, too, the terms brought gains to the country. For while the companies improved their earnings by ten cents (Ja.} a ton above the two million tons production, an additional tax of (Ja.} $1.10 a ton in income tax would accrue to Jamaica. c) Alumina Jamaica Limited, the third mining company, was not an exporter of bauxite, as the ore was processed into alumina before shipment. The company had from its inception agreed to pay income tax "according to the ordinary laws that govern the subject," Manley said. So those negotiations narrowed on royalty (and land tenure{j>/ He found that revenue from income tax was of far greater consequence to the economy and vastly exceeded the returns from royalties. And as alumina processors, the company was spending "four times as much" as the other companies, and offering twice as much employment . . so, for Alumina Jamaica, the negotiators proclaimed a 25% (Ja.} royalty on each ton of the first million, 20¢ (Ja.} on the second million, and 15¢ (Ja.} in excess of two million tons. Income tax was another matter. Manley's men had picked up what they,regarded as an "oversight by the last government." Generously, he did not in the House berate his predecessor's lapse. Not everyone had his gifts. Coolly he promised that "in the year of assessment,. 1958, this company will UWI L iba rie s . 36H. commence to pay income tax." It would be a tax well worth gathering. AlJam would pay into government coffers "about three times as much income tax per ton of bauxite used here for making alumina," as derived from the bauxite exporters. After all, AlJam' s invested capital in Jamaica was "about five times as much as the capital invested in the extraction of bauxite." The new negotiations, instantly, in tax benefits, placed Jamaica ahead of all other bauxite exporters in the world. But there was more. "The major result of the new arrangements will be to shift dramatically Jamaica's dependence on agriculture, on to a new, broader foundation. The Jamaica economy will now acquire a degree of stabil­ ity and diversification which few similarly placed small countries possess. We will have three major sectors in the economy: a diver­ sified agricultural sector, a large mining sector, and a large tourist sector. This is a far cry from the one-crop economy of the pre-war years. It is on this trinity of important industries, and on our industrial development programme which is taking a most en­ couraging upward trend, that we must build our future prosperity." The fixing of the income tax for a period of 25 years was of course an inheritance from the earlier negotiations of the previous administration, and was not ideal. The Dominican Republic, another bauxite producer, had been hotfooted into settling with the United States processors for a numbing 60-year income tax pact; Haiti, as Jamaica, had a 25-year contract; but the other western hemisphere sellers, British Guiana (Guyana) and Surinam, had held out for a UWI L iba rie s 336I. no-fix arrangement. Manley's escalator clause however offered a ride over the sticky road he felt obliged to travel because of his forerunner's decisions. (The matter would be righted in later years when .his son, Michael, became Prime Minister; but to the accompani­ ment of wincing hostility from United States' interests.) 0 Norman Manley's handling of the bauxite negotiations was a triumph that he savoured. He had pushed into territory unblazed by any of his earlier experiences, except for his advocate's skills, and made a good arrangement. In one stroke, he wiped out, "entirely," . the country's trade deficit. "The present gap between imports and exports is of the order of El8-m. Thus the adverse balance,~ he.,...,..told the House, "will be wiped out entirely as bauxite and alumina become the largest by far in our export returns. I hope and believe that the House and the whole country will welcome the arrangements I have made." The House did, with a standing ovation. 0 On the other hand, the oilpipe dreams were on. The anxiety to find alternativesto agriculture fed the wild and frequent rumours of oilstrikes (since then and noW Manley had given prior notice of the strategy he would use in the bauxite negotiations, by holding the oil explorers to a promise of 1{% royalty, plus 40% income tax ana·· other goodies, in the event of a gusher. An oil expert was brought down from Canada, another Saskatchewan man like Cadbury named James T. Cawley, a bowtied, bespectacled executive in the Department of Mineral Resources, to advise on royalty assessments. One of the UWI L iba rie s 336J. diggers, Base Metal Corporation, headed by F.D. Roosevelt Jr., had by June spent half a million dollars, was down 6,000 feet and had begun another hole because they were convinced a Jamaican gusher was in their future. The explorations turned up hope but no find. Still, they gave hope;a,~elici tous ingredient in a land, Colonial exploited past, was apt to feel sony which, by force of its . -f for itself and oould usefully use UWI L iba rie s - 3 37. It could have been towards the defeat of " that dispiriter, • t I anc1.en r4- *One Jamaican who had no ap£~fo£ self-pity but could talk about it, was Alexander Bustamante. Once in a House debate, the following · cousinly dialogue occurred between the two grandsons of Grandmother Clarke-Shearer: Bustamante: I am from the gutter, from poverty. Manley: Don't insult your parents. Bustamante: Is it an insult to come from the gutter? Manley: They were not in the gutter. Bustamante: They were. I came from nothing. I am not like you. Your people had money and property. the racial battle-fatigue, that a visit from Princess Margaret, sister of the Queen, was preceded by two callers with credentials nicely judged to offset the old imperial dazzle. The heads of two thoroughly black independent nations, President Tubman of Liberia and President Magloire of Haiti, were invited, straightfacedly, to grace the celebra­ tions of "Jamaica 300", marking the 1955 tri-centenary of what was al­ lusively called "our association" with Great Britain, but what was, in effect, three centuries of English rule. But the protocol was impeccable if the motive was suspect. If *"' the centenary really could not be allowed past without a reference, """'The celebrations had been proposed by the previous JLP government's Donald Sangster, an ardent Anglophile. then a small euphepism, and a visit from a couple of the Brothers, of status equal to royalty, would do. (The African/Ethiopian outlook of the Rastas had not yet gained strength.) Aside from social significances, Manley was facing formidable obstacles to placing a chicken in every pot. There were I few chickens and numerous pots. They must roust new roosts. Migration had been the traditional reply to tough times on The Rock. The Manley family had not been different. The indomitable UWI L iba rie s 333. Margaret Manley had joined the rush to America when circumstances proved too rugged for a widow and her four young children. And her children ,"'17r,V had, in turn, Vera, Muriel, Norman and Roy, enlisted in the English trek in search of higher education; there were no universities in Jamaica . Negative or not, he was buying time when he made it clear that there would be no opposition to migration from this side. "Restriction of immigration is Britain's decision, not ours," he said. But he promised to snap down on the loan sharks who were charging exorbi-t'nt interest I\ * on moneys they advanced for travel tickets. Meanwhile, for those who were staying at home, he was struggling with the international sugar * The gulf in the understanding of the real Jamaica by the uppercrust is related in the English Bishop of Jamaica (Anglican) Montagu Dale's observation in the press that he knew of no reason for migration since there was no poverty in the island. interests, teaming up with Trinidad's rotund Bertie Gomes for citrus talks in the United Kingdom, arguing the case for bananas (in London), and investigating the possibility of power-canoes which would take the lagging fishing industry further out to sea than it had ever been since the Arawak Indians. He was also living ~p to the earlier decision that Jamaica's socialism would be tailored to its requirements. He sent off finance minister Noel Nethersole to the money capitals of the world to talk up loans for a whole range of development ideas, from harbours to race horses, roads and railways to real estate. 0 It was among the American fruiterers' Mafia that the new Premier was to make his political bones. ,._..qa:zwit was a warm June in Jamaica, the nuptial month. And while in the churches of Kingston, more than four hundred lovers were plighting their troths under orange blossoms, the cutthroat business of marketing those oranges was about to put a squeeze on their future. The powerful U.S. exporters' lobby, capable of bending foreign governments to its will because of a gigantean economy that left no corner of the world free of U.S. influence, was UWI L iba rie s L, 339A. holding the United Kingdom a t the point of GATT.* From their highly General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade efficient and State-subsidised groves in Florida and California, "F [...i) c, ']'£1) A i\..1 t> American fruit was about to be ""°"'..;.;.....:::- into the British market~~.:..:=,:.sm::."ll 0 Ci<_USi/ 711-E •1 ,-:,f}'l>EJ GJf:i=:,;i,&, • ...,,_.,""""""_ ~ /\Caribbean ~ i\ ~'i.l.: .... ~ .... , ...... ,....._ ..... _ .. =·=:::=::''::' ·::;::.::.=:::-:::.~""",..,,",:._-:..,,... _..,,.,. ... Manley decided they had to be fought off; even t.~ough he had a certain fondness f or Americans and they in turn had taken to him - > ~ristian Herter, the governor of Massachusetts, who later suc­ ceeded John Foster Dulles as U.S. Secretary of State , was so impressed wit.1. Man ley on a 1954 visit to the U.S. that he was invited to address the State Senate. Six minutes were all Manley took to bring the leg- f)n a. v~t . islators to their feet in a prolonged ovation. ~; Chicago,., they ~ ~d! 4vi).C-1--.. O ,,him the full motor-cycle escort treatment. Even such an American cur- iosity as the Official Greeter, who met him at the airport with the Keys when he returned as Chief Minister in 1955, was amusedly understood: it was a harmless excess in an energetic youn;Jnation/ obeying the springO in its step. "I will (be back) one day to ask for more (help to build my country)," he had told them in 1954 before he became elected head. He had meant it. He knew it was evening in the Old Empire and brave men should go _to meet the new horses / of the morning _.) Nevertheless, for now, he was hustling to Britain with Bertie Gomes to head off the American~reat0 ~ ~ Four years before, when he was in Opposition, he had warned Bustamante of the stiffer com­ petition ahead for Jamaica's citrus, next only to sugar and banana in importance. He had argued against the enormous expansion of acreage without adequate research into increasing the acre-yield which was "not a quarter of first-class foreign production. 11 UWI L iba rie s 339B. In the leap-frog progression that sketchy market intelligence induces in our agricultural planning, the fruit had recently, around 1954, waxed; "expanded by two million boxes and going up and up," said Manley -wonderingly. The U.S., with the nice ability of great 6W1,\. nations to put its welfare first, was importuning Britain to admit ~ that American citrus fell under the Mutual Security Aid Programme which had been worked out between them. Britain's economy was still wobbling in the wake of the war and could muster little resistance to an Uncle Sam singlefoot on satisfying the farm vote. A delegation to England from the previous Jamaican government {in 1954) had, "led," Manley said, "to the Secretary of State promising to give a measure of support to the industries that showed the need for it." Beggar child and impoverished mother looked at each other uneasily when they met in London. "Large funds," Manley noted sombrely, "are paid into England in exchange for her taking American goods." It took delicate and persuasive arguments by the citrus team of Manley and Gomes to collect the "measure of support" from Britain. It was not a ringing compact; it was what Manley called a "natural" decision. But in the face of the American stipulation and Britain's need, he gained a year: the pact would support the production from trees planted to the end of 1955; the British had wanted to restrict the planting period to 1954's end. Now the stiffer competition had come. While Trinidad's Gomes was with Manley in London successfully arranging the better citrus deals, a short, young, scholarly country­ man of Bertie's, whose pudgy face hid a steel-trap mind, was out in Woodford Square doing what no other Trinidad poli ticiah had succeeded at: causin:J a volatile, junp-up Port of Spain street. audienre to hold still while he UWI L iba rie s 340. le9tured donnishly on the reasons they should change their calypso ways. The Little Doctor, Eric Williams, Ph.D., was laying down the groundwork for his People's National Movement (PNM), since, as he said, although "they are after me" to join them, he saw nothing worthy in any of the existing groups, such as Bertie Gomes'. UWI L iba rie s 341. CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE It was a kind of London season for the Manley family as Douglas was also in the city, on a migrant survey mission for his university (Univer~ity ~ollege of the West Indies). Those times when the citrus talks halted, while Colonial Secretary Lennox-Boyd left for long con­ sultations with his colleagues, Manley turned to a few political odd jobs. At their invitation, he deftly engaged some 100 MPs in a question and answer session on his government's programme. And he got involved in the inauguration of Racial Brotherhood, an anti-discrimination action organisation I that had-' in joint communion at the top) such disparate fraters as Sunset cellar club owner, the Jamaican Gus Leslie, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher. Leslie, very successful, and a notable social worker from his club off Regent Street, headed the group, with the Archbishop as its patron. Manley was the main speaker at the Lambeth Hall launching of Brotherhood. The stately London scene also actuated some other Manley aspects. A fine dance floor athlete, Lambeth saw him working manfully at the waltz or foxtrotting skilfully with Edna - the steps she preferred to the legs-&-elbows of the jitterbug and Charleston in those lively nights at Drumblair and at Nomdmi too. Norman Manley was a man who sought his own fun. He was not one to be whistled into the game, urged to give his all for the Group; * mano a mano was more his style. · The sports he stamped with his pre- ference were contests of the one-;-on-one: track, the ring, horseriding. Bridge he probably * When not hearkening to the profundities of Beethoven or Brahms, he could whisk out his harnonica, give it the preliminary tap on his palm, and la{c:n ~~ccxm­ panirrent ato his o,.m tub tenor rendition of Miss Mattie had a baby and laid it on the grass/ A busy bee was passing by and sb.mg it in the ass. UWI L iba rie s w loathed, for he played, Edna his sometime partner, thought, with *His Holy Thursday night at home all-night, three-pence-a-hundred sessions until nine o'clock Good Friday morning, were played with four Jewish friends, Louis Alberga, Clinton Hart, and the two Ashenheim brothers. No wives were allowed, except Edna who scran'bled eggs, served liquor and coffee. The symbolists will agonise. to get reckless brilliance, not really caring if he lost. Chess bored;~ his intellectual high he could take the engine of his high-powered car apart - really apart, down to nuts and bolts - dispose them into military units on a piece of ground, and work out a what-might-have-been-done­ instead-at-~ix-la-Chapelle. Edna, a sister who had been known to keep her cool at the most trying times, breaks into helpless giggles recall­ ing a morning in the 'Thirties after a night of New Year's Eve revelry, when, as a cure for his hangover, he dismantled and restored the family feather­ car with St Andrew Pup ( Vivian Dacres ) , the fine little X;,.~~ weight boxer whom he managed so successfully, squatting across the engine block from him and gazing puzzledly up at him. N.W. sometimes his silences. likedi He could not have hoped to improve on the engineering but nothing can be less given to rhetoric than an auto block.,alk, language, elo­ quence, were, for all his adult life, his tools. He used them with care and precision. He could cut to the heart of the matter with pun­ gency; or stroke an idea so · fluently into an audience, it settled, softly, undisturbingly, to work. It was skill, but it was also convic- he tion. Manley had faith in his comprehension; ac~~~worked to under- s tand causes. He had a great respect for those tools, and was scathing on the journeyman who used them for posture rather than in settled judg- > was in disarray and a decade of wilderness lay ahead, a probability he sensed; and cried his challenge to his Comrades that they set aside old cherished ambitions and seek young blood for the Party. The rapport was not complete} . But in the late 1 Fifties, the early years of his ascendance, elan was strong, and the ideas were those to which they held title, original and sole ownership, as the first proponents and practitioners of organised politics. The groat land valuation legislation was one of those ideas. The .Manley farnily of Guanaboa Vale would have been among the first of the bourgedsie to bite the dust had there been a PNP government in the old days when their acres idled under the wild-growing logwood stands and less than a burden of cattle. His days were lived where there was room for long, irresponsible gallops on a family demesne, contrast­ ing sharply with the severely restricted hoe-farmer on his square of ground. Who knows if it. placed in the observant young Manley's mind, UWI L iba rie s - 52 .• a "sleeper" that surfaced fullgrown and growling in the Land Valuation law? The law overturned a 300-year decree that allowed large landowners to bear a lightened tax load based on the land's unimproved worth. The old laws had been written for, and by, the barons. To hoodwink the proletariat. The hundred acres around the Great House were in reality less taxed than the wattles of the poor. The peasant supported the squire. The new Manley-devised tribute would ,force the barons to pro­ duce in order to lighten their tax loads. It was the gentler forerunner of the harsher, tougher course a future generation would take. At that time would be invoked the elicitory titled Idle Land Order to spur the big land owners into production - or have their property acquired by the State for the common weal. Nevertheless, for his time, the land valuation legislation was rough enough to fetch to his office the anger of an outraged gentry. He was careful in his handling of law, out of respect for it. And a rogue's use of it drew his ire. The inner certainty he had of his purposes, would, on occasion, set him among the Brahmins, an uncomfortabl couch from which to put his beliefs into practice. And so he would de­ terminedly, frequently desperately, remove himself from the priestcraft. Home, boarding school, the English army, Oxford, the profession he practised before the judiciary of English Judges-in-Jamaica, had ill...: prepared him for the corner meeting. He had to learn street talk for his campaigning and was never ever able to manage the argot, and was al­ ways awkward with it. His generation would not be walking about when much of the mores would change; would come under heavy smoke, weeded to the gills, shagging the hemp truthfully. But his resistance to the for­ mulae of his own time was real, and in areas, mildly wild; and others had to put up with his By-God bridge bidding and his loneliness. UWI L iba rie s 353. His respect for good laws pulled him into one of the earlier crises that would give the PNP government more than its share: a strike in that bastion of Bustamante power, the waterfront. A franchise for settling labour disputes had been reposed in the Joint Industrial Council. The Council was made up of trade unionists and wharf owners. The code of the Council decreed that the Spring of the year was reserved for poll­ taking on union disputes involving the waterfront. The May of 1956, Spring fever infected the unions. The BITU and TUC refused to talk to the Council, or to the Ministry of Labour, over a wage dispute. Instead, they struck the waterfront. Manley was furious. On top of the obvious minus value of worker discontent to a government party come to power on working-class support, there were two other dangers. Foodstocks were traditionally low in that time of year, the tourist season being over and the build-up to the hurr i cane season not yet begun. That was one. The other he saw as breach of a good law, arbitration through the Council. It had, as a matter of .':,\/l.rl fact, proven good for the BITU, during the PNP regime. Suc.J.. kicking about of a good law had to be resisted. It was time to call out the troops - and he did. Manley declared a State of Emergency and turned army men and machinery into unloading the ships. It was a strong decision not likely to encourage support on Election Day. But Busta may have mis­ read Manley's strength in rule, as he may have misheard what Cousin Norman had been saying a fe~ weeks before: "The business of the Opposi­ tion is to oppose (but that) of the government in power is to resist the Opposition." Busta was forced to quickly capitulate and the strike ended. Manley no doubt had calculated shrewfdl y that calling out the army -...:..., UWI L iba rie s 354. would be popularly approved. The ships carried cargoes of flour and saltfish, staples of the Jamaican working-persons diet. A beef shortage a year before had caused the importation of frozen New Zealand beef. Jamaican working-folk did not like frozen New Zealand beef. They had turned away from most of the 26,500 pounds of it. UWI L iba rie s 355. CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO The Manley courtroom gesture of re~oving his wig and running a hand over his hair, tugging at the . collar of his robe and looking at the courtroom window as he laid his case before the Apellate Judges, ~,,. unmatched for forensic ski_ll, led one court reporter to remark that the reason why the K.C. looked out of the window was because he was too modest a man to watch the befuddled and lightly desperate faces of the Justices clear with relief as he led them into the light. How­ eve~ in the courts he used his brilliant debating powers to avoid confrontations with offended judges. The befurred, bewigged men on the Bench were the last of the anachronisms in the modern world. Kings had lost their powers and popes their unquestioned command, but judges were still unassailable to all but impeachments, which were absurd~,cfly hard to obtain. And, unavoidably disturbing, judges in small countries were working in small populations of overlapping interests and rela­ tionships. So although it was a source of unease in the rising desire to act out our own destinies, it was also tolerable, clear reasons, that the final judicial appeal still resided in the British House of Lordsf or most of the small former British colonies, The truth is that N.W. Manley had no need to self-efface; modesty is frequently a cover for the introvert.suffering a native constraint, inbuilt and hated. In 1958, past halfway of his term, there was no call for diffidence; the achievements of the PNP fiduciaries were prodigious. It was very evident, all over the land, that an upcurve was in progress. A savage kind of colonising, even for these seas, had left this largest English-speaking isle the least literate of the lot. The visuals of Western life, housing, medical care, sanitation, were better only by Caribbean comparison. The first (1944) elected government had worked at improvement, so much as their skills and finances allowed. The lot was surely better since Bustamante led his trade unionists into the Duke Street parliament. Braced by an intelligent and increased Opposition, UWI L iba rie s 356. ~ 1,t. "The C.i f " had not done badly - particularly, charg d the Opposition, /\. s i nce he . ad swiped many PNP plans, modified them a little, and claimed t hem f r h • ... own. However/ that was, it was a fact that in t.1e Spring of '5 "' , after three years in off ice, the economy) under Manie, had C 3 curved p<:Merfully UfMard; in a Jamaican context /4C the country was enjoying a ru."'laway prosperity O C::::::: : .. ==:J c:: . J 9.58, was, for Manley, a celeb ratory year. The results he des­ cribed as either "excellentn or "good", although he was sufficiently c trolle d to rate a few successes as merely .. moderate". Heh d insti­ t ted an Economic Surv y, a kind of Company Report/ prepared by the Planning Unit, that would become the economic chronicle of very future ~tt//w budge~ary guide Aclose 1.t was a • '' ove rn.rnent. The Survey's overview functioned as a to infa llible in its projections. stirrin overview. ,, NWhether you ask what is the total value of export trade, or the tot 1 value of imports, or the sum of imports and exports, or the level of b nk deposits; whether you ask what is the level of bank loans, or the ccumulation of small people's savings, or what is the size of the money in circulation; or whether you ask what is being done in development s ) r fleeted in power consumption, or electrical service growth, or in construction which (is now) unparalleled, the answer is: nobody could have expect.ad (so) much ... " He had a right to exult. Ha had put the civil service on its to s ad roused a people to enthusiasm by his will and energy; by the extra- o dinary mind of an unusual man. A lift of spirit had come to the nation s infrequently some few may know. He could point to a jump of over O~ in the per capita earning. The upcurve had showed in the first of his years, in 1955, when UWI L iba rie s 357. the country's gross rose by £17-m ($34-m) to £136-m, a hike of over 14%. The second year, 1956, it leaped higher, and higher still in 1957. It was genuine growth, since the cost of living rose only 9% while the average level of wages rose by 25%, he was quick to declare. (He was generous in his jubilance to observe that under the Labour government, in the years 1950 to 1954 the gross domestic product in­ creased from £70-m to £119-m, "a rise, let it be admitted, that was significant," but not a patch on his own "remarkable thing.") He was outpacing every forecast prior to his Economic Survey, shedding every historical restraint that had limitea}ne economic move­ ment to the short journey from hand to mouth; and saving a few million dollars for ploughing back into development; a sophistication close to phenomenon in Britain's poor-me-boy colonies. But the the easygoing vivant of the year also belonged to Nethersole, his friend and colleague , R~od(l.s Sc.t.o lu.r) D-1.-fo '(",:f... > "Crab" ,~layboy from the western world at bon better pubs and clubs of Kingston, turned a chubbily tough and efficient Minister of Finance. Nethersole had guided the economy, increasing the patrimony as he changed the old order, the heirs would never know it. Manley, with a fond look at the imperturbable "Crab", declared that he was "rapidly and effectively modernising (our) final'lcial institutions, (proposing) a Development Finance Corporation (and) a State Bank." Nobody had believed such "an improvement could have been achieved," he said, adding ruefully, "I w6uld not have believed it myself." The "courage and wit" he praised in Nethersole and his other colleagues, was also his. For Manley always picked his own people, choosing by what seemed instinct. He recognized faults, but placed his judgment above his knowledge, his intelligence over his experience. And UWI L iba rie s 35 8. so he held together a Party that was especially gifted in dissidents and when it appeared to have been ripped apart because he may have waited too long to evict the apostates, he had pulled it together stronger than before and whipped the entrenched Bustamante Party. What made the gains of those years in office so outstanding was that the per capita income was not the misleading paper figures that march across the pages of national reports into the pockets of a top few; leaving the millions deprived as before. His own estimate of the Labour Party years was that one half of the national earnings reached the wage earners, the all but a fraction of the Jamaican society. But the Survey reported that his own years put half that again into the hands of the earners. Nethersole had also managed another little miracle: the economy had racked those exciting results "without borrowing a far­ thing," Mr Manley said. "We have financed our way, kept off the money --markets when they were dangerous." A st,-yle that was essentially '-' Nethersole' s. Manley noted with approbation the great and steady march of the working class into the trade unions, as better jobs made them conscious and eligible. Membership had almost doubled. There were 150,000 in the unions; new membership was about equally divided between the NWU and BITU. And while he knew, to his wounds, that BITU strength meant more blows from his foes, he was patriot enough to desire the prosper­ ing. The radio or rediffusion in the living room, the mahogany bed and metal diner suite, purchased on terms through the comfort of a sure in­ come, supported what he saw as the contin uing struggle to urge the country into this century. The stability of home and family, and an adequate income, had been the aim of his Jamaica Welfare; the reason UWI L iba rie s 359. for the evangelical buzzsaws he had turned loose on the countryside. It was a passion for his country, sometimes brooding, as it was disci­ plined by his understanding of the forces waiting in the back-country, in ambush for the brave men. A Republican American Senator, Kenneth Keating of New York, once spoke nice words about Socialist Manley in that capitalist fortress, the United States Senate: "Recently I had the privilege of meeting a man who will undoubtedly play an important part in welding a new unity among nations of this hemisphere ... a showcase of peaceful cooperation which the Communist world, including Castro's Cuba, can only envy." Manley, he foresaw, was the man who would help to "square the historic interests of the United States (with) the best hopes and aspirations of all the Americas." One of his most .active fund raisers was - Alfred Seagaf, merchant uncle of Eddie Seaga, who would one day lead the Labour Party and was well on his way to become a baleful antagonist * of the PNP leader. To some visiting Canadian leaders, he confirmed *In 1960, the Alfred Seagas hosted a birthday party for him given by the Fund Raising Committee. his socialism but added that he could not adopt "all the formal concepts of the ideology. He was cutting through the forest and listening for the animals. He frequently escaped to Nomdmi. Houses have moods and there was a quality at Nomdmi; a small and simple mountain house in its frame of trees, until it closed on you and gave itself. It held a great deal of its owner in the quiet opulence of ruqs and Mexican blankets and the simplicity of pinewood lockers and rough-floored verandah; in its excellent .taste of fine books and music of Brahms, Mozart, Prokofiev, UWI L iba rie s J 60. and a rusticity of chamber-pots and kerosene lamps; in its healing silence of woods, and the suJ den flat explosion of the Norman Manley harmonica licking a naughty mento. Edna once said he went up to Nomdmi with problems, and came down with solutions. One of the more pernicious problems which Nomdmi no doubt assis­ ted to clear was the system of schooling which had divided his genera­ tions, past and present, into two Jamaicas. That had built an elitist class and condemned a majority to a deprived class, through a terribly arbitrary matter of money. The mode of schooling in the island ruled for a primary system for the children of the poor, training them for the brigade of labourers and domestics, to hew and to draw, andreserved higher schooling for the children of the rich who could afford the fees. Secondary and university education in those days was an expensive commodity. Manley was never an overly emotional man, but one day in 1958, he broke into a cry for sanity that would become the grito for a revolu­ tion in education. His cry was to his political Opposition, and an un­ concerned upper class, for understanding of the damage the bad system WRl£At<. would "You are making a mockery of trying to create a nation if you do not to the best of your ability and resources ... provide (an) education for every child~" Jamaica, he said, was "one of the worst educated countries in the whole Caribbean area." He had substantially increased the budget for education and was receiving criticism for it. But the building of new schools, the ex­ tensions and improvement of the public libraries, the idea, in ultimate, of free compulsory education through the two elements and even to the final constituent of higher (university) •~ducation for the professions, UWI L iba rie s _61. * would engage his mind, energy and activity, powerfully. *JLP's Edwin Allen, a schoolteacher and Minister of Education in the Labour government before and after the N.W. Manley years, was an equally great advocate of education-for-all. He weighted the competitive Common Entrance examination for the limited places in Secondary schools in favour of children who sat from primary schools (usually children from the lower income group) as against those from private prep schools; and was severely scored by the better-offs. It substantially changed the pattern of education in Jamaica. He is todayacclaimed for his work, by both sides. 0 Once when he was ill and out of power, in 1953, around the time of the Queen's visit, he had been deeply moved by the intensity with which people reacted to his ailing. His fan mail had been prodigious. He was comforted; satisfied that the recent Party purge, and his work in Opposition, never a cause for commotion in the mostly unfriendly wealthily-owned Press, and so not easy to assess for public impact, was gaining ground. He could listen and see, settle and wait by such a nice inrush of phone-ins and letters, a slyboots delight behind the mask of indrawn aspect and silk-smooth brow he wore when he was satisfied with himself. (He could also quite angrily demand his credit when it was withheld; but that was savvy of what counted in his business.) His threshold of satisfaction with others was high, often taxingly so, un­ til it was discovered that his demands were proportionate to his res­ pect. Footlessness prompted a disconcerting kindness. His apprecia­ tion of Nethersole has the point. He demanded, and got, from Nethersole - the fact, of course, being that Nethersole, a maverick whom not even Manley, that senior bull, could command, desired to give of his skill and devotion to the Party and country he loved in his undemonstrative way. Norman was especially proud and gratified of what the man who at that time may have been his closest friend (and Finance Minister) UWI L iba rie s 362. had acoomplished in three years - more than was expected or hoped ' for: a sound economy and a people in the majority satisfied at the progress of the nation. They were two men of a certain likeness in their political salience: Crab, of the dry wit and incisive mind, of unquestioned integrity and a dedication. so selfless, he was said to have no enemies. People warmed to him with the assurance of old shoes. He was a good man to travel by, for he had the wisdom of the guide with no scarring anxiety to lead the expedition. Soon he was to be the most tragic loss to Manley since his brother, Roy, was killed in France. Soon Crab would be victim of one of the more insensate acts of political mob violence when he was assaulted on the street 01\Je; c~e" W(H 4~AV£=Ly bt~fhA t:,Eb. the parliament buildings• ,\Within a year, the and hearty Nethersole would be dead. near to hale UWI L iba rie s 363. CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE Manley's awareness of the historical forces underlaid his ap­ proaches to leadership and policies. He had grown up close to one such force. There is hardly any doubt that a sharp, enquiring, roaming high school boy would have known that the mountains above Belmont had been the territory of Juan de Bolas - the black 17th century guerrilla whose reality had come to him in the forest: to shed a losing age and gain a * generation. The Juan de Bolas time had been one of change, with *Juan de Bolas, whose memorials are the mountains above Guanaboa Vale , in 1658 saw that the Spaniards were losing to the invading English for the conquest of Jamaica and fleeing to Cuba, ultimately leaving the blacks in the lurch, struck a treaty with the English in return for the non-interference of his people. The remaining Spanish sol­ diers were soon routed with his aid. Juan de Bolas was himself said to have been killed by another black brigade loyal to the Spaniards. His political sense had signalled the commencement of the English­ speaking Jamaica. political similarities as his. Manley had grasped the truth, unfashion­ able as it was to many of his Afro-Saxon comrades and contemporaries, that race and colour were factors to be reckoned for - and the more publicly, the healthier. "Goodwill is beyond doubt an excellent lubri­ cant," he had remarked laconically in 1938, "but pride and self confi­ dence are better driving forces." He knew the battle to bring change to the land would face its greatest opposition, not from external agen­ cies, at that time, but from the inner inertia of a 300-year condition­ ing. Walk the heat-hazy streets of the City, the City of Duke and Church streets, of King and Tower streets, the buck-crossings on the money highways where tactics collided with culture to the latter's in­ jury, and see the hunters clad not lightly against the blazing heat, but muffled under hats and suitcoats as for the cold and rain of London. The males. It took a daring to be in brown; black was the UWI L iba rie s 36 4. beautiful suit, in serge or tweed; grey was acceptable, but in the darker hues. Grey, however, drew frowns at a funeral; black, or for­ giveable, very navy blue, was de rigueur. White was poor in spirit, unless in sharkskin or flannel; later the linens joined the elite, * but cottons, never. Sports coats were passable if worn over grey *English expatriate civil servants, in their suits of white former flour-bag cotton, supplied much diversion to the fun-loving Jamai­ can public. As usual, the Colonial elite in their tweeds were even more English than the English. "bags", i.e., trousers; but not even the Sunday Morning Sport, the young modern, ventured out cf doors without a jacket. Scarves were accepted in place of neckties in the matinal hours of the day of rest. Black lace-up shoes completed most of the ensembles with a black or grey fedora topping the anguish. A drab, pathetic lot, aping from every sweating pore the styles of England. Bustamante in his heavy morning coat and topper, entering the superheated little legislative chamber to the frantic clapping of a tattered electorate, was much admired in I ' the newspapers for his "sartorial eleganceJ "·, Manley, when he came to office, decreed no morning coats (or evening "tails") for his team, although it took years before he released his own waistcoat for the ** more sensible two-piece suit. **A couple of decades later, his son, Michael, on entering upon office, was to lead the great break from the traditional necktie­ &-collar collage to the more suitable "kariba" suits. "Loyalties are potent realities. And the business of growth, involves a frequent and painful discard of the outworn and the out­ grown!" Manley had cried desperately in his pre-war jungle world that drove down the hope of growth among all but a few of his people. UWI L iba rie s 365. Bravely and eloquently he had spoken then, and bravely and eloquently he marched into the decades of the Fifties and Sixties. "The immediate past has attempted to destroy the influence of the glory that is Africa. It has attempted to make us condemn and mis­ trust the vitality, the vigour, the rhythmic emotionalism (obtained) from our African ancestors." Above Belmont, above Guanaboa, in the afternoon shadow of the Juan de Bolas mountains, the spirit of the old guerrilla fighter des­ cended the rock trails and into the soul of this other distinguished son of Guanaboa: "Until the people have the supreme pride . in their origins, and their significance, and their racial strain, you cannot build · a country." Q l\s an identity aid, he had his public works minister, A.G.S.Coombs, pilot a bill through the House that provided for discovering and preserving historical objects, with a special significance: one of the categories "Father" Coombs should insert into the national psyche would be identified under "Sites". The classification would open new roads through the dissatisfaction of the Jamaican people with the old concepts of their history; concepts which originated with the English hi.stori~. The "greathouses", churches, courthouses, although laboured on by their African ancestors, were in fact never occupied by them, save as ser­ vants; or as supplicants allowed the Sunday privilege of worshipping the "white'! god; from the back of the pews. The "backra" mansions they built in stone, survived; their own cabins of wood and clay seldom with­ stood the siege of time and weather. Their centuries of war on the oppressors were waged by attrition and am~ush, and so built them no * forts. Their cottage industries of the~~ and the jippi jappa *Hats made of palm leaves or straw. UWI L iba rie s 366. required neither machinery nor factory but their own determination to escape the poverty of body and soul, the bondage and emancipation- * without-obligation, brought. By the curious ambivalence which fre- *The slaves were the wronged ones, but it was the white slave­ owners who were "compensated" in cash by the English government. quently denies to intellectuals the wreath of freedom fighters, Manley' : pride and passion, quiet but intense, in the African tendrils of his roots, has gained small praise from his peers. The trouble with Manley was that he hoisted no personal pennons, marched to distant drums and relied for his recruits on the justice of his cause. He approved of the British Commonwealth, for his time, but denounced such mind-benders ** as Jamaican children parading on Empire Day, singing Rule Britannia. **May 24, Empire Day, an old holiday later changed to Labour Day to commemorate the 1938 uprising by waterfront workers. Equally combative and imperious as Garvey, they ruffled each other's feathers, but the martyrdom of Garvey, in the cause of "Africa for the Africans, at home and abroad," would, in due season, educe his hom­ age that Garvey's memory deserved "perpetual recognition". ~ttN,Ey'S ~was a large canvas, a multitude of ideas and details, but harmonious in frame. A dreamer, and a schemer for his dreams. "West Indian history is a modei:m thing and tradition is something we have to foster and create and its development is a deliberate act of intel­ ligence." He knew the value of history and tradition. It had cast him, putteed and booted, in the mud of France, a brown man fighting a white man's war ,(and perhaps effected two decades later the entry of his son into another Imperial war.) "In the dreams of those who have not forgotten to dream," he said, was the hope for the time "when the false imperialism of power politics and exploitation, and the residual UWI L iba rie s 367. drosses of snobbery, and the designed nurture of ideas of inferiority (will) have passed away ... " And this was his work. To find those men and women who had not forgotten how to dream, and to clench those dreams into action, aiming for the hope. He had met his horses of the morning, strong, rushing, youth­ ful horses charging into the day, free running with the wind in their nostrils, hard to control but of great promise, able to run the course if they held to the track. And life in its terrible justice would not fail to lead, and punish, and favour him; and for him, break out its best gift: to be wisely remembered. UWI L iba rie s J68. QIAP'IER FIFI'Y-FOUR Some think that Manley may have forgotten his dream when he opted out of going to Port of Spain, to head the Federation. But he was living his dream. He was settling deeper in Jamaica, hanging out his prefer­ ence for display. His first loyalty had ever been to his own land. Federation, had, in his reading of world politics, seemed to offer more heft to whatever bargaining advantages open to small, poor nations. He could, and did, invoke an example of how strong the Caribbean islands were when they federated in sports: they had trounced Great Britain (called "England" for the games) at cricket. But that was that. He had not wanted much more; the quarrels and negotiations over trade and travel, and anything else, would be in the natural way of federated states since ancient Greece. What Edna called "the knotted problem of the site" for the Federal capital, had been solved after some covert pipe-laying by the Trinidad delegates among the smaller Caribbean cate­ churnens who for generations had migrated to work in that island's oilfields . Some opinions say he stayed out of a caution for the electoral process; the possibility of defeat. Others close to the facts, slate an apprehension of an internecine war for the succession with the ambi­ tious comrade, Wills .o. Isaacs, corning out on top; an accident to be avoided. Back in 1950, Wills had "attacked" him "by a false statement" and had "resolved to nurse a grievance against me." Isaacs' fondness for calling in the hostile capitalist press to help him win Party battle: was a flaw that left Manley uneasy. Still others saw a plain fear that his departure for regional politics might give Busta leave to grab the homeland. Lt Al The "Chief" was being particularly r~uctious as he closed in " on the readyrnade issue of Federation. With wild hair flying like an UWI L iba rie s 369. old Jewish prophet, to the accompaniment of furious jeremiahs, Busta was ranging about the country, crying a jehad against unification in "a federation of paupers." Manley at 65 was conscious that the sap would now thin, rather than run deep. He was, in fact, feeling his years, and in one of his very scattered drifts into wanness, had wondered aloud about frailty, '-i&.i-<..12 and political succession. He could not, at that time, --~seen either of his sons in the line of descent. Both were young, in their thirties, even if Douglas, the elder, five years before, when he was 31, had caused his mother a nice chuckle of pride, "so mature and solid and a little distinguished." N.W. was too intelligent to fear futility. He knew that all work done, or attempted, had an effect on events. By the same token, the fact of mortality was to be met without flinch. Like the active, vibrant person he was, he would yield grudgingly; and also , being Manley, he would face the truth that at his age, as he told it, "the next job I take on might very well be my last job. I do not be­ lieve in a man continuing until he is almost senile." This "last job" was to be premier of Jamaica. It took priority over the more prestigiou Prime Minister of the West Indies, passionate advocate though he was of the Caribbean affiliation. He was carrying in his body a death just eleven years away. Stress and success had come to him in equally mas­ sive doses. His frame, in his youth, had been pounded by a shocking bout of typhoid that had left its weakening. He had fought the ugliest war in modern times for its comb a tan ts, and that too had given him a pounding. Because he went for excellence in whatever he did, his work­ ing hours were awesome. They took toll. It is possible that Manley sawthrough to the enormity of making a nation with the material the British had made of us: the burnt-out food-lands, diminished by centuries of forced production for export, UWI L iba rie s 370. the dusty little towns that went for capitals, the education system that stamped out caricatures of black Englishmen from those it touched, the books and newspapers, whose content had created a self-loathing -to be felt for belief, the class structure that stratified the society rigidly as cell-blocks, the casual way in which grants-in-aid were applauded as funds earned and had· become the source of revenue in the smaller territories; a gruel of beggars, spiritually and on the streets. He had also, a disgust at the jockeying for power in the Federal structure. Not that he was above politicking himself, but was appalled at the gracelessness of the style. "The whole issue of Federation," Edna noted at the time, "is clouded with suspicion and doubt and dis­ honest politics." And, added, bodeful as it turned out: "Perhaps it will survive, who knows?" So he knew his years and stated his knowledge simply: "It is here (in Jamaica) I believe that I can continue for the remainder of my life's service to make the largest . contributions." To many it was unbelievable. Many friends resented his decision . He was a dreamer of practical dimensions, a functioning intellectual who absorbed the hard meanings, searched, discarded and stayed with his decisions, alone, sometimes lonely, but secure. How lonely it would be, not even he had an inkling. The great crowd that spilled over Half Way Tree square the night of the announcement had waited impatiently for him to descend from Drumblair to say whether he would stay or go. They had stood through the pump-priming speeches that had offered no clue, for he had not confided his decision. A hush greeted the climactic "I am staying." The reaction was disquieting. Al t hough he drew cheers, for the first time since the see-saw days of 1938-44, ominously, N.W. UWI L iba rie s 371. Manley drew some boos, scattered and half hearted, but unmistakedly of the bad stuff. It had been an agonizing decision and as lacerating_ to his hearers. It hurt and bewildered his supporters, to wh0m his previ1 peripatetics on Federation would now seem to have been mere antics. It baffled his hearers, for his obvious and dedicated work on the Federal idea, his wringing of the issues through many complex conferences and conclaves, seemed to have been so much bull-rope. What passed unnotic( in the emotion of the moment was his practical reading of the job in Port of Spain. He saw the Federal seat as easier to occupy than the Jamaican office. He described the home mission as a "hard, bitter, tough fight . He turned out to be right on both counts~ The Federation was never taken seriously by the Jamaican people , especially with the capital a thousand miles south, across unknown seaf in what was then, twenty years ago, unknown territory. With Manley in Port of Spain, the odds are that interest could have minimally increasE but urgency)unlikely. And as to whom would have taken his place at home, the fates would have cried havoc, since Nethersole, perhaps, in his mind, the best candidate for succession, would drop dead in a year. Manley stayed home, and shooed in Grantley Adams of Barbados, and the Federation was doomed. Sir Grantley was a small islander so insular he publicly deplored the necessity of living in the detested Trinidad. (His wife refused to take up residence.) Its passing after five years bareily wrinkled the thoughts of the majority of Jamaicans. The "hard, bitte,r, tough fight" remained. 0 No bugles led him into the battle re,newed. The decision to stay had whittled some credibility, and the Referendum rattling around in th, UWI L iba rie s 372. future, would destroy it among a majority. The bugles of 1955, like the brooms, had been placed in the closet. (On his long, youthful run­ ner's legs scything through France, he had shared in the last great war in which bugles, after nearly 300 years of battle use, would urge the courage and summon the sinews.) He had "a vast and barren terri­ tory to be occupied, civilised, and brought under proper amenities," a remark which rang uneasily like an Imperial soldier's raison d'etat. But this was no nee-proconsul's edict . . Rather, it was a corning to grips with the gravity of building a nation in which his Socialist de­ sires would not outflank the practicai need for capital. It mace him alive to the factors of what he saw as a functional economy: the orderly arrangement in which the State matched its penny with the private sector's. He was at the time under sniper fire from the Opposition for establishing a bridgehead in the entrepreneur sector, through his Zero refrigeration plant. Zero provided cold storage for fish and farm pro­ ducts and came under Manley's own Ministry of Development. He was not . slow in pointing out, that, rather than a State success, Zero had been largely the output of a team of business managers employed by the govern­ ment. The complex gave valuable instructions to the industrial thrust from its ice plant, freezing chambers and fishing-boat pier, relatedly placed. The arrangement took care of the harvesting, storage and ship­ ping of fish, the logistics of which had baffled the business for years. It would lead, Manley was convinced, to the important exploitation of the deep sea fields, hardly then touched by the island's primitive fish­ ing fleet of canoes, wind-&-oar propelled, and the rich shrimp and lob­ ster markets in the United States. In an analogical joke, Nature had organized the genes of old UWI L iba rie s : 7 3. Sam Manley in his son, to tantalize the Gestalt freaks. Old Sam had loved the law, and the fine adventure of penetrating foreign markets. The first ruined him and the second assisted at it. His son inherited the genes but bent them to his own intelligence. Yet, what would be, would be; for everything was not thus altogether now. A favoured ex­ pression of his, always thoughtfully uttered, was: "We shall see what we shall see." Did it have a little more than appeared on the surface? Did he mean that destiny would call the shots? Old Sam was a confronter, a man never slow for a rumble, a tire­ less litigant. (Old Sam lost most of his world's goods but he had saved up some treasures in heaven; he gave an organ to the Porus church.) N.W.Manley, too, liked combat. Neither appeared to have had great success when they totally agreed with their natural tendencies. The Referendum, thought by many to have been N.W 's too ready response to a Bustamante challenge, led to disaster at the polls, when, by right of performance and promise, the Party should have won handsomely. But for now the reins were well in hand and Manley was nicely seated. He had been given good knees and wrists by a canny tax relief: the aboli­ tion of the bicycle tax had raised the Party's profile considerably in the sugar-growing flatlands, ideal for pedal pushers - and historically Bustamante strongholds; the Sandy Gully flood control project in the Capital to provide less pot-holed motorways was boon to the fast-increas · ing car-owning class 1 and bonanza to wage-hungry unemployeds who could be counted on not to forget. (In speaking for a priority of the Sandy Gully scheme one day, he enlived his disquisition with the kind of i,t~ piquancy that was a part of his flair, as . the elegance of language and /1 the histrionics: that once, nine inches of rain fell in fifteen minutes at the Palisadoes Plumb Point lighthouse; and that at unseasonably named UWI L iba rie s 374. Pleasant Hill in St Andrew, eighty~five inches fell in four days.) Dray-men, a hard-swearing fraternity whose peripatetic and gregarious ways guaranteed a wide forum of hearers, were believed to have been profanely influential in emphasizing the PNP's sympathy to the welfare of the man-in-the-street - after the tax on drays was abolished. It was the practical politics of democracy; used lightly, it was good collateral on polling day. In serious vein, Manley believed in a government that engaged in expanding the economy. He was never, personally, a hoarder. He raced horses, kept a fine home, sent his children to famous (and ex­ pensive) schools, built a holiday mountain cottage, drove high-powered cars, went overseas for the civilization that was absent from his Caribbean idyll. But when it came time, he would walk away from it all. Drumblair and the good times would go on the block, for an oblation. 0 In the five years of his first term, his government disbursed the then unheard of sum of £149,567,000 ($299,134,000) - nearly twice as much as put into circulation in the Labour Party's time in office. Much of his government's financial successes had been due to his very good Minister of Finance. Nethersole's sudden death was a blow the Party never seemed to shrug. UWI L iba rie s 375. CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE Manley stood at an upstair window of Drumblair and wept the day Nethersole died. He must have died a little himself. "As a man, I loved him as I would love my own brother. (He was) a colleague of unshakable courage and loyalty ... an inspiration to everybody who walked beside him," he said later in the day to the House. The shambling bear of a man had, by sheer goodness of character, attracted legions to his friendship, and majorities to his counselling. "If there was one man in (the) House who was admired, respected and loved by all classes of people in Jamaica, it was Noel Newton Nethersole." Manley spoke with the shock of Nethersole's passing still on him. Crab had been in the cabinet room at a meeting the day before, working on and explaining the budget due the end of the month (March). He had worked massive hours on it. He had the stamina of a bull. Like Manley, he could work through the night and be buttercup-fresh next day, ready for more work, and play, a life-style he embraced with zest. "He was a man who loved life and (was) close to people. Befo;re 1938, he was a wellknown and much beloved figure to the field of sport. But no sooner than the crisis arose in 1938, he was among the first to come forward and dedicate his life to the forward march of this oountry." 1 Nethersole had joined the march with the same relish he showed for lighter endeavours. He had become president of Ken Hill's Reform League and had helped to form the Bustamante union - a job he did while Bustamante was in jail: the first two thousand names and £100 ($200) UWI L iba rie s 376. left over from the striker's feeding programme of Aggie Bernard and Edna Manley, were ready for Bustamante the day he was released from jail. Crab had headed the TUC, was first vice president of the PNP - and presided at the Party purge that ousted the Red-charged faction. "Look at what (Nethersole) has done in (creating) an investment and monetary market for this country ... in the repatriation of Jamaica funds ... in developing the treasury bill issue which has had a most phenomenal success. He proved that what he thought was true, that there is a large floating sum of money in this country on which people want an opportunity of earning." Nethersole had stamped Jamaica on the PNP Socialism, a solidly strong base for Manley's ideas of a non- "imported ideology," and for his own proud conviction that a self generating economy was essential to sovereignty. He was an extraordinary man, moving in slow sweeps that secured the details and somehow completed his assignments with astounding speed. With Manley at his elbow, he had proceeded to pull * into line the banking institutions, foreign-owned every one whose *The Government Savings Bank, begun in 1837, the year before Eman­ cipation, was a lowkeyed establishment, working its funds in Britain and Colonial Securities and local Loan Societies~ deposits and profits flowed remorselessly out)to the countries of t~eir origin, Canada and the United Kingdom; further impoverishing the indi­ gent island. Manley's observation✓ that the normal obligations of a bankJwere, in Jamaica, discharged by accident or goodwill, was never questioned. Nethersole created the Development Finance Corporation for Jamaica's needsJ• was examining the need for a Jamaican Stock Ex­ changej and, at his death, had drafted the greatest of his monuments, a Central Bank of Jamaica. "Noel Nethersole was quite a unique man. He had a calmness of UWI L iba rie s 377. character,Ja gift of humour, a sense of justice and decency in public life, a spirit charitabe to most men and free of rancour to all men. Above all, a profound care for the needs of the ordinary men and women." The new land taxation law had its genesis in Nethersole's think­ ing, a law that took its course out of "the needs of the ordinary men and women." He had removed the tax from .bicycles and drays, the transport of the poor. . * He was an exceptional man, a stayer in history, whose grip *A tribute so far given only to National Heroes, went to N.N. Nethersole when his statue was placed outside the imposing new Central Bank of Jamaica, on Nethersole Place, in downtown Kingston. on life was at the base. The first years of his Party in office achieved strongly, because he understood the issues severely. Briefly, just over four years Minister of Finance, he tenanted the office to the degree that his works still attract enrichment, rather than the restructuring invited by many factional installations at a change in rulers. 0 (ht/111t€y a was not a tearful man. /\ He may not have wept in years. Edna came in, unexpected, and he tried to brush them away. She looked the question, and the answer. "Life," he said softly, shaking his head, "life." From Edna: "And that great funeral, from East Street (St C£orge•~ Church) to Half Way Tree (cemetery), a solid mass of people. And when they broke through the police into the cemetery, thousands of them, UWI L iba rie s 378. and stood so silently for the Masonic rites. Nothing like it had ever been seen before. And Norman reading the lesson:'And God shall wipe away all tears ... '" UWI L iba rie s J 79. CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX One day in 1937, before Mr Justice Cannon in Chambers, in a · Corporation case, e Manley did the unusual by allowing the pressures to bear down too hard. His concentration slipped; he moved "from the logic of fact." Naturally, he afterwards berated himself. He recog­ nised that he had gone into ground too open; his position had become "unsound", because, as he said, he had not relied on his true case. It was bad work and he told himself so. He believed in true cases, and he sought his truth by a great impulsion of body and mind. For seven days a week, of up to twenty hours a day. He sought his truth in the courtroom by pursuing it down the twists and swollens and given: of his fellow mortals. The courtroom is the only corner in the civili­ sations of our time where a shift from veracity in the spoken word exacts a punishment from our fellows. He was famous for his cross­ examinations, which were hardly ever without excitement, and as model­ led as a war game, full of stratagems, ambushes and camouflages; and most of the time, when the way came clear, the drive to the winning finish. The strategies of his government bore a similarity to his court­ room craft. He held that in the last analysis, the amount of money spent by the government was a major instrument of policy in a newly developing country. So in the final of his first five years, in 1959, he recounted with satisfaction the doubling of his expenditure budget above the five Bustamante years, 1950 to 1955. He had put his policy to the test and the strategies had succeeded. The funds inserted into the economy, were the courtroom questions. But his interrogation of the experiences, the deducible facts and the extrapolations from the UWI L iba rie s 380. evidence, were ordering up new avenues for that drive to the finish. ef~°'lhe heat and burden o?'J!-e had modified his direction. The needle of his ideological compass had moved further to the right of the Eden left. The fellow, who, in his youthful mid-Forties, had declared in the Ward Theatre: "No amount of economic good will make (for) our people a real unity" unless there was a "political organisa­ tion" of the people, was, in his maturer mid-Sixties, declaring that "national independence is not a question of political constitutions ... There are no institutions more vitally important than those (concerned with) the economy and the monetary system of a country." He named that last budget of the first term, the "Full Speed Ahead Budget"j for the evidence was in, the facts were clear, the find-­ ings were mandatory. The drive was to spend to the maximum on develop­ ment. Not recklessly, or on counter-productive adventures, but "wiser and better with every passing year." It was a zealous, evangelical declaration of faith, optimism, and, in the light of the man's accom­ plishments, a promise of success. Odd as a dove's teeth has been the fairly wide belief that Manle: while acknc:wledgedly a law hawk, glided in dreamy isolation above the hubbub of day by day poli ticsj t\ ■ don whose intellectuality disqualifie, him for a place in ·the squabble, unable to share in that painful but proud usefulness felt by practical people. Those who knew him, knew better. He had a hard realism that earned him the respect, sometimes awe, of his Jamaica Welfare staff. He acquired a reputation of being a tough, tireless boss in his Ministry; certainly a ruthless opponent by his law colleagues; and was consequently flattered by a generation of imitators, especially his eloquence. The clinquants lacked his karat and remained imitators. His humour was of the people, broad as UWI L iba rie s " a Guanaboa joker guffawing on a barbecue under a full moon. Behind that distinguished brow, courteously inclined to a confrere, lurked such Rabelaisian ways as whether (one night at an important conference) the fellow facing him, "fat as a pig with a rotundity as spherical and defined" was not undergoing some "miraculous conception." Yet, in that bright year, a shadow- was moving around. The decision he took to stay home from Trinidad rocked the PNP. Many lost their loyalty for a season: the election for the Federal Parlia­ ment was rebuffed by half the electorate, many from the old PNP support.,; in a negative mood caused by Manley's abnegation. Labour had the surge of the Chief's new gallop; chomping now to be in a fight, they turned out in droves. Jamaica had been assigned 17 of the 45 Federal Parliament seats distributed among the islands. The Socialist federal party (the West Indies Federal Labour Party - here at last the PNP had secured that elusive "labour" label~) included Dr Eric Williams' People's National Movement of Trinidad (f. 1955), Sir Grantley Adams' Barbados Labour Party (f. 1939) and all the majority parties in the islands except for St Vincent. The elections were held on March 25, 1958. The 53% of the Jamaican electors which turned out, buried the PNP-supported , WIFLP candidates. Bustamante's people, campaigning as the Democratic Labour Party of the Federation, snatched 12 of the 17 Jamaican seats. What came clear was that the PNP supporters, rather than voting against Manley, simply stayed out of the booths. The WIFLP won 22 of the 45 W.I. seats. Some frantic footwork brought in the three Independents from Grenada (2) and Barbados (1) and gave the WIFLP a shaky majority. Busta, who had also decided to stay in Jamaica, now saw a new chance UWI L iba rie s to regain the ground he had lost in two general elections. The federal vote had shown him where Manley was assailable. But the unexpected election call would catch him off guard. The PNP term would not have expired until January, 1960. (y It was no miracle that the Party's fortunes were rising. The economy had been well managed, the populace placated with more jobs. The Party had instituted visible signs of departure from the irritat­ ing Imperial trappings. (At the House opening ceremonies, the PNP members in ordinary business suits were in cool contrast to the ridiculous top hat and heavy morning "cutaways" sported by the JLP fraternity.) The Party machinery had smoothed its run and was func­ tioning effectively, even in JLP country. He looked around and saw the signs were good. So Norman called his elections for July, 1959. It was, as Edna Manley described it, a "brilliantly impudent declara­ tion of an early election." In spite of having lost the Federal elections, he drubbed the Bustamante forces, taking 29 of the 45 seats (the House had been enlarged from its 32 seats.) What was even more significant was the PNP's capture of the popular vote: more decisive than ever, they had 54.8% to the JLP's 45%. .• . UWI L iba rie s 383. CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN Manley was a sensitive man and vulnerable in his hurt. He could be painfully depressed and given to questioning what he called his "intuition"; but his inner unity enabled him to escape unharmed; to the extent that he hoed his row through rock, and little loam, and harsh seasons. For the fact was, that, vastly finer mind as he had, he was no match in wiliness with his Hanover cousin. Of his connectiv, years, twenty-four, with elective politics, he led the country for only seven; Busta held that office for twice as long. Yet the power­ ful mystique that unifies the two in the psychic apparatus of their clients, occludes quick telling apart; both bowl along over the years, indivisible yet irreconcilable. The political "game" was no contest of skill or luck to Manley; it was a profoundly serious undertaking to structure a people, and nation, out of, as he saw it, the lethargy and inertia resulting from a history of slavery and Imperial rapine. The notion of Empire was a crude ideal that should be discarded. "The crudities of that ideal- ism, we of the People's National Party (will not) accept," he had declared in his first year as Party leader. He would take that kind of passion all through his political life. The histrionics he employed in law, were never brought to politics. Law was his skill; the pro­ fundities of the suffrage held his soul; to structure a people and a a word of nation by the vote - similar• root as vow, and as solemn an act --- ,\ by which "democracy ceases to be an ideal, and becomes a necessity, for the realisation of the creative in all man, and of the evolutionary potential in every society, however chaotic and vague its elements may seem." A kind of dedication that left scant room for political wind- UWI L iba rie s 384. stealing once he had the ship. By 1959, October's end, he was complaining bitterly at the bewildering speed with which Busta could switch ends when it suited him. The "Chief" on his break-out for power was cracking blows right and left, laying about him in a desperate, early afternoon Federal ~otterdammerung out of which he hoped for the prize of his unit legis­ lature. Bustamante had a covert moral support in the high PNP echelon; and of this Manley knew but chose to treat quietly, convinced that he had their personal loyalties "whatever their private feelings about aspects of the future." He may also have been misled by the profile / \ I of public response: although obviously disapproving of his decision to stay in Jamaica, by a virtual rejection, at the 1958 federal polling of any responsibility to his Federal Labour Party, they had turned out splendidly in the 1959 Jamaican elections and given the PNP a great victory. To hold a Referendum, then, on whether to keep Jamaica in the Federation, may have seemed good odds to him. Norman Manley also desired a federated Caribbean for selfish Jamaican reasons. We, as he saw it, needed them. In an extraordinary confession of Jamaic~~s inadequacies, he was to tell his federal col­ leagues of the "deeper level of sheer naked poverty" and the "higher rate of unemployment than any other territory in the Caribbean." He was not for fooling about with such a situation, for in it were the seeds of "riot and revolution;" and he asked that the battalion of Federal troops on the Jamaican station be doubled, a predisposition * to overreact, unexpected as explicable. In hot pursuit of egalite, *A small "rising" by supposedly Rastafarian elements and visiting American blacks had been contained and quickly put down; Manley, in a radio broadcast about "bearded men" had hastened many wearers of beards to be barbers, caused some innocent hirsutes to be roughed up. UWI L iba rie s 385. the right to the better life for his constituents, and confident in his ability to see and lead better than most (all?), and truly knowing the strong, resourceful, ruthless reasons of those who would nail • down the master-servant status, disguised as stability, Manley, who knew time with some intimacy, by having come close to its closure with some frequency through Nature, war and accidents, would brook no balk. He sometimes assumed a posture of defiance although he held REBE L- a comfortable lead. A terribly intelligent as a schoolboy at Jamaica College, when he changed to the side of law and ordeX'_)­ his rectitude was devastating. f) There were real and great advantages in a federal union, he told his Party colleagues. Foremost in his mind was trade, but he no doubt would think of the old Jamaican solution, the cyclical migra­ tion, that, since the century, had contracted thousands of men and women to several foreign lands - Cuba, Panama, the United States, the United Kingdom, Costa Rica. The rich, empty vastnesses of British Guiana (Guyana), hopefully due for inclusion in the Federation, was a goodlooking hope for a few thousand Jamaican pioneers. Trade, how­ ever, gathered his intent. He was excited about a Caribbean Common Market and Customs Union. But it is an uneasy judgment to see any less of the insular _in N.W., than in his fellow satraps of the Ten * Territories. He eyed the British role of midwife with a similar care *Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Kitt~ St Lucia, St Vincent, Trinidad & Tobago. as the others and watched with prejudiced interest that the allocation of power to the Federal apparatus did not breach Jamaica's economy. He liked to keep his options. One Monday evening in April, 1937, he sat at Drurnblair and carefully argued with himself whether to invite UWI L iba rie s 386. in the Banana Producers into his Jamaica Welfare scheme (then called the Banana Trust Fund) and decided against bringing them in. He felt they would be nosey, would criticize and interfere; that their share­ holders would listen to malice and contrive to wreck his Welfare. And that, anyway, they were not big enough an organisation to handle it. Twenty years later, in the larger case, he was still eyeing askance. He cautioned against interrupting the plan-flow "our party" (the Federal party) had put into operation for securing the Federal foundations; an apparatus, he bluntly stated, that would function no less, no more, than the state of the financial health of the two largest units, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago. There was never any doubt in his mind about which came first, Jamaica or the West Indies. Nor how he would opt, if the track indicated better going for a lone Jamaica. He was not selling Regional unity short. He defended the idea. He used a very rational short-ball once to do it, bowled to his surro­ * gate Federal premier. "Men come and men go," said a sententious Manley *Grantly Adams' bumbling performance as the first federal Prime Minister was not aided by the tart criticisms, often deserved, from his two more brilliant colleagues, Manley and Williams, either of whom could have got the WIFLP leadership but studiedly declined. to his Party conference in 1959. "To argue that Federation is wrong because the leadership is misguided, is to put the cart before the horse. Don't throw away the cart because the horse isn't pulling." I Whether the horse was pulling would soon be only of academic interest. Nobody knew that yet, and certainly thought less about it as the Jamaican general elections were on. The near debacle of the Federal polling, which had rocked the Party "s support, had to be neutra· lised and re-created into positive backing. The rogation years had be­ gun, hardly recognised, but present in the Federal question. Manley UWI L iba rie s 387. had added 13 seats, enlarging the House to 45 members. The fright of '58 had shaken not only the PNP politicians, but also the stay-at-home and closet Socialists who had neither wanted, nor expected, the techni­ cal defeat of their "federal PNP". So they turned out in better numbers this time, and on a 65% polling, gave the PNP 29 seats, by 54.8% of the vote. 0 No man is fully understood. His ways, thoroughly private and designed to dumbfound, adumbrate false starts, dead ends, wrong premises , faults and virtues incomprehensibly mixed. In Manley, the ruses riot. Beyond genes and chance, there is the factor at the core, the un­ known X, guessed at by the self's imagery, the hurting self, crying for tranquillity, or foolishly, understanding. In the end, to the lucky, comes acceptance, and then a sensible disregard. Others become saints or lunatics. It was a vibrant comeback for the PNP from the mangling of the Federal elections, and N.W. hailed it without modesty. His Party had given Jamaica, he said, "what is undoubtedly the best government Jamaica ever had." It was a victory that generated the sort of vibrance quick to answer challenges. It was the kind of win that could make a man boasie and summon up sinews best held back for better programmed combats A rush to truth is decidedly not politics, it is an ignorance of the streets. A steady, cautious approach, with the back of the neck well covered, ensures survival for continued truth-seeking. Busta, revitalised by a long overdue overseas holiday, was not yet ready to give up. A man who had found the energy at 60 to enter UWI L iba rie s 388. parliament for the first time, asks to be understood, if at 75, he declined to accede to custom and change his shoes for slippers. He was searching for issues, and Federation was turning into a very rich vein. A tall, thin, youngblood in the JLP named D.C.Tavares, one November 1959 day in the House revealed the lode when he proposed a Referendum. It was instantly rejected by Norman. He had just waged and won an election in which the Party's Federal stand had been a major declaration. It would be irresponsible to slow up the processes by asking again. "Maybe one day it will come to that," he said pro­ phetically, "but not now." The Tavares motion fizzled but the idea had been lodged; and then came the last days of May. UWI L iba rie s CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT In the last days of May, as in other days, odd things happened in the w0rld./fn Paris, France, the Americans were paying an instal­ ment on their 200-year-old debt to France, for Lafayette, by agreeing to share their A-Bonbsecrets, while cautiously shielding the H-Bornb plans from their unpredictable Gallic friends.-?r.n London, the family in Buckingham Palace was acquiescing with the Establishment's proposal that that stockbroking had the elements ofjdignity require<:_,in a new job for the photographer who had married the Queen's sister (and Jackie Chang, his half-Chinese erstwhile sweetheart, was predicting that her Tony would black, was Party. return).'jin the United States, Frank R.Beckwith, an Indiana seeking the U.S. presidential nomination from the Republican were tranquil in Jamaica. eThe last days of May,(N.W.Manley was ruling well, with style and success. The squalling Federal baby he had helped to bring into the world, was quieting down, and even gurgling. Customs Union of the units, that most controversial factor rated most likely to succeed in destroying the Federation, had been settled. He and Dr Williams of Trinidad were once again on speaking terms; they were working out ways to seal off the twin threat to the new State over whether industri~l development plans and income tax collections in the units should be Federal business. All good positive stuff. But the Bustamante harden­ ing against a federated West Indies was irking more than he cared to admit. At home, his Federal line was losing definity. More frequently he had been talking about Jamaica's abi l ity to stand alone, and had even, a trifle adroitly, gained Ian Macleod's public fiat declaring UWI L iba rie s 390. Jamaica's choice to defect if the question arose. It turned out to be a waffle of significant scale; a fault-line that broke away unbridgeabl wider when he called the Referendum. In the last days of May lay the seeds of the defeat that would lose this good man to his people. If he seemed uncertain in the Federal seas, he was going very good in home waters; stea:-ing true for the ultimate destination of Jamaican independence, regardless of whether, inthe course of the voyage, he would put into such ports of call as a West Indies alliance. The infrastructure for a vibrantly independent nation had never been out of his mind. In a flashingly angry mood one day, in 1951, he had ripped into the ruling Bustamante Party for "choking yourselves with shibboleths (while) Jamaica is sinking because of you and your free enterprise and your capitalism (which) we have had here for centuries, flourishing and flagrant since Emancipation." For years he had urged that National industrial and agricultural corporations be established, "the two necessary instruments for development." So indignant was he, he had done the unusual (for him) and created a memorable metaphor, split hilariously amphibious: "You have not got to sail out into un­ chart-ed seas - other small countries have blazed the trail for us~" 01'/ LANh (Well, he was an islander and equally at home 8 C and sea.) He had established a first class radio station (JBC) with the primary ob­ jective of encouraging creativity in music and drama, commenced the process of moving costly, elitist secondary schooling to the poor .. by a massive free-place programme, established a Central Bank for managing the economy and an annual Economic Survey for detailed public scrutiny of the government's performance, founded a National Trust for the recovery and use of the national patrimony, UWI L iba rie s 391. sought out and brought into the credit area, by his Small Businesses Loan Board, those Jamaicans whom the powerful lending bank had ignored, discouraged and watched destroyed; and not to be one-sided, established too, its corollary in heavy financing, the Development Finance Corpora­ tion; and forthwith, upon the first PNP win (in 1955), set about es­ tablishing a Planning Department that would prove invaluable to the whole. (Money management wasnev-er to be his metier, he had left this end of his leadership to Nethersole and had known a while of frustra­ tion and worry when Nethersole's sudden death revealed the paucity of financial savvy in his Cabinet. The "terrible state of delay and ob- struction" in the Ministry of Finance discovered after the 1962 defeat "dum\ounded" him.) ~ a)t.tn A. His stocks were up in the nortl/fields. "- The gains accrued from his negotiations with the bauxite mine owners (then Reynolds, Kaiser, Alcan) had raised the royalty and income tax by over 500%, from two shillings and eightpence to fourteen shillings a ton (27¢ to $1.40). Across the Atlantic, he had gone to London, to Notting Hill, when the race riots flared, in '58, and by his presence, cooled it. His stocks were up in the north fields; but southward, the seas were stormy. Wills a.Isaacs, the bald, bustling, bantam ex-businessman turned Socialist politician, was the main Bustamante baiter in the PNP. His cheerfully pugnacious style had for years buffaloed the "Chief". Where most of his comrades avoided confrontation with Busta, notorious for the weight of his folk-wit that could riddle an opponent with ridicule, Wills' ability to meet him head-on, to give as much as he got, had earned him the grudging respect, and even liking, of Busta. They had something in common. Wills did not like the Federation. He was, how- UWI L iba rie s 392. I ever, the PNP's Minister of Trade and Industry, and the logical man to send to Trinidad for a talk with Dr Williams, that colony's premier who was showing rising anger at Jamaica's purposing to build an oil refinery. Williams saw a refinery, protected by a tax device, not only as a breach of Federal plans for internal free trade,but specifi­ cally as a blockage to the flow of Trinidad oil into Jamaica. Both F"t.'S€.S, Isaacs and Williams were men of short Wills later averred that the Doctor had insulted him in Port of Spain; denied by Dr William but damaging to the already strained relations between him and Manley. Wills angrily left Trinidad with the problem intact; not enough an in­ cident to sink the Federal boat, but, added to events before, and afte r made the list ominous. The weaknesses in the unification machinery had emerged immediate} with the first sitting of the federal parliament, April, 1958. Strong in quality and quantity, the Opposition, with such formidable debaters as Ken Hill and Bob Lightbourne of Jamaica, Albert Gomes and Ashford Sinanan for Trinidad, clearly would outpower the government spokesmen, who were not remarkably front bench material, considering that neither Manley nor Williams nor other of their famous men was there. Busta's Feds had a large and competent slate of professionals, who, idling in an out-of-power season, had placed themselves at his disposal and won to Port of Spain. They were knowledgable of House strategies and laid their legislative traps almost with amusement. Unsettled, the Majority members fell back defensively. One early snare was the Ken Hill motion calling for a Constitutional "leap-forward." Considering that Ken had not only cut his political teeth in the Socialist PNP, but had al­ so been expelled from the Party, on a Red charge, the choice of a Mao Tse Tung phrasing had an edge. It was clearly dirty pool, as Ken knew UWI L iba rie s 393. that the Conference of '56 laid down, and since then, regularly rati­ fied in debate, that the first five Federal -years would be free from any fooling with the Constitution - except that what John Mordecai · calls a "casually altered" last minute modification had let in the * phrase "not later than," in place of "during the fifth year. Pounced *Sir John Mordecai, former Jamaican Deputy Governor General of the w. I .Federation in his book: The West Indies.: The .Federal negotiations upon by the sharp-eyed Ken, it was only defeated by the government <.... D~, r'l-\£51\JCe.b majority after a torrid debate. It also -■-Athe polarity which woul < t, n spread from the House to the Territories. Manley had no illusions about the role of the Opposition in the Federal parliament. He saw them, the Jamaican element, as coming from the JLP which had "a great irresponsibility which masquerades as polic1 and even as "liars and betrayers." The intemperance of his language rn€A~'-1I<.€ describing his political adversaries was the••• of the anger he ,.. contained. For the Federal exercise was tearing him apart, an inside job guessed at by only the more perceptive around him. Edna was worried and wondered "how to keep Norman well and on his feet, to keep near the Almighty and to keep humble and yet unafraid." He knew that he was on an anvil in his advocacy of, his d:>session with, West Indian unification. He was to confess in a letter to Richard Hart years later that he had been the first to embrace the idec and the last to let go. And as the debate grew shriller, it was noticE able that the eloquence of exposition, the sweep of rhetoric he brought to bear on subjects across the canvas, from a schoolteacher's portion in the natural progression to the shearing of prosecutory powers in attorney general's portfolio, lost much of its power in the transla­ tion to federal affairs. The dream of many minds since Marryshow was turning into a nightmare. UWI L iba rie s 394. If he bemoaned his fate at the hands of inconsiderate enemies, he also had a hard-headed awareness of the ambivalence among his friends. He knew that some of his Ministers had what he delicately called "private feelings" on federation but also that they revered his leadership enough to be meticulous in toeing the official line. The trouble lay in the fact that he had forked his trail. At least in one reading. He had set out as a nationalist, building an ever mounting emotional:iesponse; exhorting them, for the first time in their 450-year history as Jamaicans, to love the land, from the slopes and blue water at Lucea to the high-shouldered Manchioneal; but also to see beauty in the hammer of the boilermaker knocking clinkers from a railway engine, in the shining swing of a machete-man cutting his quota of cane, in the smell of river rush among the woman weavers at work on an old skill in a cottage task for a payday for a poor yard in the words and dances of their creative children. The youth of 'Thirty-eight, now bracing for their forties, had grown up and matured in the extraordinary to be called a "good in the trail. t-A~, years; the years when suddenly it had become good Jamaicanh1"/ Many would be stubborn at the fork On the -"day of May, 1960, the Federal seat that Robert Light- bourne had vacated almost a year before to run for and win a St Thomas seat for the Jamaica Labour Party, was placed in nomination. Both Federal parties were expected to put up candidates. Only the PNP/WIFU did. The JLP instead put in a bomb, not yet armed, but ready for detonation. Bustamante announced that not only would his Party ignore the Federal by-election but was rejecting Federation altogether. They, as Manley was to say a few days later, had come out into the open. UWI L iba rie s 395. Manley awoke early at Drumblair, a lifelong countryboy/soldier habit he would never lose. His matutinal course required a retrieving of the morning paper from the front yard, and an amble in the rose garden to pluck the bloom for the day - he was an inveterate wearer of the boutonniere. But this day there was a stumble in the amble as a headline in the day's news struck. There was a while that he agonized alone over his decisions; but in an astonishing short time he had chosen, and was summoning a hurried Cabinet meeting. At 9.30 a.m. he strode into the Cabinet room and announced for a Referendum. None of his Ministers demurred. A few may have quietly exulted for there had never been a total enthu­ siasm in the PNP hierarchy to a union with the other islands. The bomb was now armed. The JLP decision to abandon the Federal parliament, taken the night before, had also been the decision of one man, Bustamante; re­ portedly over determining whether the Party would throw in the $3,000- fund estimated to run the campaign to elect Edwin Allen. Busta, in his role as a Federal foe, and doubtless by now genuinely convinced of its inexpediency, balked at throwing good money - and a very useful politicianhafter bad. The Manley decision for a Referendum may well be the consequence of the fault and strength in the man: he was a combative, competitive individual who accepted challenges with an incautious alacrity that racked up victories because of his prodigious gifts of talent, concen­ tration and capacity for back-breaking work; and because he had the burden of an integrity from which he could not escape. UWI L iba rie s 396. In the hour of decision he had granted himself that last morning in May, he may have looked critically at the figures of the last two elections and seen that the gamble was worthwhile. Although 'the PNP had been clobbered in the 1958 Federal elections, the PNP win in the Jamaican elections in 1959 had been on an increased majority, from 50.5% in 1955, to 54.80% in 1959. But he may also have reckoned with­ out the unconcealed apathy affecting some of his Party's most artful campaigners; a syndrome that could affect the voters. His promise during the campaign that if Jamaica stayed in, he would seek office in the Federal parliament, was too little or late to cure the apathy. (:::,0,87 ~ Only ... of the electorate would turn out for the Referendum. And it was a gruelling trail that taxed all his energies. The sophisticated city voters fairly followed the Party line; but the crucial rural backing, retreated. Federal politics had lashings of logomachies to reason and argue over, and drew interest in the subur­ ban verandah talk-upsl and among the newspaper readers. But back of the mountains, folk found it soulless. To show the joys of living together in unity, Manley could, and did invoke such parallels as England's effort to enter the European Common Market, from which a former hauteur was now denying her, or "the little republics of Central America•~ who were working toward a Customs Union (as premier of an island far smaller than the "little republics", his Jamaican-Anglo-Saxon frame of mind relegated them nevertheiess to a diminished im~ortance.) He was pushing hard for a s.uccess at the plebiscite, the first national mandate on a single issue ever sought in the history of the UWI L iba rie s 397. country. He was entering the third decade since he had moved close to the politics of the people, twenty-one years since he had formed the PNP; he was now experienced with the moods. He had, and understood passion in politics. At the very beginnings of the Party, and always, he had hammered at the need for political education of the people. Both these factors had pulled the electorate, finally, to the PNP, and changed its image from the middlebrow repute of 'Forty-four to the populist victors of 'Fifty-five. But the Referendum campaign was dis­ quieting. He knew his onions and this crop was poor. The country-fol1 had not been educated into a West Indian mood. "The history of nations is a history of amalgamations," he had told the delegates at the 1947 Caribbean Labour Congress (that included T.A.Marryshow, the ''Father of Federation") to rousing applause. But among the many notable ab­ sentees at that important Conference was a delegation from Hog Hole I Bottom, or Top Fustic Crawl, or any similar citizens. The politicians and public people and the educated skim knew of the other West Indies. Hog Hole Bottom did not. They would easily accept Busta' s jibe at the Trinidad premier as "that hideous Dr Williams' and recoil in horror at Busta's forecast that one day the little Doctor would be ruling them. It was straight Big Yard cussin', a form Busta was adept at, and it had much more conceptual clout than any number of speeches outlining the advantages of the Concurrent Legislative Lists, or the Veto Powers. Above all, the old team spirit of the PNP, the hard-driving organisational skill, which had powered them past the formidable JLP mass strength, was absent. One researcher found that Manley, at his hundredth rural campaign meeting, had still no platform support from his skilled and seasoned city comrades. He had, in effect, disoriented UWI L iba rie s 398. them. He had celebrated as "the basic policy of the Party," to build the special Jamaica, "a real home for its citizens." That was in 1939 at the very first annual PNP conference. Even more profound was his declaration the year earlier that "We must ... recognize that this country has a destiny of its own, separate and distinct from the des­ tiny of any other country." It was the theme and variations upon which the Party activists had paraded at the barricades, nationalism in their eyes. And yet a closer reading of the intellectual Manley, at that time in the 'Thirties, would have picked up the bale-fire in the 45-year-old mover and shaker, on the threshold of his last and greatest career, to push a country anciently submissive, into an aggressive twentieth century Commonwealth but with no hostility to Britain; indeed, saw, he said, "pride in the thought of an association between (countries) based on ... equality." He was voicing a willing­ ness to share a "morally independent" consortium with the British Empire, an idea that could tangibly claim logic with the events brough to a head near a quarter century later. Federation, was, it seems, to him, not a denial of Jamaican nationhood but an associatim\of "morally independent peoples." Entering Federation was not "abandoning" Jamaica; staying in Jamaica secured it. Jamaica would have had the best leader ship in the ten territories. It is a reasoning. He lost the Referendtµn by 8.2% of the 60.87% of the voters who polled - 453,580 from a voters' list of 777,965. The Corporate Area (the city of Kingston/St Andrew), as expected, went with him; he was roundly beaten in the rurals. It presaged the further happenings now only a year away. c) UWI L iba rie s 399. It was the kind of Manley plummet that came with the horses running across his brightest mornings. Fresh from his triumph before tj House of Lords judiciary, first by a Colonial lawyer, wined and dined by distinguished members of the Houses of Parliament, rehad plumetted into the Ellis Island humiliation by some ugly Americans. From the golden boy of the Jockey Club, the pride of the brown-skins~and token-black of the whites, his choice of politics had sloughed him off among the troublemakers. Leading legal genius for the landed gentry, the salt-fish his unrivalled skills kulaks and other urban economic guerillas, only e_AfA8Leb ·-ro /lJAi-<'c had ■•t him••• a living off their litigious #i.. "' affairs, when he turned politician. The horses had a way of running down on him. UWI L iba rie s 400. CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE Putting the people to such a test asked too much of their daring , It was a misread of their devotion to a man or cause; carelessly col­ lated~• unclear on its benefits,• alien in its philosophy of unifying the future with the strangers of the south/east islands/ vaguely heard from in years past by the majority of voters. The delegation from Hog Hole Bottom was as absent in spirit as in body. The result? A debacle. And if the word seems strong, even harsh, it was N.W's own choice of phrase for his adventure into the process of putting a specific proposal to the ballot. "Why really did I decide on the Referendum?" he would agonize later. "Why did I so totally commit myself and the Party to its results? Why did I not leave the smallest loophole for escape back to the old road, if the Referendum failed? "The fact is that I cannot give any logical answers ... And we have paid the price for the decision and the responsibility is mine alone (for) the Referendum debacle." No amount of conjecture by other sources may negate the man's honest judgment, based on his own soul search. He had made an earlier critique of his decision, in the weeks after the Referendum, an analy­ sis that amounted to no more than a ratiocination by an input of the American and Canadian experience in uniting their states or provinces, but took no notice of the thousand peculiar and thoroughly divisive sea-miles between what so many saw as Us and Them. Nor that suspicion and even hostility was a natural reaction which often follows a politi~ cal unifying of separate states. And who, if allowed to vote a view, would likely opt for a return to the old familiar fences. After the 1776 American Revolution which created the United States, some of UWI L iba rie s 401. those "one and undivisive" states were ready for each other's throats and threatening to bolt the coop; indeed, a hundred years later, pro­ ceeded to slaughter each other in the most savage internecine war of modern history, precisely because some wanted to secede. But Manley had an enormous capacity for inquiry; could face what other politicians saw as his faults, and his integrity recognised as his virtues. Whether what he saw could take its place among the "logi­ cal answers", he knew himself to be "a totally committed person in whom every elemen t of will and emotion and intent had fused into an unshake­ able determination to stand or fall on what I thought was best for our future , .,=is well as for the future of the West Indies." TJ.ii.S was his judgment in the cool of the day, eight months after what the .:fLP' s Tavares had prophesied would be "a rude awakening." He had, h9 said, given the people what was rightly theirs, the power to decide. "St.anding on this side of the event, and looking back, if I then had the ~nowledge I have now, I would still have decided to hold the Referendum because it was the right thing to do, whatever the outcome. One a ct of democracy in practice on a crucial occasion is wath a thousand protestations (of democracy}." The Federation had been rejected. Now he would put into motion the plans for independence. He had "no doubt whatever about the future of our country, about our ability to sustain inde pendence, alone." But first, the r e would be an election. [,) In the way of the day,• Manley had an ever quivering antennae for what "people .abroad" thought of Jamaica. It was generally because of a desire to appear respectable and "civilised"; but ir1 him, it was rooted less in a regard for the conventi ons than the knowledge that UWI L iba rie s 402. the path to U.S. and U.K. bankers was paved with under-developed nations who had dared not to behave as behooved. In putting forth his reasons for the Referendum, he had spoken within a week of his deci­ sion, while the heat was still in him, of Jamaica's "shame" in the "eyes of the world" if the question was not resolved. In the distress of the present defeat and the future uncertainty, he was thinking that to delay the push for immediate independence would create "abroad" an impression of indecision. He valued highly the reputation that his "government enjoys abroad." He did not appear to have given much con­ cern to the possibility that the JLP's winning momentum would be carried through to a general election, if called too soon after the Federal "debacle". If the seeming is true, he had historic reasons,. Decisively beaten as the PNP/WIFLP had been in the Federal elections, with Bustamante's candidates taking 12 of the 17 Jamaican seats, the PNP had bounced back vigorously the next year, retaining their rule of the Jamaican scene, and an increased majority. Yet, the question of the timing requires a look. The 1959 elections had come fully sixteen months after the Fed­ eral voting, which, in any case, had been a West Indies affair, with votes being solicited for a West Indies Party, in constituencies of quite different demarcations. The 1962 general elections came only six months after . the Referendum and the rough rejection of his plea. The smell of defeat still hung around the People's National Party. He had misread, quite badly, the rural indifference, easily turned into hostility, to those whom Tavares had described as "unknown people a thousand miles away." He had spoken with uncomfortable emotion on the gains and values of a West Indies nation which was likely to imply a Jamaican nation would be second best. It looked like trouble. It was . UWI L iba rie s 403. It was a tribute to the enormous personal prestige of Norman Manley why the vote came close as it did: a 72% turnout with just 1.7% casting the difference in favour of the JLP who won 26 of the 45 seats. With two years of rule still on the books, Manley was thrown into Opposition. D He won his personal East Rural St Andrew seat comfortably and led a respectable minority of nineteen into the House, but the premature and rather brutal loss of power was traumatic. For weeks he withdrew into himself, reading little, contemplating much, virtually incapable of raising the vitality which had astounded his contemporaries for 50 years. As it was, the wisdom, the quiet but open faith of Edna in him, the great calm of Nomdmi and its peaks, commenced to work. He began, it appears, unsteadily at first, but proceeded gradually to examine the road that led to now; the judgment, right or wrong, that had riven the Party, axed in half its second term of office, and hastened the sinking of the admittedly leaky Federal ship; an act for which a year later, he was feeling such responsibility, he would not go to Trinidad for their * Independence revels. He suspected that his welcome would not be *Trinidad also left the Federation and became Independent • soon after Jamaica. calypso gay; in fact, believed he would be made uncomfortable; wondered why they had invited him. He was, after all, the fellow about whose neck they had hung the broken chain of islands, which, ironically, he had fought so long and hard to weld. His music was a comfort in the bad ~onths. Music had his only non-performer's patronage - for if he liked horse racing, he was himsel J a superb rider; if he followed athletics, he had been a record breaker; UWI L iba rie s 404. and the avid ringsider was himself a fine boxer. Bartok, Brahms, ~ Ii OS TR KCV IC I-I> Beethoven, were among his sought-after composers. Nomdmi's /\ soaring peaks and the beloved pine forests and walking trails, the occasional visits of friends, and the intelligence of his family hold­ ing easy to normalcy and continuing the flow of affairs (including a few healthy therapeutic quarrels) worked the healing. He accepted that he had now "come to the end of a road that (had led his) Party to power for seven great years." And looking back at its achievements, he was satisfied that they had served the country well. "It is, " he has said, "impossible to reconstruct history and entirely idle." But he wondered what would have happened had he not placed the Party in public hock to the plebiscite, by a pair of pro­ nouncements: I-and-my-Party-stand-four-square-before-this-challenge­ of-our-times, and then his Make-no-mistake- (it is) -a-Party-issue in an exhortation to his reluctant colleagues. After a while he would quit the introspections, and look to the work ahead. A month after the 1962 elections he was telling himself that the Referendum defeat had been "an anti-government swing and not basically a vote on the real issue," of Federation. He was no doubt right for the real issue had not begun to be understood by most of the electorate. "And now we ,are out of it. Where do we go from here?" He was a tired man; bone and mind weary from the strains of the past campaigns, fought so much alone, and battered by the worse of the few defeats he had received in his affairs. Those who saw him in those agonised weeks commented on his lisdessness, the unaccustomed apathy, the torment that obviously racked him. He was physically ill with bouts of vertigo. Where once he strode the hills on his long, bent-kne UWI L iba rie s 405 .. {:) mountainman gait, he was down to moving carefully, unable to place the balls of his feet on the rough paths without great hurt. But one May day, the 12th, the worse was over. At daybreak he rose and looked out at the pine forests, and, he noted, "felt the sap stir" in him. UWI L iba rie s 405B. CHAPTER SIXTY The seven legislative years of the Manley Administration (1955- 1961) achieved into law over 450 bills. Along with settling old and current issues, they also settled into place new concepts, creating guide_lines and progressive corridors for every administration that followed. In a retrospective survey of the legislatorial work wrought in their two terms of office, former Finance Minister Vernon Arnett was to observe that "almost all of the laws passed, proved to be connected with a further restructuring of the society; the move from subjection to authority." The range was staggering. It went from the landmark Mining (Amendment) Law, the several local government legislations that delivered more autonomy into the hands of the communities, the crea­ tion of the State-owned radio and television corporation, the Beach Control law surging swiftly in during his first year to remove the offensive spectacle of Jamaicans denied access to white sand beaches sequestered for foreign tourists, all the way through to such homely Acts as regulating bush burning on the hillsides and encouraging the manufacture of buttons. For lawyer Manley, the administration of justice held court in a majority of the laws that came out of the House; the adjustment of the disadvantages locked into the race-class­ colonial compound, was essential to the national reconstruction. And agriculture stood deep among the Bills of the Manley incumbency; and the subject of landhold to the poor, a priority. If 1957 was the Year of the Nuptials, when Hindu and Muslim vows were voted into legitimacy, and those of the Christians mended into better shape, and when religiouses of all faiths got good shrift .,. UWI L iba rie s 405C. from the Administration through some 15 laws incorporating such exclusive sects as the Mount Zion Sanctuary Assemblies, the Siloah Apostolics and the Hindu Samaj of Jamaica, then in those years came too the fine Youth Corps Law (1956) which set up a learning camp at Cobbla. At Cobbla, near Spaldings, primary school-leaving boys with no hope of entry into the secondary (paying) system were bespoke into the most comprehensive agrarian curricula yet devised; in which they raised buildings and crops and livestock, drove tractors and learnt how they worked, sewed, cleaned, cooked, and caught up with the academic work they may have flunked in the days of straight schooling. A burly schoolmaster named Vin Lawrence, who had earned his reputation at Boys' Town, was picked by Manley to head the project; Lawrenc~ a with an assistant named Owen Batchelor and~first class staff, estab- lished a programme of community development learning, of even more robust, if narrower, impact than the enormously wider Jamaica Welfare. It was significant that the Youth Corps law followed closely on the Facilities for Titles Law of the year before, an edict that would transform land tenure in a country still wearing the centuries­ old scars of the lavish Cromwell land grants to his soldier-settlers; and still grievously wounded by the pernicious subsequencies of the sugar planters' tracts that often engulfed half a parish. Some of the scrub area in the sugar estates backlands, had, at the Emancipation, been sold to the liberated folk, the ex-owners figuring to keep a labour pool close enough to dip into; and ev<~n more of the stony interior had been homesteaded by the new freeds) bent on fleeing far the recent unpleasantness. But :in each case, the transactions were UWI L iba rie s 405D. settled without sanction of title. And the cases complicated them­ selves upon the sons corning of age and receiving a slice of the home~ stead. Again, not by title but a handshake, IA. In the simple days of farming for pot-&-tot, the wish for more lands and the need for intensified husbandry was · light; with the profits, after "salt" (i.e., store-bought salted fish and beef) paying for the rnarketday rurnshop tot, and for the Sunday-meeting clothes bought off itinerant Arab and Jewish hucksters who hawked the country on foot and horseback. But turning into this century, there were seeds and stocks to be bought, fences to be run, fertilizers for the steadily impoverished and frag­ mented po-land, and, of course, new acreage for the proliferous heirs. The large landowners, who faced similar conditions of capital requirement, had access to the banks and the state financial agencies, with their titles as collateral. The small landowners had no titles, no security to offer the bankers. So, the Facilities for Titles Law, 1955 brought relief to the hardpressed small farmers. The new law declared that applicants for loans from a government agency required only a certificate signed by two persons, who, by "personal knowledge", could attest that the petitioner had been in "undisturbed and continuous" possession, and paying taxes, for at least seven years. Thus title could be obtained. In fetching an egalitarian aspect to the unequal access to capital, Minister of Agriculture Manley aiso knocked down a barrier of privilege that had sheltered the land barons: in 1956, the Land Valuation Law was put on the books. Up to then, owners of wide and idle lands often paid less taxes than a house owner, since the impo­ sition of rates was based on "improvement" done to the property. Acquisition of acreage merely for panache, or profits in the future UWI L iba rie s 405E. through subdivisions, extension of town limits and other causes, in­ creased the baronage. Coupled with the Land Bonds Law passed earlier by whd.ch the .State could pay in bonds for lands required for a "public purpose", several land nobles hastened to improve their ways. And so ·opened more employment to farm workers. Another farming law, the Cocoa Industry Board law in 1957, foreran a series that placed every crop in special protected positions for better growth and marketing, and for promoting the welfare of the farmers engaged in the field. Important as were food and shelter, Manley's laws were not neglectful of the mind. In 1958 he sent through the legislature the Jamaica National Trust Law to "make provision for the preservation of monuments, sites and objects of historic interest or national importance." Long before Manley's time, the great Marcus Garvey had used a memorable phrase: "The nation that forgets its history must repeat it." Manley too knew the Jamaican society, knotted in the guilt and agony that had spawned it, and the cathartic effect of turning it on to history. He, as all Jamaicans, had been brought up on the historical works of the English writers who wrote from the conquerors' point of view. It was necessary to relate the country's and people's past to the present day actualities and values. While the rich had lived in their fortified greathouses and castles, the blacks had thought and plotted in the "quarters" and fought for their freedom among the rocks and trees of the highlands, the "sites" of the new law to be marked and preserved. The law also sought to pre­ serve the fine old architecture, much of it "vernacular" or domestic, and historical buildings, all of them built at the hands of the ancient common ancestry of the Jamaican people, of Africa and Europe. But by far the most spectacular result of the Trust was the searching into UWI L iba rie s 4l.J5F. the history of the people and finding the black heroes neglected for 400 years. For the interests of the Trust Law would inevitably lead to the boldly conceived National Heroes pantheon and the in­ creasing clamour for new historical works to replace the discredited * "conqueror's literature." The Tr.ust would be an instrument to * In the mid-Seventies as Chairman of the Trust I conceived the historical marker programme, roadside signs telling of folk heroes and battle sites, victories or the valiant failures of people fighting exploitation, matters which were either ignored or dis­ torted in the "history" books; e.g., Jack (Three-Finger Jack) Mansong, Juan de Bolas, Tacky of Port Maria. "J1nify the people and the spirit of this country," Manley said of the bill (which was introduced by his Communications Minister Coombs). "All these things (in the Trust Law) are peculiarly great and good because they all contribute to that creation of a unifying force that makes the people one; without which, no people can ever hope to be great in history." And it was in his cast and the cut of his style that in his consideration, the width of the territory and the headcount of its citizens had nothing to do with being great. One of his steadfast platform phrases, delivered with the cool certainty of the uncontested, the absolute of the received, was his frequent reference to "this great little island ... . and its great people." So, strapped for "natural" .resources as we were, and of a ·corporate mind bent by history to seeking technical guidance always beyond our shores, Manley, by the spring of 1960 was justifying his "great little island/" by creating a research facility, the Scientific Research Council Law, "to draw upon the best scientific brains of the country." For "it will be quite a mistake to think that because we are small and UWI L iba rie s 405G. comparatively poor thts country should not have its own scientific ' k' f ' .,') services wor ing or its own purposes. He was, in fact, engaging on all sides, foreseeing that "the time may soon come when we cease to have the right to (use the British) services." It was part of the passion with which he had attacked "the root problems of education" in 1957: first, the "policy of primary education for every child in this country," and then "the enlargement of opportunity for higher education," and the "provision of sufficient education of the highest class that this country can maintain all its services out of its own human resources " The Education (Amendment) Law, 1956, had rooted and widened the government's power to establish and also maintain schools and teacher training facilities whether founded by the State or not. At the hub of the Manley lawmaking years, it seemed what was p arresting in all the important laws, was a formula implici71 reform, and suggestive strongly of restructure. In the same year, 1956, that he was moving his historical resolution in the House demanding "a new constitution for Jamaica providing for complete self-government in all our internal affairs," he was installing his Loan to Small Businesses Law, 1956, as one of the early legislations after the Facilities for Title Law and the Land Bonds Law, both good wrestling holds for future manipulation. As the Title and Land Bonds laws came to the aid of the beleagured small farmer, the Samll Businesses Law sought to fetch the struggling but trapped small entrepreneur off his knees before the indifferent, distant banker. A Loan Board was set up to finance the establishing or expansion of small sales, service UWI L iba rie s 405H. and manufacturing industries. "Where nature itself is the enemy," the eminent American historian/journalist Theodore H. White once * wrote, "only government can save from nature." * Author of the extraordinary The Makin~ of the President series recounting the behind-the-scenes leading to the election of U.S. presidents since J.F. Kennedy's election in 1960. The racist-colonial prejudices of the white native and foreign C US1CfVI financiers had settled int~\- I A after three centuries. The new law opened opportunities to the shutouts and led to the broadening of the industrial field and the appearance of new executive skills that would powerfully change the aspect of the managerial class in the next two decades. Indeed the need to reform the entire banking system, strode into prominence early and assumed law by 1960 in The Banking Law and law the Bank of Jamaica law "to regulate the system · of cornrnerciall' says Arnett. Solidly, at the base, had been placed the year before, the Financial Administration and Audit Law that established the Consoli- dated Fund. Into this Fund was to be paid all the State's revenues and from which withdrawals would be permitted only by warrant first approved by Parliament. The Bank of Jamaica was given the sole right to issue currency, to become the banker to the government, and to keep and administer the external reserves. And, significantly, the bank was required to foster the development of money-aid and credit-aid in "the expan­ sion of production, trade and employment." In the same year, says Arnett, the Mortgage Insurance Law "for approved undertakings in :c support of public policy" was promulga~ed to "relieve the government UWI L iba rie s .. of the need to guarantee a loan, by replacement of insurance for ~wfl-7 which a premium is charged." A 1peaking for himself and his predeces- sor, the respected N.N. Nethersole, author of the best in the banking plans.) Bills brought to the House in the· seven Manley years numbered 468. The peak year was 1960; among the 80 that year were the great banking laws, the Mortgage Insurance law, and the Poor Prisoner's Defence law. The least of the years was 1961, the year of the Federal preoccupation and the fateful referendum, when only 44 bills were tabled - although the important petroleum refining law a was achieved. By/4terribly neat coincidence, Manley was voted out of office in April (1962), the official opening month of the legis­ lative year. UWI L iba rie s 406. CHAPTER SIXTY Edna Manley, with the instinct of a she for her family, built a house. It was smaller than Drumblair, and, in its style, as lovely. Rachel Manley, in the language of the young and defiant, named it Regardless. ·-rH~IR were /\acts of "THESc They were the two women in Norman Manley's life and - I\ protection and love. The house had been begun before the elections, at the time that the Drumblair land was subdivided. The lot was at Number Four Washington Drive (named for N.W.) When the house was being planned by Edna, the idea was opposed on all sides. "Everyone thought it was madness but I had that funny mad intuition that something would come up one day and it would be needed." Now, it was needed. Many years ago, when her own loneliness and pain had driven her back to England and Cornwall, Norman bought Drumblair, brought her back home, and surrounded her with it and it had restored. Now in the wisdom of experience she knew where to seek a renewal. "Two days after losing the election, I said to Norman, 'Let's move.' And he said, 'No, I haven't the energy.'" So while he was gone downtown to clean out his office, she said to herself, "Regardless is finished. It's ready. And I - can't sleep in Drumblair for the last time knowing it's the last time." (He had engaged in preparing a prime minister's residence while in office, choosing the old Colonial Secretary's residence,a tall hous ◄ of delicate tracery and tropical profile, handsome in fine grounds, called Vale Royal. The house, beautifully modified by the time Busta­ mante was returned to office, w:as rejected by the "Chief" as a UWI L iba rie s 401. residence and instead, turned over to 'theMinisters of Finance who have * lived there happily ever after. ) Jamaica House, a large vulgarly pretentious place built by Busta on a portion of King's House land as the Prime Minister's residence, , had, on the other hand, a curiously unhappy effect on its occupiers. Busta lived there only a short time before returning to his private Tucker Avenue home; and Michael Manley could not wait to move to more modest quarters on a quiet suburban road. Jamaica House is now used as the Prime Minister's office. So Edna summoned a family council at 9.30 in the morning "and everyone said, move." So she summoned help, and a couple of trucks "and we worked fluently, efficiently and almost silently. At three in the afternoon, I phoned Norman and said, "Stop in at Regardless on the way home as I want to plant a tree.' "When he arrived, the beds were made up and dinner was on the stove. He looked a little stunned, and he went back out to a Party meeting, and when he retarned at midnight, the lights were on and the pictures up, and he stood in the doorway with his nice smile, and said, 'I think I rather like this house. It's a friendly house and nothing bad has ever happened here.' And we went to bed and slept like logs.• The house was built by an old friend (and the country's best known art patron) A.D. Scott on the spot chosen by Edna on the higher ground on Drumblair lands, modest, neat and managing to offer an elusivE sense of space and charm; although Edna, coming from the greathouse aspect of Drumblair, mistakenly thought "the world will think it a hard and poky little house." But the thought had a meritorious end, as to "soften it .and hide its small hard straight lines," she turned the grounds into a magnificent garden and filled the house with her "dear old lovely old furniture." She brought over whole shrubs and young trees tied to the roof of the family Jaguar, including a lignum vitae trunk covered in gorgeous orchids. Nooks of shrubbery and silver UWI L iba rie s 408. white grass, and a studio at the end of a flagged walk, made Regardless in no time into an elegant dwelling. "Sometimes in the moonlight I would sit and dream how it would all look some day and (now) the dreams have come true, and even better, everything smaller, but lovely and gracious." She would never of course forget Drumblair "where it was all giant trees and lawns and paddocks, where one's whole life has grown and lived and passed. Drumblair with the moon coming up behind the giant guango tree. Drumblair with a horse saddled in the dawn and the cows strolling in for milking. Drumblair on a gala night with the trees floodlit, and the vast crowds, and the smoke from the barbecues. Drumblair in triumph and disaster." The memory was lyrical but there was no sense of loss. "In spite of everything, we have found something new in Regardless. We are very near to each other, Regardless ... " And there was of course Nomdmi to retreat to, to think and write and carve and work at being whole. It had always been very special to Norman. The house had been designed by him and Edna, in the high wood of cedar and pine and raking eucalypti; and intense beauty of light and landscape and the air at four thousand feet,cool in summer, fire and sweater in winter. As his health and vigour under the in­ fluence of this retreat, reached towards one of the several peaks in the frustratingly inconstant health he would henceforth know, his interest in politics returned, in a strangely prescient way. He began thinking of a succession; not from a morbid drift, but in a hardheaded lawyer's look at a certainty: that at 69 he was nearing the inevitable. He saw it as his duty, a part of his mandate. "My job, in a way, is to protect the evolution of a new leadership." UWI L iba rie s 409. Looking around him at his old comrades, several greying, he shook his head and commented that only a handful would "survive the next ten years." Actually, the Old Guard as he called them, were all younger than he: Wills Isaacs, Dr Ivan Lloyd, Vernon Arnett, Glasspole, Fair­ clough and so on. But he was shopping for a new generation. In the light of the later post-election charge .from the young leftists of an ideological betrayal, he was, in the serenity of Nomdmi, deciding to move the Party into a "real Democratic left" - long before the accusa­ tion. He was of a mind to open the PNP hierarchy to new young people with new ideas, with "new concerns about Socialism as equality and how it can be fitted into the essentials of the local scene." Already in his mind was the probability of Michael for leadership . He was unaffectedly the proud papa at his son's political savvy.Michael, now turned 38, was working among the angry young men of Mona (the University of the West Indies) and he thought this an excellent idea. It could be that Michael was building a political base not unree,6)ted to his father's own idea of creating, for the youth, "entry points all over the (oldsters) iron curtain." He had further satisfaction in Michael's increasing stature in international trade union circles. When he was appointed chairman of a sugar enquiry in Barbados, his father was elated. Both of his sons had long preparation, a tutelage remarkable for the early start and quality. At 15, Douglas had begun sharing long talks with N.W., on socialism, capitalism, on the ethic of emotional freedom, and was handed Kristin instead of Long John Silver since the "best way to educate (was by) good books, with a plain realism and raw. life." Michael, at 13, with his measure of "guts and more sensitive feeling than I can pretend to," assured his tutor that there was great UWI L iba rie s 10. promi s - "g ' ven half "' chance , what possi ilities! 11 - and proven, s 'd orman twenty-five years later as he thought of the succession, f or there was "pote tial great leadership there." He was indignant at • e new You .g L ft who c rg d the Party with betraying Socialism uring the years they held office; real Socialism, they con ended, would have wiped out poverty, and established an egali­ tari an socie ty with reasonable prosperity . It was criticism wholly incons iderate of the context in which the Party had gaverned, he argued . He had k own, shared in and led the struggle out of the dark co on al ' sm of his generation, into indepe ndence . He held that the eleve n years b tween 1938 and 1949 had b en the catalytic years which revolutionised the country, and that the PNP had bee n the c talyst. I· was th devotion and self sacrifice of comrades no, aging, some de d, which had created t he new land . ~e held that there had been 11 absolute unanimity" among Party members, on the issues, in each elec­ tion they had fought . But this was a challengeable conclusion with so many mavericks in his paddock .,?For while they were agreed on "socialism", some were more Socialist than others . In fact he found it necessary to be unapologetic at his decision to accept overseas capital for hie deva opment plans . "There was no emphasis at all on public ownership and I will tell you why . It was because we all agreed, rightly or wrongly, that (this was) what Jamaica needed . Nationalisa­ tion would divert mon y, time and energy which at that time should be spent in other fields."_?so much for the new Young LeftjBut he a lso knew in his own mind that another stage of development in the Party had been reached.,And already~ was wheeling left . Stoutly de fending as he was, he had no hostility toward them. The Party had admittedly lost spiritual dynamics . New ideas, new blood, was his own desire, but for building, not to destroy . His love UWI L iba rie s 411. for politics was a consuming passion that he never, even remotely, gave to law. A case in point: if Edna had nursed a hope for a change in activity after 1962, she was quickly put to rights by Michael. She was being raddled by "future uncertainties" and when they returned from a short American holiday (they had been in a Philadelphia theatre the night President Kennedy was killed, at an Ormandy conducted Mendel: admired sohn concert; N.W. who knew and••• Kennedy was badly shaken) Michae : • "' removed her uncertainties with a brusque but sanitizing utterance: "You realise, don't you, that Dad is totally committed to politics? Don't you?" Mr Manley was wheeling left himself with his plan to take over the Jamaica Public Service Company's light and power monopoly. What he wanted, and so declared, was an ingathering of young people into the Party to go for a "new future." The sap had so risen in him that now he was calling for "a great debate to rage ... so that men's minds might be fired again~" He did not expect to live to see his dream come true. His dream, he said, was "to start a study of the future along completely new lines." He was calling ·for "democratic socialism. 0 "I hear voices on the left and voices on the right asking the question: 'What is Democratic Socialism?' I am surprised. I would like to remind you all, and Jamaica, that we have for long years been affiliated to the Socialist International that defined the basic prin­ ciples of Democratic Socialism in clear broad terms. The Frankfurt Declaration of 1901 (has these) principles: To build .a new society in freedom and by democratic means. To accept that socialism can only be realised in a democracy. (And) that democracy means government of the people by the people for the people." UWI L iba rie s 412. The great debate on Democratic Socialism would indeed rage, but not in his time. The real ruckus was more than a decade away and woulc be engaged about Michael for whom he had with foresight witnessed "po­ tential leadership." Nevertheless, the labelling of his Party's old and stated ideology with the democratic socialism tag, even at this time raised a furore, parallel in unreason, if not in stridency, with the Michael commotion. Tartly he reminded them that for long years, the Party had shared the ideology with the Socialist International, a body that was the very definition of Democratic Socialism. He pushed deeper than many of his colleagues would have liked when he voiced a certainty that Democratic Socialism would one day "determine the future of the free world." The wan days seemed over. The pale ways that had followed the JLP victory were changing. The aggressive juices were not yet really in flood, but flowing again, and he now turned a hard eye on his old foe, Busta. Once again he was watching the old bruiser's footwork (Busta was then 78), waiting for his opening. He reasoned that the JLP leader was a natural dictator and bound to overreach. He was ob­ durate in his resolve to fight tooth and nail against all attempts to impose the Bustamante will upon the country outside the Constitutional limits. He reckoned that because the JLP had no philosophy, or true persuasion, as he could see, somewhere, as they floundered, they would tanglefoot in their own ad hoc casuistry and grab about. He was certai 1 that the grab would be at the PNP; the JLP would blame their shortcom­ ings on the government they had succeeded; to wit, himself . No way, UWI L iba rie s 4 13. he vowed, would that be endured. He was marshalling for battle. He was in Opposition and the old combative fires were settling in his be~ly. And when the shock that Manley's defeat had given him is remembered . ~ diminishing his health, coming when his personal finances - on the downslide slope (Drumblair had to be cut up) the bounce back to hard ground was phenomenal. They had always lived above their means, he once said, but that was only true because he was an unusual lawyer. At his career's height, had he been earnestly engaged in gleaning the shooks, he would have been hard put not to make much hay. But perhaps because he never lost his innocence, he retained his wisdom.~riskly he whipped through the JLP's options and discovered a fork of three roads, each of which, he computed, would see service in his opponents' subterfuge. He calculated that the free-thinking Labour Party would endeavour to play right, left and centre at once, running with big business, while hopping on and off the fence, and keeping one foot in Left country. He promised himself to frustrate the acrobatics. He was up at Nomdmi, loosening up for the battle on the plains. Edna may have had her reservations at the rattling of the spears, the returning alertness with which he enquired after the doings of the Busta- mante retinue in their early weeks of governing. They both had a kind I of undersong that held them strongly to decisions taken; and she had seen the ravages, the inroads in health and fortune the political years caused him. With her woman's instinct for · tact and tactics, the gently powerful skills that can defeat, or, at the least, turn the free run of (Herself too. history, she was urging a book out of him. -1After the election loss, she had felt "older, and calmer, and oddly freer. Norman has been fantastically sane and steady. We are very near to each other ... I feel like writing.~ ~ad be been held to that task, solely, it would have made less physical UWI L iba rie s 414. demands than the brutally wearing duties of the politics to which he was returning - and have been an event with incalculable dimensions for his land's history. His comment, doubting that one could'write malarkey legal to order", wasA t from a man who had made a great-\. career by arguing to order. What he really meant contained a caution of the little knives always twinkling in his confined homeland. With everyone cheek-and-jowl in the enclosure, a snuffle in Negril could cause a sneeze in Bowden. Looking over his shoulder as he wrote, he said, would be "a perpetual posture" for the writer. 0 Michael had been right. Politics it would be. And he was taking his first tentative steps on the treadmill by talking to visiting foreig1 newspeople, an exercise that required a sacrifice of his mountain pri­ vacy, grudgingly made, but a part of the preparation. The first inter­ view, by a Canadian woman writer, went well; a taped one which intrigued and pleased him since the technique of letting him talk as long as he liked, with little interruption or "catch" questions, put him at his best. He had always been especially brilliant in his jury summation or at the Appeal bench; and he went on with an ease, working out his, eloquent arguments over two hours of tape. One incident that gave him deep concern and may have assisted at the break-out from the dejection that yet often descended, had to do with Edna. An artist of highly developed sensitivity, nervous energy and with her share of tensions in her work, she had pushed her own pain aside to give him her devotion over the rough time. Her rigid control had been twice broached and mended. But one evening at Nomdmi, the needle went in. UWI L iba rie s 415. When calm returned, they discussed it for what it was: the emotional spin-off of the defeat. They acknowledged that they had let in the negative, and, in their folly, forgotten the achievements which had irreversibly set the country on the road to nationhood. They had been logged down with deadwood and should unload and re-locate. Drumblair was an instance. Drumblair had been pulled down and sold for old lumber. That was life. And they had "built Regardless on a toe-hold of land," as Edna said it. A toe-hold was enough. It was not a time for remorse but of acclamation at what had been accomplished. And of restoring faith in the future. A future he had so well articulated in the struggle. He had once confessed to an inclination for raising the ghosts of disaster, rather than tre/realities of the future. He had made the scene very heavy for awhile, living a~ culpa that had a touch of the old Jewish Lamentations - with his "seven great years" of power for his Party, now "all out in the Wilderness." Edna's domestic storm cleared the air. It had been "at the end of a lovely peaceful day," he remembered, "of great harmony between persons and the earth and the sky. 11 Great composers sometimes go through dissonance seeking their harmonies. And dissonances can inspire the kinetics that the impulses of life demand. Conflict, unhappily, creates. N.W.Manley seems to have been jolted into himself. UWI L iba rie s ,J , . 416. CHAPTER SIXTY-~ WO Jolted at least into most of himself, he said cautiously, "in body at least, and I hope, in mind." The good and bad days still came and went but for now, he was thinking positively, looking out at the world and thinking kindly on his friends. History, he was now sure, would requite him. He was working in the study he had built near to the Nomdmi house , a plain square room of blocks and dark wood and a very good window through which the mountains came. He was catching up with correspon­ dence, planning to do a formidable fifteen letters a day for a month that would wipe out the more important backlog. He also sat for long talks with Douglas, who was visiting at Nomdmi, discussing the possi­ bility of a world tour to include Africa, Israel, Europe and Puerto Rico, the long admired island of his friend Munoz Marin. It would be a change of pace, and more, without any of the official duties that, in office, had made his foreign visits a mere transfer of work from here to there. For some reason, he also wanted both Douglas and him­ self to become "known" over there. Whether he was proposing to see a political future for Douglas also, as he undoubtedly envisaged for Michael, is not clear but intriguing, since he regarded the trip, he said, as politically useful. He was nudging very definitely at the time back into the Jamaican political picture, enjoying the several r""\ pilgrimages made up the tort~us road by such old allies as Vernon Arnett and Fairclough. His sister, Vera, also mounted the road and * together they enjoyed Bartek and Brahms. The idea of writing his book *Vera, who had gained her music degrees on a scholarship to London's Royal Academy of Music, had taught music in English schools for some years without protest from her brother; unlike the dead-set­ stand he had taken when Cousin Edna's family had wanted her to become an art teacher. UWI L iba rie s 411. had not left him - -at least, one of them, a book on his law career. Th~ubject would not bring out the twinkling lnives. He did a few sample pages on one, the Spaldings case, but never quite settled on it. • Manley was an egotist and knew it. The histrionics of the bar fascinated him and he played it to the hilt when he was so engaged. A book on that side of what he called "his professional life" was gain­ ing appeal.(He did not regard politics as his "profession".) But an active outdoorsman, the green hills of Nomdmi grew more compelling as he regained strength. Another trouble was the discovery he made * that writing required "patience" , a virtue that mostly eluded him. *In 1945/46 when I was writing the novel NEW DAY about the period between the Morant Bay Rebellion and the 1944 full suffrage, we developed an understanding that at least once a week we talked about the book in the dingy but quiet barristefs' robing room at the Supreme Court. He was considerably taken hymy idea of using a poetic dialect to groom an international audience for what we both recognised as the remarkably beautiful Jamaica-talk. He read rough mss., offered suggestions, praised and _envied my "patience", and ended up on the dedicatory page of the first (Knopf) edition. V.S.R. He was accustomed to dictation and his longhand was slow. So years later, the tape recorder offered a compromise. Brahms and Bartek assisted his soothing but the walks at Nomdmi, the feel of the cold wind blowing off the peaks, the springy turf bend- tJ ing under his heels, beyond Bellevue and Dubli~ Castle and Grasson and round the spring to home, had the practical purpose of providing the muscle tone for that popular political pastime of the Forties/Sixties, the political march. As protest or propaganda, both Parties, and the PNP particularly, had faith in The March. It was inexpensive, had a wider dramatic appeal than a hundred newspaper stories; it was an urban medium, its mobility giving it excellent exposure as it wound through the streets. Whether led by a drum corps banging a storm, or the silent UWI L iba rie s 418. poignancy of the candle-lit procession mutely baring its stigmata of martyrdom, the PNP had made The March into a fine art. A march had been planned for Labour Day, May 23, the commemora­ tion of the 1938 uprising, the perfectly adjusted symbol that had re­ placed the old Empire Day holiday when Britons Never Never Never Shall Be Slaves would be belted out from every hamlet by the descendants of Britain's slaves. Norman used to be a fine Marcher, his lean figure and handsome head captured the genre better than his showman cousin, Bustamante, who was a trifle too fractious for the narrow discipline. Norman had a good soldierly swing and a right royal handwave, casual but just kingly enough to be highly valued by the kerb crowd. Wills O.Isaacs, his cocky legs · strutting, Glasspole, a bustling, energetic strider, sometimes Edna, cool and elegant, "Crab" Nethersole of the roundhouse gait that gave him the tag, were all familiar ngures at the ritual. The March also had another purpose, its most important. Only The March, with its powerful psychological and physical aspect, could penetrate West Kingston, the sole JLP city stronghold. At one time, The March had been a Bustamante ploy (although never taken to the fine distinction the PNP made it), still was, in the cane-belt, but the urban takeover by the Manley Marchers was now absolute. It is therefore understandable that N. W. considered a f!1arch a worthy effort -;:;.. for which to descend the mountain. His health had improved and he came down to Regardless and was happy with it too. The orderly flower­ beds and the stands of shrubbery were beautiful and "pouring wonder- fully good news" to him about Edna's work. (She was commencing a commission at the Sheraton hotel in New Kingston, a rather large work UWI L iba rie s 419. \ to be done on a high scaffold; "precarious", she described the logis- tics, but the piece was "a dear and a wonderful experience.") He was rested and fairly recovered, and, at peace. So was Edna. He thought that out of the shambles, so swift and devastating, she had salvaged what he believed to be a clear future for herself. Nothing seemed eve1 to come close in importance to Edna's happiness, and, now that she was at work, and doing it well, greatly aided his ease. Both were now finding a freedom from the gritty political road, which, for all its "seven great years," had cut into mind and body. There were still family concerns worrying the base of his mind, especially the growing awareness that Michael's marriage (to Thelma Verity) was heading for a break-up. He had a special concern as to what the broken marriage could do to his grand-daughter and comrade, Rachel. Anyway he now felt better able to cope. Fairly fit, in fact. And a good thing it proved, too, that he had argued his ambulant thews into working out on the mountain, for, as it turned out, the plan the PNP had made for their ailing Leader to lead the ffiarch seated -~ -~ in an automobile, had to be abandoned, under urgency. The PNP columns had tromped triumphantly through the downtown streets behind the Leader's car. Norman and Edna sat side by side on the rear seat, acknowledging the cheering from the sidewalks. This was his town and although he had lost the elections, this first revisi1 was warmly applauded by his supporters. The cheers were, in fact, deafening. In the van of the PNP stalwarts was Michael, a tall,resolu1 young man whom his Dad was praising more frequently these days for his Union work. It had been a good display, with music and songs and great UWI L iba rie s 4 20. camaraderie among the comrades; for although just out of defeat, the march gave a nice illusion of victory. One felt the bad things wer~ now past. The trouble was that the JLP thought they had more cause for celebration. They were the winners, and if, as it happened, their city forces were less in numbers, the countryside more than evened. And so, earlier, they had succumbed to the attractive idea of bringing in some rural power for their Labour Day city march. Lorry loads of rural JLP supporters had rolled into town during the day. And the clash naturally occurred in the western reaches, in Jones Town, where seems to have been bivouacked the largest Labour ~ forces in reserve for their own parade. In the narrow, teeming ' of small, packed houses and treeless yards, and alleys familiar only to the lightly -running fellows, showing an arm for a quick brick heave, and a heel as they whisked into new firing posts, the fine leg­ work of the PNP marchers faltered. They reeled under the impact of the newly inspired JLP irregulars. And it was then that the old soldier, lean and honed by the Nomdmi woods, leaped from his auto with a ringing call to arms. The PNP rallied and moved into the attack, until police reinforcements separated the factions and the march continued. "After much fighting, I led the march myself," he afterwards modestly reported. And Edna? "I was proud to see Edna follow me into danger like a tigress." And Michael? "With Michael, shall I say, like a lion beside her." And what of the comrades? "The comrades, except for a few, showed great cowardice." UWI L iba rie s ,121. Ah, well, as he had occasioned before, the fellows were growing too old for street-fighting. Blowing on his knuckles, the 69-year-old brawler commented that: "This is going to be a long, hard fight." "War," he once said, "is a practical matter." So practical that one early Springtime in France, when the war seemed to have retreated from his sector, and the poppies were out and the wind was soft, he turned into a Crown-&-Anchor man. He liberated a length of canvas, some camouflage paint, and brushed on the hieroglyphics of the trade, dug up 300 francs of his unused pay, and set himself up as a C&A banker . (But he was never much of a money-man. He made only eleven francs.) UWI L iba rie s 422 . CHAPTER SIXTY- , It ~E°e Settling in for the fight meant some changed ways . Uo longer was he obliged to go the punishing route he had chosen as Premier, the long fatiguing hours of desk work, conferences, political journeys in­ to distant parishes, spa ches, speeches - he was shredded by speeches. Each speech was a physical tearing, a wind plucking at thinly stretched nerves. "I have never really got over my nervousness about speaking b t I have lifted it on to the plane of tensions and just can't speak if I do not feel tense . "fso, after a lifetime in which public speaking was his bread and bravura, in law and as leader.'iPAt Oxford, though he was president of the Jesus College Literary Society, he never once spoke . "If I planned to take part in a debate in our College Common room, by midday I (would have) a temperature and when night came, I simply could not force myself to get up . " He was also at full pace at the constant fence- mending to turn next polling- day from losing- day . His job as Leader of the Opposition (a position entrenched in the Jamaican Constitution) meant a lowered remuneration and higher expenses . No secretariat went with the job, little facili t!es for research and evaluation which could make "ull the work of recent years ... easily f orgotten ." But in one of his occasional chauvinistic whimsies , he also noted that Jamaicans were a people especially marked f or "the number and quality of those who do not forget and still find a strange inspiration in the past."fHe had no regrets at having been in public life - "seven great years" - and "public life, like most good things, must be its own reward . " C::::, --{tie days of the broom were over .1f Of one thing he was certain .1J "The new brooms," he said out landishly, "will make mor e dust than pudding." UWI L iba rie s CHAPTER SIXTY-~ '/f/tl €C Settling in for the fight meant some changed ways. No longer· was he obliged to go the punishing route he had chosen as Premier, the long fatiguing hours of desk work, conferences, political journeys in­ to distant parishes, speeches, speeches - he was shredded by speeches. Each speech was a physical tearing, a wind plucking at thinly stretched nerves. "I have never really got over my nervousness about speaking but I have lifted it on to the plane of tensions and just can't speak if I do not feel tense." So, after a lifetime in which public speaking was his bread and bravura, in law and as leader. At Oxford, though he was president of the Jesus College Literary Society, he never once spoke. "If I planned to take part in a debate in our College Common room, by midday I (would have) a temperature and when night came, I simply could not force myself to get up." He was also at full pace at the constant fence-mending to turn next polling-day from losing-day. His job as Leader of the Opposition (a position entrenched in the Jamaican Constitution) meant a lowered remuneration and higher expenses. No secretariat went with the job, little facilities for research and evaluation which could make "all the work of recent years ... easily forgotten." But in one of his occasional chauvinistic whimsies, he also noted that Jamaicans were a people especially marked for "the number and quality of those who do not forget and still find a strange inspiration in the past." He had no regrets at having been in public life - "seven great years" - and "public life, like most good things, must be its own reward." - --(he days of the broom were over. Of one thing he was certain. "The new brooms," he said outlandishly, "will make more dust than pudding." UWI L iba rie s 42 3. And then grinned at himself. "I am cheerful this morning." A vengeful Busta was not altogether unexpected to the out-of­ power Party and leader; the Hanover Cousin was half again as arrogant, disapproval. towering above "Manley was watching warily the first hundred days of the new administration; some others were watching fearfully, not least those civil servants who may have gained a reputation, often justified, for PNP sympathies. The competents in the Service appreciated the professionalism with which Manley saw and matched the quality of ~d. their work. And in consequence, lights~urnt late in many ministries, ejecting the old gibe of "soap & towel brigade", tossed by acidulous citizens at the fine art the clerical bureaucrats brought to the four o'clock exodus. But now the regime had been changed by a roll of the electoral wheels and a general genuflection to the newest juggernaut had begun. Tales of the kneebending in packs were brought to the ousted leader by friends who bucked the trail up the mountain. His old friend, Harry Dayes, who had headed the Industrial Development Corporation {IDC) was fired while on a visit in London. Edward Seaga, made Social Service Minister by the new JLP government, had "quite deliberately pulled down the old structure" of his beloved Welfare "and re-structured it from top to bottom." For better? "I think he aimed to prove that he knew more about it than I did, and I am sure he aimed to eliminate my name and work. · I doubt if he succeeded. I doubt if he did more than cause most of our best people to clear out {since) they did not believe in what he was trying to do." The rack creaked another cog. Thei hoped-for money sources to fund the weekly Public Opinion into a da.ily, had dried up. {Unaccountably, the Party had failed to do this during their years in office and UWI L iba rie s 424. influence.) "We are in for a hard rough time," he thought. The famous gorge was rising but the lawyer in him called for caution. He decided, he said, "to play it cool and let the evidence mount." Somewhere there would be a malfeasance. . He waited impatientl) for the first big JLP test, Budget Day. He continued to seek his strength with visits to Rock Pool (near St Ann's Bay) for swimming and sailing. The hypertension loosened under the benignancy of moun­ tain and sea; his blood pressure was almost at normal. He read, walked, rowed boats, wrote replies to the unending letters. Yet he was not quite clear of the uncertainty the illness had inflicted on his discernment. He was reacting too easily to influences, a feature alien to his character. At Rock Pool, he was dispirited after reading Citizen Hearst, "a man ·without rudder, just an appetite for power and a bag of complexes;" but buoyed up by The Devil's Advocate, "brilliant , it moved me to tears. " Rock Pool did some good; for a week; and then he had enough of it. Rock Pool could not compete with Nomdmi. He liked cool weather. ;j}A small but curious fact is that he was always at his brilliant best working in the Appeal Court Room, for many years the only air condi­ tioned court room in the Supreme Courts building. Now he was retu~ning to law, part-time, and incidentally in air-conditioned quarters: his private office as a legal consultant. His need was not to exercise his skills, but to escalate his earnings. He may have been mildly horrified to discover he had not lived within his means since aborting his law practice for politics. Public life had depleted his income. He could have been, and, be, a wealthy lawyer, but now Drumblair had gone under the hammer, subdivided in 1961. There were debts to be UWI L iba rie s 425. discharged and contingencies to be arranged. He reckoned there would be little left when the Drumblair sale was settled. He had, literally , in the real sense, given everything in the service of his country, one of the few to renew that battered cliche. Once he had a racy hope of writing leaders for a daily Public Opinion (earning £1,200 a year") ; at that time, he promised himself, he would "turn to writing, once and for all." But Public Opinion was not becoming a daily then (it would, for awhile, later). Good chances, he thought, resided in the consultative practice and he determined on it. But there was more to the malaise than money - and malaise it was; and he recognised it with the unsparing criticism he often turned on himself. Some of the fire had gone out. He was worried by his doubtl of Busta's capacity for the driving leadership theenerging new nation would require. Cousin Busta's failing energies could not "give it. I am out. No voice speaks to the people." A piece of upstage, bodacious consanguinity that his proud colleagues fortunately knew nothing about, Dr they would have shaken the family tree. A man of Norman Manley's lifelong athletic bent, of field and wood-axe and endurance, would be conscious of the drag which now assailed the strength he once celebrated. He would be aware that the old energy had fled; and worse, so had the faith. "I am relaxed and detached," he reasoned sombrely. Too much so, when, in his words, the people needed him "as an image for now." It would have been a profoundly disturbing discovery,had it been that he was finding it impossible to lose Ids dream 01· made in a vacuum, i West Indian union; 'but A it was a product of his accept. and experience J " - so capacity to - It was to do with belief A a political decision. in, not a loss of .. and adherence to, UWI L iba rie s Far into 1962, months after acceding to the Constitutional call to lead the Opposition, he was, he found, "not fully in tune" with Jamaica going it alone. But he was a professional, an advocate who worked his instructions, pleasant or not, with detached skill. He had put aside the emotional urge to quit after the Referendum, or afte r the general elections, because, he had concluded, he was no longer capable of giving the Party the best leadership. "No use arguing why," he told himself. "This is basic, and, I fear, unchangeable." Why did he not, then, leave the scene? Manley, whose sense of the historical and traditional forces was primary to his politics, knew the power of the symbol in the secular religiosity that the suffrage had sent upon a devotional peopll The prophet-image of Bustamante, with his evangelical stumping through the land, had roused the people in 1938, and on, as nothing had done since the Great (18 (' Revival. He had countered with his own cabala, the spectacularly successful use of the old missionary hymn, Ninety­ and-Nine, into a crowd bracer of irrestible power. No Party inJam:rica would make . it without an "image"; and the image would be he. And he would give the Party, to which he had sacrificed himself, the cohesion and the continuity until a new leader showed. He would finish the course. UWI L iba rie s 427. CHAPTER SIXTY-~ rOvR Can a man be inconsolable? Conceivably, if food and light, books and family and work, are forbidden, prevented, destroyed. If the pain will not go. Manley's consolation after the 1962 rejection lay somewhere in the arcane qualities at work in love, or in good friendships; in the tall light and groves and yardworks of Nomdmi; in the books and music at Regardless; in the peculiar grace that appreciated, with great care, an idea as it was accepted agonizingly into art through the agency of the extraordinary woman whom he had loved and wed. And so, his will built. Not with the old power of the mystic he was, had been, but with a new pragmatism that made his efforts in the hard scrabble fields of Opposition fruitful. The practicalities of being in Parliament to tilt at the govern­ ing party's windmill, winkled out much of the doubts which had bewil­ dered him; though the periods of depression recurred. The flame was there, in spurts, and when it came, there was much of the old force and strength. The practicalities fanned his resolution and he rode the ups and downs of his minority political role and new legal enter­ prise; not with the old certainty but never a danger of losing his seat. The breakdown during his student postwar days in London had been accompanied by a similar unsureness. Youth and resilience had surmounted the obstacles and restored him to a phenomenally productive life. Now he was no longer young or resilient. The afternoon was darkening. UWI L iba rie s 42 8. Did he recognise that the afternoon, had been shortened by the impatience of the electorate? He has never said it and it is diffi-• cult to know whether at that time he noticed, insulated by his own inclination for withdrawalland the reluctance to reproach of those around him. He had accepted the decision of the electors; the wrench­ ing dislocation being caused, it was widely held, by the Federal events which had confused their vision of the political future. The rising middleclass, at least, literate, at best, intellectual and seeking, the turners of floods at the polls, saw two lights at the end of the Colonial tunnel and angrily aimed at the centre. They handed the Party they had generally supported, the most humiliating * defeat of the last three elections. * % votes cast 1955 1959 1962 PNP JLP 50.5 54.80 48.1 39.03 44.30 49.80 UWI L iba rie s CHAPTER SIXTY-F-W« ~IV(: A word about Nomdmi. It sits on one of the great ridges anchore l on the Blue Mountain massif. The ridges are like the prows of stuperi ­ dous ships ploughing four thousand feet above the Liguanea. Nomdmi is on the edge of a eucalyptus for~st canted on the slope of Mount Rosanna. To the north east are the twin peaks of the range, both above seven thousand feet. The property is a modest fourteen acres and but for the central bench, it tilts quickly; an ill-agrarian wind that blows much scenic good. The fall of the land is only infreq~ntJ · sheer and so the pine forests planted by the Forestry Department and the settlers have grown thickly and healthily straight. I I\I I q lf Q , The Manleys bought the property A 41■•••• a grassy wind- swept plateau with magnificent views of the abounding peaks in the massif's final towers. The holding came to be "Nomdmi" because of - ~ -- a misguided paintbrush, misdirected by the eminent attorney who had once been considered for the Supreme Court bench. Absorbedly in love and with a passion for the privacy of theirpung family, the Manleys meant to keep their mountain idyll away from the .blundering boots of mountain tourists and trippers wandering through their paradise. So, f\l o R.. r,,, AA/ ever the man-of-all-tools-about-the-house, e "elected to paint the · gate-sign: No admittance. Half-way through,young Michael, well known for looking over his father's shoulder, pointed out that the artist had achieved a breakthrough in telescopic word inventions, with "ad- mittance" somehow crashing into "No" to produce "Nomdmi". Edna, a fine exponent of expository art, firmly put her foot down on any idea of making matchwood of the sign and scattering it down the slope. So, "Nomdmi" the place remained. UWI L iba rie s 4 .3 0. The climate and high open woods may have reminded Norman and Edna of the New Forest, the English camping woods, where they spent their honeymoon in a tent. THE HOUSE The main house at Nomdmi is an unpretentious design in what could become a Jamaican mountain vernacuiar; four groundfloor rooms in bean-pod connective (2 bedrooms, living and dining rooms), and an attic sleeping room for the children. Kitchen and bathroom are on the groundfloor. The house is of wood, the interior walls decorated in white and natural. The dining room is half-cased in the old countr 1 style. Books, paintings, gramophone records, sculpture, dominate the rooms. The furniture is simple and include a window seat made by Edna, two matt-glow Jamaican mahogany beds, a pair of wooden plan­ tation (slab) chairs made by Norman. He was carpenter, plumber, electrician and general maintenance man at Nomdmi. THE OFFICE Across the yard, on slightly higher ground, he built a square block-&-steel building, some twenty feet from the house, for his study and in here he was the cold clear-thinking lawyer shaping his brief into the sharp or blunt instrument with which to championhi.s client. One wall, at the door, is of glass, letting in light and a swatch of mountain. His desk, a plain wooden one, and an old fashioned easy chair, stands dead centre. Around the walls are his books, classics and non-fiction, but lots of modern ones too. In one corner is a portable electric heater: the temperature at Nomdmi f-1 /1.i 13EcA1 k:.N Ot,.JN - r.D "bRoP ~to the mid-fo/ies in winter. He worked at the desk turned so the light fell on his left shoulder. Most of his speeches were UWI L iba rie s 431. written {when they were written) in this room, and much of his research. He was never an ogre at work. His family had constant access~ "We could walk into his office at any time,'' Michael Manley has re­ called. "We could play his records, read his books; indeed, he would insist that we read his books. He (was) one of the great family men of this country. If any one of us ever became ill, he would go out himself to a pharmacy or a supermarket - even when he was Premier." He added slowly, softly, as if he could not end it there: "He was un­ believably kind as a father, kind as a man to everybody. He was one of the kindest men I ever knew." THE MINI On the other side of the house near the foothpath stands "The Mini", Edna's studio, a shingle-wall shed of humble face saying nought of Edna's works within. "At last," she said after 1962, looking inside of herself, "I am free of the burden of responsibility that started in 1938." She seemed to have been saying that even if Michael was right, and that Norman was staying in politics, the old wear and tear was over . The tattered nobles would man the walls but only to hold for the new young squires, chosen to step to the ramparts. Phoned by Professor Arthur Lewis the night of the Referendum, Norman had said, as much to her, as tolim, he had no reason to remain in politics; public works had wrought a sadness in a life once full of light, of accomplishments, of gaiety. A night-hag had crept into the house and now it was time to lay it. "And now I will go into a great quiet, and experiment. {Perhaps find a new free road and a new free philosophy. I am not going to sell anything, or show anything. I am going to find the way through, alone. To a synthesis of flesh and spirit and form and the disturbance of the moment of truth." The owl was always her great symbol, and always, UWI L iba rie s 4 32. she believes, comes to her in moments of crisis. She was carving an owl. "Two nights ago, an owl flew into the logwood tree and called to me." She thought it a symbol of her new freedom. But if the owl was hers, then surely the logwood was Norman's, the knotty old root he had axe-split in his youth for hard currency, that shiny liberator of mankind. Both, of course, had work rooms at Regardless but Nomdmi was more than a resort. The country about has a creative whack that hustle off your holiday indolence and sends you to desk and easel; in the cas~ of Manley, plumber and carpenter, ,harmonica player and model farmer, he found Nomdmi eager to take his talents. He could also practise his politics on family affairs; the rows were healing. Above all, it was ideal for reflection. And so, they had The Bench. THE BENCH The path to The Bench takes off from the back of the house, through a pine forest, past the modest but handsomely laid out Nyumbani 1 the house of next door neighbour, Michael Manley. (Startlingly close to his father in politics, Michael's "Democratic Socialism" which brought yowls from his opposers, had been taken by N.W. as his own , political road many years before. As did N.W., Michael gave up drink­ ing and smoking and saw to his physical exercises. As at Nomdmi, he also built next door at Regardless.) The road goes easily level on the side of the slope, floored for an inch in pine needles and ends on a small knoll facing the twin Blue Mountain peaks. The Bench is a simple wooden slab seat, backed up and fastened to two small pines, but around it is a forest cathedral, hushed and soft-lit through the UWI L iba rie s 433. pines. The dark-coated trees shake a pine incense down through the tJ moss-hung braches which glow in the light like lamps; and all brought " down to earth by a thin line of carnivorous ants nibbling at a negli- gent foot. Norman, by a combination of baffles and chemical warfare, effected their retreat whenever he desired his solitude. The Bench holds a mystique among the Manleys as a place of pecu­ liar powers for cracking problems. It is no doubt to do with its total isolation, on the edge of the world, facing the tall pines and eucalyp­ :ll.. ) tma 11 and the summits shouldering out of the mists - and its silence. (I have seen garrul_ous groups on the hoof, drop to whispers _when The Bench appeared.) The pines, sixty feet tall and higher, offered his favoured walks; and the citrus groves, his approved works. (In January, 1977, when a forest fire roared through the pines and got within six feet of the study, the roof of the main house was slightly scorched but the orange grove was untouched; the flames skirted it. A mountain man with witchery in his eye, asked: "Who kept the fire away?") Norman, with a problem on his mind, would set off on his slightly spayed-foot, toed-out horseman's walk, hands clasped behind him or swinging with an almost boyish freedom as he strode the 300 paces througl the pines to The Bench. Invariably, asserts Edna, he returned with ,the perfect solution. Her belief in the magic of the sedilia takes proof in her magnificent (and now legendary) Horse of the Morning, unquestion­ ably the best known Jamaican sculpture. "I saw that glorious horse one morning as I sat on The Bench, springing out of the mountains and mists. It was all there, alive," she says quietly. Standing on the hummock of land, at the right time, the sun burn­ ing through the woolpack and the irridescent rcws being crazy between the trees, it is beauty of a catch-in-the-throat quality, and irrefra- UWI L iba rie s 4 34. gably, magic. Manley also accepted the mystique Nomdmi held. In 1942, with . the problems of the fledgling Party wearying his mind, he took off for Nomdmi, for two cold weeks in January "and there came, after much struggle, sudden, at the end, the full flood, the gates wide open." He roamed the pinnacles far and wide and was once, with Edna and a grandchild, the subject of a search party. Nothing had happened except that for hours, from afternoon until nine o'clock of a moonlit night, he had volunteered his two companions over "trails" that were mostly straight up. . t,vM His health Q · unstable all through the post-election years. Like a flame in the wind, it flickered, now bright, then lessening with the coals showing darkly at the edges. "I feel like a king," he could say one day, close to chest-thumping, "in body, mind and spirit, benign and sparkling." It was the day he worked on the water-pump at Nomdmi with the plumbers. A golden day on the mountain and a yellow lick of a sun and he joked away the morning with the workmen. He was always in a fine time with the countryfolk, laughing the soft yelp of laughter as he popped sport. He worked on the pump and they soon had it going again, shooting up the water for the gravity feed into the house; and he had a sense of accomplishment and a feeling that the worse was over and now it would be all mend again. And next day, the malaise stirred, and shifted ab"out again, and he complained of feeling "lousy", and with determination he tried hard physical labour to break out, and succeeded a little, for afterwards he went indoors and bent to labour UWI L iba rie s 435. on "Spaldings" again, the beginnings of, he hoped, a book on his court cases. But the new awful weakness went with him indoors, the doubts that were assailing limb and mind, the misgivings concerning his gifts; and this man who had brought scores of thousands to their feet to cheer as he spoke, whose writings on music, art, sports, politics, law and philosophy had gained national notice, found his own talents nugatory, and wished he "could make words sing and crackle and have tension, the thing they call style;" and the fact that he had just made contact with "style" escaped him. He really felt humbled by the craft. Yet it ought not to have been so. He had been plagued by self doubt at his entry into law and contained his anxieties by so he became the most eloquent of men. sheer will, for forty years, B""'-t- -Anow, the will seemed to have receded. The tromp of circumstances had taken toll. (:) He re-entered the Party workshop with his accustomed good manners , attending first a Constituency meeting at his political office, 82 Slipe Road where he cleared the floor of some incompetent hands (and one or two venally competent) and generally house-cleaned. The burly, hard­ working Eddie Evans was elected Constituency chairman and other new officers installed, including Karl Bryan as Secretary. N.W. was a con­ scientious Constituency man and kept close watch on his area all during the seven busy years as head of the government. The hill section of the St Andrew constituency with its close to inaccessible folds and pockets of people was good terrain for political ambush. "Doc" Fagan, who had whipped him in 1944, once pointed this out to him after they became friends. The lesson never lost its point. Meanwhile, a good deal of the old footwork was back when he returned to the House. He UWI L iba rie s 436. was satisfied he was putting in some "good fighting" performances. He had developed what he called a new technique in debate, first goading and then silencing the other side. He was, for awhile, in good spiritE . And so he moved a step further in his plan for a second legal career, as a consultant by securing a couple of rooms in the lower Duke ., Street offices of Myers, Fletcher and Gordon, attorneys, and determined to start in July. At the same time, he found himself with a new crisis on hand; to persuade the PNP members, smarting under their defeat by what they saw as election malpractices, not to boycott the Independence celebrations. A fortunate unanimity in choosing the national symbols, the flag and anthem, fanned a small patriotic flame but that was soon extinguished. To many outside the House, the design of the flag w?s not par­ ticularly aesthetic; but the colours of green, gold, and in particular, black, elicited enthusiasm. The Anthem was another matter: of sonorous( cliches and low poetic fires. Manley fought for the rousing Land of My Birth, a driving rhythm and strong, upbeat strain that would have given everyone a full-throated run, and words of heightened patriotism. Land might have made it, had it not been a PNP battle-song for a couple of decades. The JLP sent its regrets. The flag, N.W. declares, was Glasspole's idea; the Seal was Edna's design. He accepts· responsibility for the Motto: Out of Many, One People; a perfect run-through of a scenario which commenced with his birthdate, July Fourth, being named for George Washington by that smart trader with the Yankees, Old Sam Manley, and now his own choice of a National Motto almost word for word with the United States' E Pluribus Unum. UWI L iba rie s 437. There were internal Party factions also and these he had to settle, starting with the small cauldron that had Mrs Iris King at the centre. Iris was not seeing eye-to-eye with Alan Isaacs, Glasspole and Wills Isaacs and while he reconciled her with the first two, her fissior with the latter stayed unhealed. Iris, a charming firebrand, was getting "'w•.r --~support for a vice presidency at the upcoming Party elections (others Glasspole, Alan Isaacs and Dr Lloyd) although he reserved the wish to know "what Arnett may have in mind." Vernon Arnett, the PNP secretary and strategist over many years, was a sensible, quietly firm bureaucrat * whose opinion N.W. always respected. That aside, . he turned to face *The death of the stalwart Johnathan Grant around this time, the former St Catherine M.P., was a sad interlude. Grant had been a hardworking urbane colleague. the other fractious issues now rearing close. D The Labour Party won the 1962 elections by 26 seats to 19, but were, in the number of votes cast, a minority power, as the total of PNP (279,771) and Independent (12,616) votes was ahead of the JLP's 288,130. A way of saying that, in fact, more voters went against than with the JLP. Not many, but enough to reinforce the battle glint in the eyes of the comrades. And the more Busta seemed bent on grabbing the laurels of Independence which the PNP felt were due to them as the developers of political self sufficiency, down went the visors and the swords snapped into hands. Several began an active campaign against the Independence celebrations set for August 6. Manley was alarmed. ** He called a Coronation Market meeting and went strongly against the *A sprawling public market on Spanish Town Road fronted by a wide esplanade to which hundreds of farmers truck in daily to become sure carriers. of the message. on the outward. journeys. UWI L iba rie s 438. proposed boycott. "It is our day and~ country," he reminded them. There was no sign of physical weakness in him as he spoke under the tall traffic lights outside the market gates to a great crowd that kept building. The old gestures and the rhetoric returned as he summoned them bac'k to the old ways he had taught, of putting Jamaica first. "Let us seize Independence and make it ours," was the burden, and it rode well and bore out what he had told himself: The truth is that people don't really try to find out what are the common trends of thought. They do a little thinking of their own and gaily proceed to generalise and transfer their conclusions. By the time the great political meetin, closing hymns were being sung and the hand-clap girls had got their * shoulders into it, that portion of his troubles was fairly settled. *The hand-clapping girls used to be a feature at street-meetings■ from the great tradition of the oldtime singers at Wakes, or on the Pentecostal benches, in a style their own: the slap of palm and the subtle, half lingering pullback at the delicate kick of the elbow, the tilt of head listening to the rhythm, the double and triple percussions paraded at the peaking of the chorus, the gentle swirl of frocks, were part of the Jamaican folkways. Norman Manley did not believe in fooling with democracy. After all, it is, at best, a delicately poised acceptance of a political de­ feat in open election but by secret ballot, an unstable mix of truth and some doubt. And so must be worked, whoever wins, or nobody will. He did not believe in the boycott; he had an abhorrence for it. It was, he thought, a betrayal of the democratic process; a mere "revolu­ tionary gesture born of frustration, and despair of success by any conventional means." He was to write the Commonwealth Secretariat in London in 1967: "After all, it is the heart and soul and essence of politics to succeed in being noticed." A boycott leaves the adversary "serenely in power." UWI L iba rie s 4 39 . His passionate call for a closing of ranks had saved the Celebra­ tions; it could not dampen another enthusiasm: that for a total resis­ tance to any Bustamante ambition to occupy King's House. It proved pre­ mature. Busta was not going to King's House. Power did not reside in that monstrously ugly concrete mass. Busta chose Sir Kenneth Blackburn, the reigning English governor, to stay in occupance. This also was un­ popular with the PNP (and a great number of Jamaicans) and Manley~rivately confessed that he had "slipped" when he publicly approved the Blackburn appointment. Bustamante was to recover handsomely, later, when he picked Clifford Clarence Campbell, a rotund, urbane black legislator (JLP) to be the first homegrown Governor-General. The war being raged in Manley during the run-up days to Independ­ ence was a conflict between politician and patriot; a contest of such intensity, he found himself questioning the efficacy of the two-party system. Forahe foresaw that the skill, energy and reason for nation­ building was unlikely to flourish under his replacements. The emotional lift of 1939 to 1943, he said, which had swept the generation to a new plane of social and political awareness, came at the instance of the PNP, then the only existing political party. "There was no Jamaica Labour Party in existence," he said. "Maybe this had a significance." The new Jamaica would likely not have been born. The political instincts around him in the Party were for blasting such Bustamante fumbles (pre­ ferably in the old ripsnort forum of the Half Way Tree Square) as manag­ ing to raise, on a recent London visit, a mere "exchequer loan of $2½-m," for getting himself a bad British press, a snub from the British prime minister, and another from the Secretary of State, who turned the Jamaican mission over to a parliamentary under secretary while he took off for Kenya. UWI L iba rie s .40. The Bustamante effort to mine the goldfields of the United States had been equally disastrous, according to Manley, since the mission had return emptyhanded; and what was worse, had left behind in America "loose talk of military bases and not having diplomatic relations with Cuba." A bomb primed for explosion and his colleagues . were urging him to light it. It was not his way to destroy what he had built. used the profit and loss probabilities to the countr¼ 'for his answers, He argued that the blow to national unity, in a time when they needed to make the celebrations "worthwhile and inspiring," was not worth the partisan mile. The pilgrimage out of the dead land, the shedding of the shackles that four centuries of colonial dominance had locked on mind and manner, was more important to him than either Manley or Busta­ mante. Indeed, if Busta had brought back gains in, say, sugar, "we would have (had) to praise them." The country should come first. So he wrote Blackburn asking his help in persuading Busta to join him in a declaration of peace. "It will be tragic," he said, "if our spirits do not get a lift out of it .... New responsibilities are ours today (and we) must make our own way forward by hard work. And great disci- pline." () Manley had a statue that towered over his time. He was a warm man whose reserve was really shyness, and possibly a left over of the country squire genteel the embattled Marg_aret Manley, under siege at Belmont for marrying a black, determinedly rooted in her family. Pene­ trated, he flowed with warmth; but what appeared on the surface was sufficient to earn him the austere repute .. Away from the firm hand of Margaret, boarded at Jamaica College, he reverted to normalcy, became a typical high-spirited schoolboy and made his mark in a riotously UWI L iba rie s 441. successful career. In between achieving academic and athletic primacy, rebe1, he became, in sensible sequence, a•••• a worse anti-terrorist, an A imaginative law-breaker including an ever famous Ciceronian declamation from the top of the tower, a handsome 20-year-old oaf whose mordant tongue lashed girls to tears in the maths~lass he taught at Titchfield school. And showed stout mettle on his way to war, when, in one 24-hour­ high, he was guilty of mutiny and hair-line treason in the laudable cause of putting an insolent ship's captain down. And then he left his boyhood behind. He came to manhood in war, and in the subsequent struggles to enter a profession for which he had no deep feeling but succeeded with phenomenal brilliance. And then, in the fuDness of time and circumstana: he was fetched into the vocation to which he would make his best contri­ bution. It was in politics that he, more than any other man, made the greatest sacrifice for Jamaica, of passion and skill, of fortune and life. His rococo Cousin, also of a genius, led the exploited workers to a new sense of strength, by an insistence, sternly pursued, on a personal fealty. Manley, in a flow of intellect and integrity, the like that had seemed improbable to the comfortable dead in the benign back­ wash of an uncaring Colonial power, established and built in men's minds the ideas of social decency, economic self-reliance and political inde­ pendence. He was first and foremost, a patriot. For 24 years he led the country in its seek for an identity; .a mission he accomplished. More than anyone else, he charted the road, marshalled the folk, and poured every particle of his being into creating a nation. "There are no Moseses for modern man and the Promised Land will be won under the curse of Eden." Now, on the eve of entry to the place he had sought so long, the UWI L iba rie s 442. democracy which he held to be the "bulwark against disorder and chaos," this system he instituted and fostered had now ordered that another lead the way into his due Canaan. But no matter. "We have opened a new book which will last for generations to come. We have built up a good society where law and order are respected where justice prevails, where (people) respect and love each other (regardless of) colour or race. We have laid the foundations of a decent political life and we are trying hard to build up a world of opportunity for all our people. Be proud of what our forefathers accomplished ... and go forward in courage and strength. He spoke on the eve of Independence, the night of August 6, 1962 . "God bless Jamaica, our new nation. God bless our people. God bless you here tonight. Goodnight." UWI L iba rie s PART 4 THE DRUMS UWI L iba rie s 443. Part Four 'llIE DRUMS The trouble with Westminster politics is its insistence that the thing is a game. The same process that elects a government instantl contracts for its destruction, for the Opposition is also voted in. It was a game at which N.W.Manley sat in with zest. The Westminster model was the one he had chosen for the Jamaican constitution. Jamaicans were, in a phrase of U.W.I. professor Rex Nettleford, "brown carriers * of white culture." *Nettleford has edited a collection of N.W. Manley's speeches and writings: Manley & The New Jamaica. In the name of the game, Manley stated his ploy: "In Opposition, one has two (instruments) and two methods, the axe and the torch. The axe to cut down the government and the torch to inspire and light up the far horizons." He had done his evaluations and found that he had left the lines and gone too far forward. Communications had bee1stretche, so thinly by the Referendum "debacle" that the dynamism had been lost. He needed new dynamics to fuel the retreat from Federal ideas, and re­ turn to the national trenches. He thought of the "great years" spent in building the Party. He recognized the decade after 1938 as the season of flow. It was his view that the PNP had gained its strength through an unceasing celebration of the future; the future as a nation, by rousing the hope for a more prosperous Jamaicaand selling the convic­ tion that theirs was the Party to ·achieve it. Now the flames had flick­ ered. Now in the • quiet of himself, he wa:3 asking, "Tomorrow, what fires the torch?" UWI L iba rie s 444. Was it what, or who? He thought about it. In a display of boorishness, Sangster and Seaga at the Independence ceremonies in the ( .tv~~ c., f\. spanking new National Stadium ... had been built by the PNP government) had essayed to have him removed from a seat in the area set apart for high officials. Lumpishness apart, the legality of the act was question­ able, since his office of Leader of the Opposition was entrenched in the Constitution and covered by protocol. The enthusiasm of the celebrations and the magnificent spirit of the people had much pleased him. Indeed, he regarded the flag-rais­ ing in the Stadium, and in the hundreds of communities, free of incident: as his achievement. "I feel," he said, "a deep sense of accomplishment for a job well done." Politics did not snatch away his health and fortune. It took them in a steady, unnatural obduracy, or perhaps in obedience to the old law that obligates the murder of the prophets. It began by removing him from the safe familiar labyrinths of the Bar, the corridors he had controlled for more than thirty years, to the unpredictable man-traps of elective office-holding, then proceeded to strictly code his earnings , down from the high-level corporation lawyer to the median bracket of a * legislator. *The ultra conservative Farquharson Institute, formerly the Imperial Association, was to say of him: He "was a man of the greatest possible financial integrity ... Had he decided to attend to his own affairs instead of sacrificing them to the interests of his country ... he could have made a great fortune and retired ... to a life of ease and comfort which would have prolonged his stay with us." Regarding the integrity of the Referendum decision: "No other politician of our time ih Jamaica would have done this." These were to be the final years; and, in some respects, the finest. For he led well in Opposition. It :Ls true that his Party would lose again in 1967, following what was close to a tradition, that has UWI L iba rie s 445. given each Party two terms. But theywere among his finest; for one, because he was not clinging to power. He had assumed it on assent and would have liked to shed it. "He was," observed Michael Manley, "a man held to duty when he wanted to go." A politically educated populace had been the purpose that had fired the drive during the early days. They had set up study groups in urban blocks and country hamlets, spreading and discussing Socialist principles that were fortuitously, if not with a suspicious fidelity close to the notions issuing out of his year-old Jamaica Welfare. He could not walk away, not abruptly. He was a man who paid his debts but he was uncertain of the bottom line. "All my closest friends have said, 'Step back for a bit and let others work.'" But on the other hand, the Party fund raisers were complaining that he was not staying in the news enough to stir the givers into action. He considered whethe the public had lost interest in him; he took notice that his decision to return to legal work drew little comment. The loss of a Portland by-election had its disquiet. "No real effort was made. I suppose this was expected." He speculated whether if he appeared to withdraw, would there be a call for his return? "A moot point in my mind." He sensed the imputation for putting his Party "out in the wilderness be­ fore our time." He had a debt to pay. And there were personal problems. To test for honest shekels in a politician's purse, the state of personal wealth at the termina­ tion of office is an index. Whether the good luc1)after the annointingJhas exceeded excess­ ively the ante~bellum boodle. Manley's record was conclusive. He left office considerably UWI L iba rie s 446. poorer than at his entry. And the return to law was not the success he had hoped. A niggling single retainer in the first two days, and then a ringing silence from the gaggle of lawyers who used to camp at his heels, left him feeling shaken, strange and stranded. He was ap­ palled that he might have lost his touch in the seven years absence from the craft. He was too good a professional for the mood to last. A little steady thinking on the discipline he had mastered more than any man of his time, brought him back to the facts. He was good. He found that for the first time in his career, he was recognizing the vast knowledge of law he had acquired. And it was all there, orderly arranged for whatever need. He had the arsenal to slay his self-doubts and he so proceeded. It is a comfort, however, to lesser geniuses, to record that his first Opinion, closely researched and reasoned, lost him his client's case. Law is a fine art often mangled by simple judges. Not daunted, he was working on three other matters before the first week was out and had earned a hundred and twenty guineas ($252). The word was out and being received. Another couple of retainers worth --ru $400 was almost in the bag. It lifted his spirits. It, book idea began to form: the work on his life as a lawyer. He was getting on to what he described as "the razor edge methods of legal thinking," and visibly thickening with the old professional pride. He planned to practise for four days a week and do politics on the other days. At the end of the first month he had earned over a thousand dollars. The level did not keep up. His illness, age and competition, took toll. By the autumn, he knew that although his legal mind had regained much of the razor, his memory was a little faulty. One par­ ticularly good piece of work brought consid1~rable satisfaction. He UWI L iba rie s 447. wrote an Opinion that proved the previous Authorities in error. But he was in depression from a number of caseless weeks and fighting to retain his patience and hope; and wondered whether his bottom fee of twenty guineas ($42) for an Opinion was too high. His 1963 projected earnings felll to about $2,000 after tax. His salary as Leader of the Opposition was$ The family expenses were "murderous." Between his political work and the legal consultancy, Manley, in his ailing, was exacting a pace the awe of younger men. The other occupant at No. 4 Washington Drive was as fully engaged. She had turned to work on an assignment at the Sheraton-Kingston hotel, a com­ mission that carried a special disagreeableness; the hostility of the BITU-unionised workers. Norman was angry at what he called "BITU savagery at its word" but thought she showed "courage and experience" in dealing with it. As always, he championed her with great pride. "I am confident that her capacity to work and display craftsmanship and to ignore folly" would triumph. It did; her "courage and experience" won the respect of the workers. She had faced down the bad time with grace and now working up to six hours a day, she was steadily into the carving. He had another prediction concerning Edna, one that she had also come to herself, of a "remarkable creative period" now that the workload of a Premier's wife had been removed. He turned out right. The firm hold she took on her art in the second half of her career, the depth of treatment and insight in her figures, the new warmth in her perceptions and interpretations, raised her work to such heights as came close to satisfying her genius. He knew she had gone into the new creative release when she announced her plan for a set of "Moses" carvings and drawings. Sensitive as he was to her work, he saw what UWI L iba rie s 448. went on in the studios, The Mini at Nomdmi and in the large one at Regardless. His was not a lay interest but a reasoned critique; he had always been the first to "pat the wood" at the commencement of a newwork, the first in-progress critic, the first viewer of the complete< discussions of work. She went to him for el■■■•-. cause and reason, as naturally as " into herself, and he told it well, unafflictive but discerning; from the authority of nearing half a century of love and truth for eachpther. They were a close-knit family and the images, the perception and judgment, were discussed and shared by their sons. "They had a great capacity for dialogue with their children," Michael says, recall­ ing that once when he rebelled against wearing Douglas' outgrown threads 1 A FANILy reasoning ensued until he understood that although his was a well-to-do family A.. economics was not only sensible but a social obligation. Sharing a consanguine understanding, they had the astute paren­ tal eye that - could spot calamity stealing in, a distance away; and Norman had his quiet grief that a break in Michael's marriage was immi­ nent. Michael, who had inherited his pace in long hardworking hours, was, he believed, distressing his health and he wished he would slow it down. Michael was not only proving a superb Union leader but making at Lionel Town in Vere, his imposing mark in politics. At a meetingA massed in the shopping o:f the with more than 15,000 people 1 ] j lgar-bel t town, A t C "it was Michael who got most of the roaring assents when he spoke about a merger of the adversary unions, his own NWU and the BITU, in a common front against employer attrition. It was early in the day of his political career and the ideal had no hope of accommodation from the two labour-based political parties, but already his oratorical skills and his clear sincerity was catching the reluctant at the nape of the neck. He was "strong and steady," commented his proud papa about the UWI L iba rie s particular caper. * 449. Michael, who was to use the body-in-the-breach tactics in fu- ture union battles, in an industrial dispute got members of both unions to block every entrance to a swamp clearing project until the issues were settled. It brought Norman to his feet as he exulted, a hero-father proud of his warrior-son, an aspect that *Michael made wall-blocking intoa..:_ I L art, using bodies, tractors, motor cars in a fine career of pointing stubborn unfair employers towards apoplexy. had been lurking in him all these years, waiting for Savanna-la-mar. ~ - There had been a chance that Michael would be brought home on his shield, as the police were being called in to break the resistance. The National Worker's Union strikers had sent a call to Kingston for Michael, and, tight-lipped, Norman saw him off. "I hope he does not get hurt but he must go." Then he sat back and thought some more and nodded. "I think he will come into his own one day in Jamaican poli­ tics. He is plainly the best young man in sight." He was looking hard, but quietly, for a successor. He was attending the meetings of the Young Socialists League. But time after time, he was returning to what was becoming a conviction that the can­ didate he sought was the neighbour "next door," as he privately spoke of the occupant at Number Two Washington Drive. Soon he was flatly stating to himself that Michael was ready. "He is growing in public recognition and should begin to work up a political image. Now." {When his decision to leave active politics was finally taken, Michael would ask him to do soJwell before the Party conferenceJso it would not influence the choice of successor one way or another.) UWI L iba rie s 450. Douglas was in easier seas and apparently gave him less unease. Academe seemed to have claimed him - the Mona campus of the Uni vers.i ty of the West Indies; and with his quietly distinguished air, decidedly connish. Yet, like his father, Douglas had a very private acquaintance with Puck and was a bon vivant companion who loved jazz and roots con­ versation. Neither of his sons had followed him into law nor were they encouraged by him; although each in his way showed the cleft of the stick - Douglas, who as a Munro schoolboy, equalled the old N.W.Manley• ~ (Jamaica College) ten seconds for the 100-yards "dash" and like him taugh t in the classroom, and Michael who went to war and developed a passion for politics. Meanwhile the Drumblair era was over. One morning he walked across the small gully from Regardless and found that the old house had been completely pulled down, the old trees uprooted by the bull­ dozers, and the flower beds flattened out of existence. He was a lone figure wandering about the once beautiful grounds, poking into the remains of the electric kiln - the workmen had done badly by it; the wiring, like unruly hair, escaping from the connections. Drumbl~ir was, he thought helplessly, in "a hell of a shape." He worried about getting the kiln fixed. Edna may have need for it. He wondered whethe i the local shops could handle its complications. He was less worried but as concerned about a coming event, the annual Party conference. He never wrote his political speeches. His style was to think on the principles, apposing his points and sketch­ ing the arcs that made his oratory, works of eloquence; powerfu½but lean and of great grace, a stirring of his hearers without entangling ) UWI L iba rie s 451. their minds or wrapping a spell around their faculties. The grand con­ vocations at Edelweiss Park, up to the 'Fifties (his PNP had followed Marcus Garvey's UNIA into Edelweiss), are remembered as much for their scholarly discourses as for the swinging enthusiastic rallies they were. The rallies were intended to sustain the beleaguered comradesit 10 were ~ denied the streets by the more, up-to-then, bullpuss JLP. He knew the importance the conference would beJror the dispirited comrades. BetW8e putting down a small rebellion by the ever ebullient Wills o, and hack -· ing at the legal work, as he sought the old skills, he turned his mind to the political needs of the Party now so perilously near to disarray. He knew that the strength of the Party lay in the moral triumph of what had been their policy for the years since 1938. His PNP had been the first national political creation in the country's history, and it had been born for the purpose of overturning colonialism and obtaining self-rule. By all measurements it had done that. The Party was mature and sophisticated. There had been casualties, lives had been lost, a few fortunes foundered. A hard and bitter struggle, he thought. Fought against a Colonial past that had gained in ugliness . that by penetrating men's minds, making them mutants)~ un- A. likely human, the happy jailbird, pri_soner by preference.f Now freedom had come/ never mind that his Party w·as not now in ascendance; the monument was up and they had been the architects. And so he spoke at the first Conference after the 1962 defeat. "It is true that we have been denied . the privilege of achieving power at this moment, but no one can deny us the accomplishment of our work in this country. And I am proud of my people. NFor when I called on them, after we had lost the election, to UWI L iba rie s 452. come out and make this great time and these great days, our times and our days, how the people responded: "And how they made the world see: "All the nations of the earth who sent their representatives here saw with their eyes and heard with their ears how the people felt . "And many marvelled how was it that we who were not in the seat:: of power were acknowledged as the authors of the greatness in our land at this time." He had the speech inside his head and he was so stirred that it came out with a rolling power and he knew he would rouse them as he had roused his ''small handful of comrades" at the beginning, to with­ stand th.e sacrifice, suffering, mockery, that went with membership in his little band. "I remember the sacrifices they made. I remember the mockery they endured, I remember the suffering they withstood. I remember how some of them, nameless today and unsung, gave their lives that Jamaica might throw off 300 years of colonial bondage, might lift up their hearts to aspire to all that independence means and freedom for a people." And yet, so much lay ahead in the building of a nation, the creative dynamic that would move the wheel forward. "And now I am going to speak to ~u about the challenge of this time as we close one book of history and open another. We could foresee the end of the first. The second ending we cannot foresee. Comrades, it is one thing to become free; it is another to build a real nation. It is (our tragedy) today that where history has placed power and leadership in the land, it has not placed tongues to rouse the people to the greatness of the times. It has not raised up a voice among them who could rise to the occasions of these days; who UWI L iba rie s 453. could lift up the new dynamic which would be alive from one end of the land to the other." What he had seen in the celebratory weeks had been a lackluster performance by the members of the new government, so riven with petu­ lance, suspicion and jealousy that not only were they ready to bounce him from the Royal Box at the flag-raising ceremony, Seaga had also cut his appearance from the film on the opening of Parliament, on the grounds of budgetary economy; and if that was not enough, well, * then, the film was too long anyhow. Busta was already feeling his *Manley was furious to find out that Seaga had a precedent. With­ out his {Manley's) knowledge, two over-zealous functionaries, in­ cluding his own P.R. man, humourist A.E.T.Henry, had cut Busta's words from the film of the Gordon House opening because the Chief had been talking "nonsense." Commented N.W. in his diary, "I was shocked. I remember it was nonsense, but who will believe that no Minister of our government had a hand in it or knew about it at all." 78 years and could hardly "rise to the occasion of these days," much less "lift up the new dynamic." And so. "And so we suffer under voices {that are) uncertain and feeble, or arrogant and stupid." The more he had thought about his speech to be given at the Conference, increasingly he had marked the thrust his seven years of I government had given the country. So that by the time he went to the podium at the Ward that September morning for his Presidential Speech, he could cite his accomplishments in office to issue a challenge to history; offering, "the principles which inspired us {in) our work" as the pattern of conduct for future governments - "every government that this country will have for the next one hundred years will have a pattern of conduct against which its (own) conduct can be judged by our people ... "For whatever we may · have failed in, we never failed in the UWI L iba rie s 454. maintenance of those principles which must one day prevail over the earth if men are to live as free men in God's world." The principles bore a close resemblance to his own attitudes. He had, he has said, "used power with restraint and respect for human decencies." He had a dislike for bullying; obviously not unrelated to his schoolboy experiences where an Upper Form tormentor had buffet­ ted him almost into absconding until one day they came to blows, and the 13-year-oltl Guanaboa boy, toughened by log-axe and country food, belaboured the bucko out of his opponent. After a brief spell of bullying the bully,- he reformed into a protector of the weak. V It was a poignant speech, exquisite at moments; and possibly had a good deal to do with steadying the uncertainties which had crept into the Party. He had sensed the edginess in his comrades. His towering statue held off their inclination to blame him for the fatal referendum, but the signs were more than faintly clear. Vernon Arnett, the capable, likeable longtime Secretary, had grown taciturn and unreadable, Manley thought; Wills Isaacs, who was always steadily unpredictable, had resigned as First Vice President and was swearing ' never again to sit on the Executive. He understood the Arnett dilemma : all the years of sacrifice had got to him. He had been the high­ performing General Secretary of the Party since 1939. "Simply exhaus­ tion and a distaste for continuance," Manley summed up to himself; but he knew he was sauntering in the shade, for Arnett had not hidden his disgust with the way the Party had been damaged by the Referendum. N.W. respected and was fond of Arnett and was perhaps, in his way, clearing the fine man with history. Wi l ls he took coolly, sometimes with a twinkle for his more ~,;-;a~. Once, in 1963, when UWI L iba rie s 455. the Party was favourably considering an application from Ken Hill to rejoin the Party (from which he had been ousted in the "Red purge" years before}, Wills, who had been one of the Moderates ferociously against the Leftists, threatened resignation if Ken was allowed back in. "Wills Isaacs said it was unprincipled (to accept Ken back}. I asked him why was forgiveness unprincipled." Ken returned to the Party and Wills O. did not resign. The PNP was home to him and al­ though he stormed at times, it was where he had put into port. For the duration. The years left ahead were not many and it is probable that Norman Manley knew a little about it. He may have had a look into the eye of it. For he was showing the future, very strongly, to his comrades in his cry that they anchor their activities on the three principles he had given for Party guidance. Three great tasks, he called them; but without equivocation at once declared the "first and ~ foremost" anathema on race and colour prejudices; the side of his con- >n cern the public was least aware ot, but, from the evidence, of pro- found importance to him since his early English experiences. And moreso now because he was witnessing the growing impatience of his darker-skinned compatriots at the old, ugly order that had made them . . . wao~ stirrup-hangers to the white and fairer-skinned horsemenA always ahead . * in the opportunity stakes. 'l'he once despised Rastas, hounded by the *Rastafarians, named for Ras ·rafari, the title of the late Haile Selassie before he was crowned Emperor of Ethiopia. The Rastafar-. ians revere him as God Incarnate, a similarity-~£ the Christians to the person of Jesus Christ. They believe the historic Bible but reject many interpretations of the "white" or European Chris­ tianity. Rastafarians are marked by their asceticism and willing­ ness to suffer for· the Faith. Much of their behaviour has been compared to the fervour of the Early Christians. UWI L iba rie s 456. police and enthusiastically sentenced by the judges, had by their utter conviction, integrity and courage, sent their message inside the nation. The believers were growing, not only on the level on which it had begun, among the frustrated poor, but upward into the middleclass families whose young had taken the outward signs of inner faith by growing "locks"; talking"dread" and smoking "weed". The second was a part of the first, as he cautioned the need to order the economy to "create a society which offers the reality of equal opportunity to all people." And thirdly, to devise a foreign policy which would enable the country "to mean something to the world . The Caribbean world had shrunk from his hopes of a 2,000 mile on his 146 by 51 Federal arc, to where he had begun"•••••••••• miles homeland . q,,yt, band His Party had sh_runkl from leading the"-- to playing a minor role. Btt. he was working with what he had left, impatient sometimes, but never railing at fate. He had a faith-reason. Although he, himself, was a walking wounded, weakened by illness, he had an immoveable belief in what he invariably thought of as the "two-party system". One Sunday morning late in 1964, he had told a Party Conference: "It is vital to the peace and security and freedom of our people that we should hav E two Parties in this country (although) other places may get along very well with one." Since, in the same speech, he was paying tribute to Marcus Garvey, the advocate of the Back-to-Africa movement, where the had been One-Party state ... ~ancient and successful, it was lucky that his hearers were not listening critically. There was another reason of faith, one that shot forth on memorable occasions to light up the serenity of the man. "History," he said "decreed that we should lead the people to the brink of the river, but not across. "Let no man quarrel with history." UWI L iba rie s 457. CHAPTER SIXTY e,il:'S ~fX.. Curiously, in this agrarian land, Norman Manley has been the only national leader, who, by training and choice, had a fealty to the field. At Belmont/Guanaboa in his youth, at Drurnblair in his adult years, he was allied to the land in hardworking ways. In the House, he began with the farming portfolio and made it his major in­ terest in his twenty years in Parliament - just over a third of that time as leader of the government. A lifetime spent in the urban mat­ ters of court and politics never lost him his love, and interest, in the land. (Nor his countryman's reserve and reticence on occasions.) While he had the protean actor's gift of being whatever he chose, he was also unable to be less than committed to a choice. He was all arms and legs when he went in,and so his successes were magnificent, of record; and his failures resoundin~ but there were few of these. (He was frank in acknowledging the usefulness of histrionics in the courtroom but refrained from public declaration of its benefits in politics; the law seemingly suffers more candour than politics.) The legendary reputation for working long hours was true but his labour was neither compulsive, nor stolid. Work, without what he called a spiritual understanding of forces and cause, and an end of some worth, was like those days on the mountain which woke in a great bluster, driving forward on a hustle of wind and sun and racing clouds, then dying in a wan afternoon. Life, his mode said, should be lived with flair and wisdom. And so his absorption with such a prosaic subject as agricul­ ture never settled into a dull if necessary battle between production and costs - although he gave acute and continuous attention to that too UWI L iba rie s 45 8 . for example, his serious plotting of strategy for a pineapple project, with solicitor Harry Dayes, in his East St Andrew hill constituency during the early Opposition years. Both being fine lawyers and plotting enthusiasts, and relentless when they got their teeth into things, the project seemed doomed to success. He l.i.](Ed being in the field, even if it meant coasting down the hazardous "road" from a St Peter's farmers' meeting because not a drop of oil was in the car's crankcase. And to abash pompous Parish ma9istrates on an agricultural tour thick with protocol; such as the day in Portland when he impishly agreed with his Party P.R. man, Ivorall Davis, that eating lunch from a brown paper bag as they sat on a mossbank in Portland, could do nothing but politi­ cal good w1th t he passing blue-shu't & tie-head small-holdings voters, who dai ly lur1ched from a spread banana leaf as they rested the hoes at noon. For a l l his reserve, he had a riotous private self that thumbed its nose at sa.nctimony. Back in the .. Thirties, when he was searching among the b righ·,t young men to staff his Jamaica Welfare, he made a personal vow neve r to employ anybody who was "pure YMCA." Needless t o say, h e had nothing against that fine agency; several of his best ~ eople, including the Welfare leadership, were connected to the "Y". It was the exaggerated gravity, and piety, that he abhorred. 0 He seemed deliberately to be a n anti-Colonial "Socialist" of the category known as "mild." These were the ones who wore the sensible shoes in the house of the f iery s ister-ideologues. The truth was he had a worry going for years about a polarization in world politics that would create two camps, in either of which small nations would end up: Capitalist or Communist. In 1950, he agonised over the UWI L iba rie s 459. English election results and wondered whether the "recession from Socialism" would spread. He held a moderate line that was illuminated, and sometimes severely charged, by an anger he fought to constrain; he was irritated by the bumblings on both sides. The cult of bluntness is a nuisance, he stated flatly of a Party official who published a "stupid" article on trade unions: and he thought that the Gleaner's managing editor was "a moralistic hypocrite." (He cried in his private anguish: "The Lord help and deliver us from such folk~") His humility was often puzzling in a man so well prepared for power. In a typical day in his constituency office, he would meet some thirty or forty people seeking assistance and he was a patient, often heartsick man, taking each slowly through a catalogue of suffer­ ing and feeling his own distress; and in the evening (this was the year of the Purge) watching the real possibility of his Party falling into wreckage. But as the antagonists moved into the fatal confronta­ tion, he made the fast, firm change from compassionate Father-Leader to the Autocrat of Edelweiss Park where the talk was frequently violent and abusive. Tough to his equals, gentle with the poor, he had his particularities as any other citizen. He seemed to like Ken Hill, respected Richard Hart, was wary of Wills o. and Dudley Thompson,had small faith in Frank Hill, was ambivalent on Allan Isaacs, worrying about his welfare while deploring his Party style, liked Arnett and Glasspole and Ken Sterling, to name a few of the old hands. His choice may have turned on the activities of the quidnuncs among the factions but he took an interest in the -gossipy material because the PNP has always been a mercurial collection requiring its own household Machia­ velli. There was always the risk of falsity from the favour-seekers, UWI L iba rie s 46 0. a fact he strangely did not seem to appreciate. He disliked bluntness, but he believed in the truth and assumed that people spoke it. And . so some were wronged and others gained. As scrupulously as he could, he held the scales evenly despite his private apprehensions. Bracing a comrade because of a story from some self-seeking clawback led to hurt scenes. But the old interrogator never faltered. He just pressed on. Next witness. One early day soon after his halfway return to law, he held a sort of symbolic immolation: it could be a notorious clue in a search for the man. He was idling through some old Opinions and Briefs. Read­ ing over his writings on several of his cases, he professed to being surprised at the quality, both in the "clarity of thought" and the "exhaust:i..ve research" brought to bear on the simplest cases. "Lord," he commented, "how I worked." Then he promptly took a great number of them, weighing about a hundred pounds, and burnt them. Why did he do it? Only a few days before, he had been examining ~~ 911 idea/,) encouraged by Edna, -••••• book on his law experiences, and this was all valuable stuff. It was not that he lacked a sense of history nor was he unaware of his genius, immodest artist as he was in conversations with his ego. It had to be a personality curve that would instinctually deprive the future. The fear of breaking con­ fidentiality could have been edited out. Nor was his hubris so well lubricated as to slip up on him unaware; only a lunatic may be truly arrogant. An Opinion by N.W.Manley, Q.C., woulc command reference in law libraries and archives as long as legality held in human affairs. So UWI L iba rie s 461. why the burning of work that had made him almost reel in admiration, exult at its quality? The answers swarm with opportunities for wrong­ headed judgments. The simplest seem to lay in the disjointing, even worse, the dislocation of his life after the untimely defeat; a shock­ ing s.ixty percent of his term had crumbled, obliterated by a cataclysm. The hardwon power had been snatched by a miscalculation of his popu­ larity. He thought he had failed in the profession he saw as his life­ work. "The choice of law was an accident. My family talked me into it because of my love of talk and argument." At the height of his brilliant career in the courts, he had counted it a bit of good luck that he "was engaged in activities which went far beyond the normal work of a lawyer." For lawyer's work was "a largely formal affair with wide areas of dry insignificance a line that became more and more familiar." The unexpected put down of his performance explains the alacrity with which, after a mere fifteen years of prac­ tice, he had plunged into politics. He had not loved law but he had been excellent at it because he believed in excellence: an "unquenchable belief" as he once said. In the post-election stumble, he had returned to it from necessity, to make a living; a desire that played no part in his politics. He was not whoring his gifts but a sense of revulsion was inescapable in a strong man diverted by circumstance. So up in smoke went a portion of the offending memorabilia. c) Otherwise put it down to the uncontrollable id. As unquenchable too was his fighting spirit. At 71, and ailing, he was challenging the Labour bully boys, once more on the rampage, that, as in time past, when he "and Comrade Arnett and others" had UWI L iba rie s 462. organised protective cohorts for theLr street rallies, "if we have to protect ourselves again, I will lead it." It was taken seriously; for at that time he hardly looked like a septuagenarian. He was slim as a blade, his face unsagged, his gestures controlled and illuminating, his voice well articulated and reassuringly, if only lightly, wrinkled by the fountain of accumulated wisdom elder statesmen reputedly possess And few enterprises in the last years of his life can exceed in skill and vigour the way in which he tackled the question of land reform. It was familiar ground and he swung with a will at the ancient tenures that held a majority rootless so a handful could hold the most. For its 1964 Conference, the Party - produced a land plan, and, naturally as breathing, they were split down the middle into "progres­ sives" and "moderates" and causing the usual furore among the large ~ landowners a PNP plan never failed to produce. And, as usual, N.W. /'I took his catalyst stance to knit the fractious factions and keynote the land policy. He did so in a superbly crafted speech that left no doubt as to the crisis of discontent facing the newly sovereign nation. With the uncanny prescience that had, on a September evening exactly two occasionally marks history, he '"' ,q~;:i., years before, sat and thought I\. on Bustamante's ability to lead the new nation. Busta, he reasoned, , would be "voiceless" in the sophisticated affairs the State would then be involved in. He did not see the aging silvery ''Chief" inspiring the people into the will and effort required to create a country. Al­ though he had just an hour, that September evening in 1962, before attending the Calabar Old Boys' dinner, he went into the action that frequently closed his daytime activities: a quick excursion into the events of the day. He had that evening rated Seaga's statement on the economic UWI L iba rie s 463. growth during the PNP regime as "Seaga's nonsense." And now, after thirty months of the Busa-Seaga nutcracker, he told his PNP conference of his conviction that Labour's economic growth-rate could not provide the will, effort or result to "make Jamaica a country (its people) could be proud of." Was he really convinced, or was he engaging in the partisan ~ exercise, of side ~side, that he saw as his kind of politics? His summation of the role an Opposition should play, made near the end of his pa;rliamentary time, was that it must be "visible," be "lively," be "seen and heard," be "felt." Not, though, only to win elections. For he also wrote that an Opposition must "present the reality of appearance (and) offer constructive leadership." He signalled an understanding of the "democratic one-party state" but he believed in the alternative method; its high value was the power to change those in the seat. His emotions as well as his truths were inward; were part of, and directed, his politics; his intellect advised it. He was therefore truest in his work for the State and the People, with little subtlety but awesome integrity. He had been knocked from the game by a poll that lesser men would have avoided without dishonour. So he fought beautifully in his alternative; for in or out of power, he had the inner grace of serving his callingt his true bidding , and losing or winning was neither victory nor defeat at that good place . The land reform speech of September 1964 laid down policy guide­ lines that would not be fully employed until the time of his son, Michael Manley. No private farm, N.W. declared, should exceed five hundred acres. And five hundred acres, was, he admitted, an error of generosity; so all the acreage above a hundred acres should be developed UWI L iba rie s 46 4. under a national plan. And so upwards of three-quarter million acres would be available to "the one hundred and twenty thousand people on the rockstone lands" for them to plough towards decent pay-days. He did not agree, nor believed Bustamante could be sincere in thinking that large farmers would volunteer to lease their lands to smallholders; and therefore he strove for a political solution. But under law. On that he was adamant. No State seizures or private capture. However, he was, he said, committed to eject the "Massa, please, Massa" syndrome from the landless poor. Busta was for using persuasion; could he bearing in mind that like the American Teddy Roosevelt, he carried stick and carrot - have succeeded? A few may believe he could. The bad joke on Third World countries recently out of colonialism was their efforts to make good marks with the ex-masters by showing an anxiety to join the club. Busta's choice of C.C.Campbell, the plodding parliamentarian from Westmoreland, in colour creatively black and a future inspiration to the children of the poor, was greeted with a cau- tious "no comment" from N.W. never discussed our stand." ~ because "unfortunately (the Party} had ~Ytt!AY4./ He privately admitted to misgivings at his II attitude could not help analysing the appointment as "shrewdl ,.. aimed at the masses and sensibly conceived." However, he thought it could provoke "much middle-class upset." (Many would prefer a wealthy ~ white or mulatto id would look not unlike past English governors.} ) He was not too dismayed at that. He was busily wooing that same middle class, meeting with young executives in the swank Billy Dun suburb. "It is part of the process of the tw0-party system," he said solemnly to a PNP conclave, "that one Party constantly accepts or borrows or steals (from} the other." Intellectual espionage is the rattle of gifted men; UWI L iba rie s 465. an anonymous applause for an equal. N.W. Manley really desired a strong, intelligent opponent. A strange sort of satisfaction used · to appear on his face in court as he rose for his opening address when a cause celebre brought out as his antagonist, some overseas famous legal light. UWI L iba rie s 466A. CHAPTER SIXTY-~ _('t;t/C/{f The last years were not tranquil. There was skullduggery to be winkled out, quarrels to be settled, money needs to be met, interlopers to identify, .ambushes to be avoided, ambitions to be understood, an affirmation of his reasons to be given, the young to be summoned, and a mission to finish. As he had in the decade before, when he stood astride the ideological factions to save the political process he believed in, he would tromp the grapes of wrath, and, although not to the same extent, taste the sour wines of distrust and defeat. He would be bewildered at the virulence of some of the younger opponents in the rival Party and would have to do with such curiously twilit intrigues as the scandalous "spy letter", an ambush that could have discredited his Party for years. The letter purportedly written by a PNP spy-master to a high rank civil servant in charge of recruiting, and unexplainedly purloined by his opponents, thanked the secret agent for past "reli.a­ ble information ... in keeping with previous confidential discussion." PNP prospects for a happier future, the letter pointed out, depended "on how well you can control the removal and placing of individuals in keeping (with) our best interests." Manley was for nailing khe JLP with what he was convinced UWI L iba rie s 466B. was a put-up job. With his love for the occasional cloak & dagger caper, NW had Veitch spirit away all the office typewriters (for his own typographic check) and laid a phone-tap trap for an ex­ patriate cop. In his own mind he had the case sewed up and was quite disappointed at (David) Coore's and (Douglas) Fletcher's pre-trial handling of the evidence. ("They did not mention the tape recording~" he noted increduously. "I think they let the side down badly.") He was at the time also suing Shearer for libel and seemed to be enjoying his role of litigant, urging tougher * attitudes on his lawyers. *Aman, not connected with the Party, was charged and found not guilty in the spy letter case. Shearer paid damages. UWI L iba rie s 467. Wht:ever may have been his aloofness in the cutthroat business of local political infighting, he was no neophyte in the wider wicked­ nesses practised by agencies of the great nations, to protect and foster their trade and power. His well developed eye for false wit­ nesses, sharpened in the criminal courts, saw an interloper's hand at work in an incident to do with the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), an American organisation identified many * years later with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). *Phillip Agee's INSIDE THE COMPANY (p.611). The story was being spread among American unions that he and his son Michael were supporting the BITU application for membership in the ICFTU, to which the NWU was already affiliated. The ICFTU was a labour centre established and controlled by the CIA. In the well laundered way of that American Agency, the headquarters of the ICFTU was far away from Washington, in Brussels. Nobody then, in those innocent years, would have suspected perfidy in such decent surround­ ings. Publicly, the NWU would have been proud of its solus position as the only Jamaican affiliate of that clean-cut American organisation . For the Leader and his son to be sponsoring an incoming of what the ~ American unions would consider to be the rather scruffly Fascist BITU, V was nothing short of treason. Thus, Norman, and Michael who was vir- tually field-leader of the NWU, would be seen, in espionage jargon, as double-agents. The NWU was the tough-minded union of the bauxite workers employed by the multi-national aluminum companies. Destabili­ sation is a very important strategy of great power spy agencies whose ~ : - r duties include protecting the nation's trade. "I fully believe there is more in this than meets the eye," Manley confided as he prepared to track his suspicions. UWI L iba rie s 468. A time later, the skullduggery would grow uglier with his conviction that what should have been a friendly union to his Party, the old TUC, was a "menace which is now very real. They get money from an anti-Communist group and have joined with the BITU to harass the NWU." The result, he noted, was a continuous "straining (of the) NWU in time and resources." The proposal to fetch back Ken Hill was strongly linked to the opinion that Ken would be fine in the inter­ union battles - a proposal that met the expected opposition of Glass­ pole and Wills Isaacs. 0 In the last years, his stature reached true giant. Front run­ ners gallop alone. His genius guaranteed a trust in the righteousness of his cause that outpaced what seemed to be the facts. The lurch -in him that had followed the debacle, was now righting and he was on better trim, going in again, fine, calm, accurately. This was how he was. Typhus and trench warfare, both very well known killers, had been met and defeated, though with some loss of blood. Race-hate and the Bar had nearly beaten him, sending his mind scurrying for cover, but he had re-asserted and become the man who founded a nation out of many races, and became one of the world's more proficient practitioner~: of the law. Politics had denied him access to the seat of power for seventeen years, gave in for seven, and unseated him untimely; not­ withstanding that his phenomenal gifts had made his influence arbitrary in the government of either Party. Unused, then, to accepting defeat, unable to fully understand, ru~ning out front as he did, that some of his colleagues had lost . heart, or were in the process, he was laconic with Seivright's pull-back from undertaking any kind of Party work ("No, not now. Spiritually unable," Seivright had said) and "surprised" UWI L iba rie s 469. by an Arnett article in Public Opinion which the author had titled "PNP Failure". He thought that Arnett had distorted the realities of the PNP tenure . So it was that he seemed to have a specially warm place in his heart for those who stood with him in the last years. He made a simple enjoinder to Ken Hill~s return to the Party from which he, as Leader, had ejected him a decade ago: "All I said of the past was, 'I am glad you are back.' And he replied, 'I am glad too.' And that was that." The quarrels to be settled were the internecine assassinations that accompany political parties, but appear to be more frequent in­ side the PNP, loaded as it was with talent and ambition. (Years later, when the Union workhorses of the JLP had given way to the younger, brighter professionals, the jealousies and scrambles for power would produce a similar plight to the PNP's and rush the JLP out of office) Dudley Thompson, Allan Isaacs, Wills, all had their day under the cutting edge of his tongue. There was never a real defiance to his chastening. His was an unshakeable place in the Party. There were men who were wealthier, older, stronger in their electoral base,but he held his ascendance. Busta was a giant too, but the bets seem to be that had he been the PNP leader, he would have long since been unde 1 the arm of the elegant lapidators of the "middleclass party". N.W.Manley held his place by a combination of brains, social status, personality, his haruspical gifts for articulating and con- • ~ vincingly enacting the hopes and ambitions of all •••••aof class '1 and colour in the bewildering kaleidoscope that was his island. The loyalty he commanded was quite8 absolute; a fanaticism, in fact, that hardly ever blazed, but burnt with a steady incandescence. One explanation may have been that the absence of Anancyism in his chariSITB made him exotic to a people grown accustomed to the charlatan faces - UWI L iba rie s 470. of their politicians. He was a sigh of relief, an agent of hope, a reliever of their half-killed faith, really, a curiosity. They dropped by for a visit and stayed. He was neither saint nor Satan. He was egotist enough to place a high threshold on his integrity. It saved him from casual encroachment. And now that time was running out - and the evidence of his words suggest his awareness of it - he was summoning the youth with all his strength. He still had faith in the old men for they were professionals who knew that winning elections was the story. But they , like him, would yield to time. Journalist John Maxwell tells the planned story how in the early 'Sixties, he blocked a broadcastjby Wills Isaacs at the time of the Claudius Henry affair when the excitable Wills O. was for inviting the public to an open bash on all bearded men. Manley had at first supported Wills' insistence, since it was also his view, but later, after sober thought, agreed with young Maxwell's stand. He was never uneasy at the ascent of youth into decision. Since 1962, he had been calling for their inclusion. ",I am desperately anxious to see the young people of Jamaica (devoted) to the cause of the country and to the serv1.ce of the Party," he told a PNP conference in 1965. Characteristically, he placed the country first; but probably, since for him his Socialist Party described what was best for the land, the country and the Party were one and indivisible. His belief in the youth was warmest noticed in his rapport with children. As his bosom pal had been his granddaughter Rachel, UWI L iba rie s 471. equal to his escapades and sharing his urchin deviltry, so was the quick and active response of all children to him. Cousin Alex's well reported gallantry to ladies was matched by Norman's pull with the youth. And though it would have made for fewer votes then, young people come of age. And so a likelihood exists that the surge of youth to * the Rising Sun grew out of their Early Manley mores. "1#<) *The PNP flag and emblem. Curiously, emblem, save for the rally song: "We we die~" there no JLP flag, wili follow Bustamante or till "Young (people) ask me, 'What can we do?' Let me tell them. We are building structures which will willingly accept, which are eager for the services of young people. If you want to start at the grass­ roots, don't be ashamed to go and join a group in the Party and work ... 11 What is the good of talking about 'Out of many, one people, (if) the bright young people are not prepared to go down there and sit with the barefooted working class boy and girl and talk to them and help them to build the nation. "Comrade Wills Isaacs does it. Comrade Glasspole does it. All of us old time horses, we go right down and sit down with the people. When I sit in my Party Group, I am just a comrade, like them. No bigger 1 no smaller, the same as them." He spoke at the 'Sixty-Five Party congress and Rupert * Davis a Party delegate from Vere who has attended more Conferences *And father of Dr Carlton Davis, the brilliant young scientist­ negotiator who heads the Jamaica Bauxite Institute than most people, recalls the speech as one of the deep-felt mo~ents among the annual Presidential reports, second only to his "Mission Accomplished", the final (1969) justification. UWI L iba rie s 4 72 . "Lord, if our young (people) would just go (among the poor). How the people would welcome them! How (we all) would welcome them! Whenever I have (managed to get) young University lads to come and talk to my people, how proud they have been of them! And how they welcomed them with open arms!" A man who could disapprove of his actions with the pungency of the self-searcher, he knew how much depended on his, or anybody's, quality of leadership. He was growing older and felt more grievously the blows of disharmony in his fold. (He had by this time the exhorta­ tive style of a shepherd with his flock; guiding and calling to aware­ ness of the danger of losing identity with the fold. Hard nationalism had replaced the former looser Caribbean destiny that had broken his hold.) It was becoming clearer in his mind that in Michael lay more strength than many imagined; his handling, with great force, of the Ken Hill re-entry, was particularly pleasing, since Ken, a trade unioni : of the widest experience, would be a powerful factor in fighting off the TUC threat to the NWU. Michael was "in great shape," he thought, proud of a bright, strong son who seemed steadily on a people-course, in harmony with his day: a Socialism grown from the native grassroots - * even if the symbols were imported. *Both PNP and JLP had imported symbols: the PN~,clenched-fist and the JLP's two-fingered V-sign. But his unease about the Party would not go away. Ineptitude and a lack of frankness, of truth, was active. He refrained from open condemnation but gave vent to a 'deep private anger. The impatience he now strove to contain must have cost dearly, considering the many attacks on his forbearance from the ambitious men UWI L iba rie s 473. around him. He did not doubt his ability to hold the Party together, or guide its drives. One night in 1937, at Drumblair, he had been "amused" at what must have been a diatribe from a banana man named Hyde McCauley, blaming him for having "sold out" Jamaica to Zemurray and the United Fruit Company, and being "amused" also when he considerer, the ease with which he could have persuaded the . cusser to the contrary . The strong, repeated invitation to the youth may have come from the urgency for fresh minds, unchained to the past, to the old style politics of "spite and tzacing." His own ideas were still young and vigorous. Believing as he did in destiny, of a religion, as he was, in which God held the reins, ramble though * we may, he was unlikely to lack enterprise. He had articulated his *Some favoured lines ran: Lest while thine eyes by light of day/ Explore some aspect of the way/ The uncomplaining beast that carries thee/ God's angel in the path shall see adventurous spirit by his advocacy of self-rule in the days of gallopin c_; autocracy. He recognised the importance of a mix in the political apparatus: the young were brave and concerned with faith in an existen­ tialist sense, "blowing," as he once said of the young when he had just entered his own forties, "life like the wind." The old were ex­ perienced and valued cunning. But both were essential. Since his epitaph, after the "Mission Accomplished", would likely be Now, then he sh~d leave a gantry on the site capable cf engaging to the fullest "- the talents and skills for success. 0 - ... . In the 1967 general elections his Party faced an adversary that was, by his own account, one that with reason "boasts about the increase in the gross national product (and) the increase in new industries and so on." ~The PNP lost by JJ to 20. UWI L iba rie s 4 74. Bustamante, ailing and absent from activity since before the election, finally retired in 1967, leaving the JLP leadership to Donald Sangster, long his deputy Prime Minister. Sangster, colourless but well meaning, was not a resounding success in the job and died in Canada where he had been taken for treatment. Hugh Shearer, after a stormy JLP executive session in which the jockeying incited some violent scenes, emerged as Prime Minister. UWI L iba rie s 475. CHAPTER SIXTY-SBWN EtGfl, Edna believes that the strain of daily commuting from Nonrlmi may have aggravated the serious illness that struck him in 1968. Nomdmi was then reached up switchback roads, mostly of crushed marl and stone, climbing and wheeling and shooting happily up and God help the fainthearted; humped and hj11owed for drainage, with rock-heads and rock-slides, and awards of fine views and fresh pine smells if you lasted. Norman knew it well and drove powerful, well-sprung cars ; but barrelling up and down such roads, day and night, and ailing on and off, was wearing. It was a bad situation; one that came about because of odd hardships. He had always loved Nomdmi; it represented retreat and rest; a lair for the tired lion. The legal consultancy had never real J shaken together and beset with financial problems, and perhaps inter­ nally torn by the sense of having failed his comrades by losing the House and casting them "out into the wilderness," and, further, sapped by the debilitating malaise, he was taken by a sudden resolve to move to Nomdmi. Permanently. To end his days on the mountain-top. "No argument, no persuasion could change hi~," Edna recalls, "so we moved up." Mountain eyries for living, havea common ~,sft: an utter silence. A silence that creaks and spangs and crackles on the ear, and is fine for folk recuperating from the rackety-city-plain. But the doses must be carefully measured. A few days, or weeks, may bring excellent well-being. Too long a stay in those idyllic silences can loosen even anchorite screws. The silence begins to creak louder, UWI L iba rie s 476. then to press, pound, bang, shriek at the ear and the pilgrim is likely to go crackers. Fine holiday places for urban dwellers but not recommended for permanence. It is different if you are a born mountain villager. Edna was alone much of the time at Nomdmi since Norman continue~ his life as it had been: leaving at 8.30 a.m. for Kingston and return­ ing early evening. A late sitting of the House would release him afte r midnight. Edna's spirits flagged. She tried for occupation, bought a horse, took up gardening, lived in the deafening silence, going quietly to pieces. The situation was relieved, but only slightly, when they took a small flat at Mountain View Avenue {Regardless had been rented) for their occasional nights in town. It was a bad time for Edna, alonl on the mountainf some nights when bad weather locked the corduroy road and Norman could not get through. But at last they returned to Regard­ less, in June 1968. G • He was seriously ill for a week and went close to slipping over . And what was more, seemed ready to go. The man in whom most of his countrymen reposed a passionate faith, and love, in his loneliness , was believing he had failed. "He has always been so lonely," Edna had worried at the time of the Ellis lsland ugliness. Because he was such a contrite man, a humble man inside,the evening of his days was anguished; and borne alone by reason of his character. He was also beset by money woes; he, for whom the Bar had, and could have,provided a wealthy man's existence. But he had cast all this away in "taking the case of the people." UWI L iba rie s 477. He had been looking more and more tired, and his blood pressure was high. The night before this illness he dined with the Ken McNe.:il.ls and returned to Regardless. That night he had the first attack of cardiac asthma. In the morning the pressure had steadied. There was a party planned for Nomdmi and he got leave from his physician to attend. Neither Edna nor Rachel (who was a stern watchdog over her "Pardi") was happy at his decision on the Nomdmi picnic. By after­ noon he was ill again. That night, down at Regardless, the cardiac trouble struck once more. He had two bad weeks and then felt well enough for a holiday at Negril - and a week afterwards was back at Nomdmi for a fortnight. To some members of the family, Nomdmi seemed to have been the seat of the problem. It was high, chilly and the air was thinner and not good for his condition - but he loved Nomdmi. He survived the attacks and regained a degree of health that year and learnt to love Regardless, a little piece of country on its small plateau, in hearing of the restless Constant Spring traffic and the reggae rhythms of the Four Roads bistros. (!) Later that year, at a banquet in honour of his 75th birthday, on July 4, 1968 he announced his intention of retiring. On he gave his farewell speech in the National Arena. The great hall was packed to capacity and another great crowd stood outside listening to the relays as again he sent his call to the youth: "And these things are related in a very positive way to ... the role of the young generation in our society today. Youth power in the modern world is not a joke. It is a tremendous reality which had made new leaders and brought down old governments. And youth power is the repository of so much faith and hope and new energy and UWI L iba rie s 478. unexpected dedication that any wise observer will falter at the thought that any generation coming into being should not be making search for its own mission, and informed with a desire to achieve it. "My generation had a distinct mission to perform. It was to create a national spirit with which we could identify ourselves as a people for the purpose of achieving independence on the political plane. I am convinced, deeply convinced, that the role of this genera­ tion is to proceed to the social and economic reform of Jamaica. "It is to conceive a society based on principles of equality, and to remove the duality that splits us so profoundly, and to multi­ ply the points of identification between ffi:l.n and nation, so that, slowly, and I suppose it will take another thirty years at least, we can begin to think and feel and live as one people, making one nationa J group." annual Party Conference, Michael Manley was elected President of the PNP. "Given half a chance," his father had said of him when he was thirteen, "what possibilities:" UWI L iba rie s 479. CHAPTER SIXTY NINE Mostly in the mornings in the high mountain country the long ,ind comes all in order flowing evenly, and you see it in the bend of :he trees. The long wind for a second settles unbroken from the highest :idge_...,turning with the turn of the land through the stands of cedar ,nd eucal~tus and through the pine woods and down the dip of the ·alleys/bfnding the trees all at once as in a ceremony, carrying the ncense of the high main ridge that is so early in the day frequently cy. And carrying the cooking smoke of the foresters and the home­ teaders in long furls.) thick at the base and feathering as it loses in he white treetops. A continuous wind that wraps around the world f island:.,bulging out of the cloud-sea, and you know, while you are, he great gift it was to be there before you were called to obey the aw of sojurn. On the last morning at Nomdmi, the law of sojurn was n the mountainJand Norman Manley knew it was call-in day · for its gifts. n his good way he was ready. And though ill and weak, in li'(/J..ihood,he was cclaiming in a silence that Edna also was. He once wrote a short tribute :> her in some notes, over thirty years before, that II there is a quality, lways was, so stark and valiant when the last big things appear. 11 At 1e time she had undergone surgery, alone in the wilds of England, cabl- 1g him the news only when it was over. 11 I was deeply moved at the ?iri t which took her into that without a word to me till it was all over." ma had proven in her crisis; he was agoni :dng as he moved towards his m crucial challenge, the launching of Jama.ica Welfare: But, can I? m I? He could, and did, and the questionings came only out of an 1telligence that weighed each factor. And the answers were so true that all his life they were seen as !nius by his companions. UWI L iba rie s 480. At four thousand feet where they built Nomdmi, the mornings were bracing even in high summer. On Norman Manley's last morning at Nomdmi, he woke early in the main cottage. He and Edna were returning to Regardless that day. He was quite weak from the cardiac illness which so relentlessly repeated for all his fighting it cff. The continuing series of strange depressions had not warned falsely. "It is hell for the intelligent victim," he once said about rival medical diagnoses; there was no doubt now that he was very ill. He dressed and shuffled slowly from the bedroom, crossed the narrow verandah to the dining room. He stood at the door. The study, built free of the house, a short distance away, was, in his physical weakness, a far place. Edna stood behind him. "I must go to the study," he said quietly. "But, Norman---" "I must. Just once. I must go." She knew that stubborn insistence. And did not argue. She moved beside him and he rested a hand on her shoulder. They went slowly up the rise, a gentle one, to the large square room of cedars and blocks and glass. He entered the study and went to the desk at the centre. He sat at the desk. It had been some weeks since he had worked at the desk. He pulled out the drawers, turned up some papers. Edna busied herself in a corner. She rearranged odds and ends. She would not think then of tears. "Tragedy," she had written in a letter in 1937, "is the individual's refusal to accept reality." A movement made her turn. UWI L iba rie s 481. Norman had got up and was going very slowly to the tall book­ shelves which walled two sides of the room. He went along the book­ shelves, running his hand over the bindings. Over his books. The blessed books. History. Philosophy. Music. Fiction. His passage took him to the door. He stood in the doorway looking out at the taller peaks. Those he had walked or rode or watched for years. He knew them well; the famous ones, and the smaller ones scurrying to join the main ridge. The smoky-blue ones and the very green ones shining in the special morning light. Edna stood quietly. "One day, " she had written in 1942, "the great hand of God will move across the sky and all our little lights will cease." He gave the mountains a long, slow, roving look, the look of a man who would not be returning. He turned and looked gravely at Edna. They went back together to the cottage. Later, they descended to Regardless. He never returned. Edna said: "The last few days we were very close and once I broke down and cried. And he looked at me so strangely, as from another world, and I wished I hadn't cried." The week before he died he wanted to hear, over and over, the Shostakovitch Fourth Symphony and a Quartet. "Till one evening it caused me to cry and he saw it and his eyes went dark and full of pain. And we played something else." He had predicted, three days before, that he would die on Tuesday. Tuesday was the day of the by-election to fill the St. Andrew seat he had resigned. The Sunday before the Tuesday, Michael came in and N.W. asked• how was . the voting going. He was quite UWI L iba rie s 482. weak; in bed. Michael told him the election would be Tuesday. They argued gently. Michael left and Edna went in. "So it's Tuesday, - the election is Tuesday. That's funny. I thought it was today. Well." He was quiet for awhile. Then he lifted his hands,at the wrist, off the bed. "That day, the book will be closed," he said. It was. He was, in his upbringing, of a middleclass family on the edge of gentry, who rode, not walked, to high school. Colour, in his early time, had an ambivalence absent from the modern Jamaica. While the whites formed the "busha" class, every country village had its poor- white families at its head, the fellow called {affectionately) i "White- f man," a mulatto or Caucasian; families whose equally hard-scrabble existence integrated them into the floor pattern of the culture. In many cases, the only legacy they would ever receive was the pale skin from the nocturnal ancestor who had prowled the barracoons. The Manley family contact with the landed ruling class was said by him to be minimal. On the other hand, their relations with the black peasantry ,.. would have been cordial, and even fond, but nonethe\ss of a certain- correctnes~that excluded invitations to sit in the "drawing room." The young Manleys of Belmont/Guanaboa were children of an "illegitimate son of a woman of the people," as N.W. with delicate preciosity put it, and his strongwilled, educated "almost pure white" wife, again in N.W. Manley's words but now in bolder strokes. UWI L iba rie s 483. The home had a shelter of gentility that was essentially un­ ransacked by the early loss of his father and the failure of the family fortune. They survived because the width of the Guanaboa property, ruinate though it was, en~led them. He was educated twice for the task, in field and in fieldstone house; in one-room rural schoolhouse and Jesus College, Oxford. And they survived on the toughness of Margaret Manley who pointed them, fiercely, away from the deadening brownskin country baronage which produced the estate Bushas of the day. And he survived because out of all this he was able to straddle the two Jamaicas. Because of his style, he attracte~ the bourgeoisie, and because of his commitment brought in the folk of humble income and status. His competence and integrity accomplished for the country what he had set out to do that day in May, thirty-one years before; and he roused the people to heights of thinking, and understanding, as nobody had done before. And he fathered a nation. UWI L iba rie s 4 84. THE FUNERAL The esplanade in front of the Parish Church is splendid for ceremonials. The church is named for St Thomas the Apostle, and like its ancient sponsor, has, in its time, risked its portion of salva­ tion. When the city was laid out after the 1692 earthquake, the military barracks and parade grounds were placed at the centre of the uncompromising checkerboard designed by an unimaginative army engineer called Colonel Lillie. Later the barracks were removed to Up Park Camp, outside the city limits, and the parade became the Victoria, or Parade, Gardens. The church was ruined by the 1907 earthquake and was rebuilt in 1911. The esplanade, or South Parade, is four blocks long, wide to contain a regiment. It has grace, for down its length are the trees shrubbery and ornamental iron fences of the Gardens, and across the road is the stately church, and some not unhandsome shops. UWI L iba rie s Curiously enough, Kingston is not a cathedral city, although its parish church is more often put into service for State solemnities than the older church, the Cathedral of St James, in the old capital of Spanish Town; it is the only Anglican cathedral in the country. The centuries-old city church has been as much in the shadow of doubt as the saintly sceptic for whom it was called. A century ago, at the time of the Morant Bay uprising, its wallshad rung to the Te Deums a grateful Establishment rendered for the illegal State hangings of Bogle and Gordon, both now National Heroes. A couple of centuries ago, one of its Rectors had been taken out and hanged in the Parade for owning a private Mint in the vestry at which he manufactured his own Caesar's Head. In its grander moments, it has dirged and buried inside its walls such early Empire luminaries as Admiral Benbow and performed its Matins in our time for the visiting Queen Elizabeth. It is very High Church, has a fine high altar and a handsome .Lady chapel. Its wall memorials contain · outstanding works and there are some good stained glass. The organ is older than the rebuilt church and the bell is ancient; both N.W.Manley would I have aged well and are\splendidly be laid in· state before the high toned. altar. The body of But there were other places to take him before the National homage. They would take him on some last journeys inside his territory so the farm folk he loved could pay their respects; to Mandeville and Porus, rested at each place for local obsequies. And it was a moving tribute to his way; a grace that· redressed to a degree the wretched poftf,•e~I little,,rejections some had sought to inflict in their victory. {For he had died with his rivals in power and it was they who were in charge UWI L iba rie s of the arrangements.) At his death, they spared no pains. He would go, too, to be in state in the hall of his Party on the Thursday; and on Saturday would begin the great national homage of two days in the Kingston Parish Church. Sunday would be the Funeral. "Let us praise famous men," Pastor Hugh Sherlock would invite in the afternoon, taking the text for his oration from the Apocrypha. 0 That he was famous, was undeniable. In his own home island, the solid surge of grief, the pilgrimages to stand outside Regardless, or on the pavement before the funeral parlour, was expected. But the outpourings of cablegrams, the calls from all over the world, the com­ prehensive obituaries in the great foreign newspapers, were too tremen­ dous to have been foreseen, considering he was a politician out of office for many months, and retired from public life. It was as if he was still head of state. Queen Elizabeth sent her personal condolence. So did the leaders of the African nations and from both sides of the Atlantic. His old friend and admirer, Hugh Foot, by then made Lord Caradon and sent to be the U.K. man to the United Nations, immediately boarded a flight to be in Jamaica. Many heads of Caribbean governments came in, although among the omissions was Trinidad's Eric Williams . who sent an obscure Senator. It seemed as if N.W's part in the founder ­ ed Federation would not be quite absolved by his death. Well, he was a Servant and a Leader, Prime Minister Hugh Shearer had said the day he died. He had played that extraordinarily difficult role as he saw it. Whatever the results of the play, his integrity was intact. Indeed, deepened. For as no man before him, or since, his style had explained democracy for the first time in Jamaica, and in much of the world. He had, with deliberation, showed, that no man UWI L iba rie s 487. was more important than the will of the people. And that was demo- M cracy the Greeks had striven to delineate$'. Foot summed it up in his book, A START IN FREEDOM: "It is natura J. to look for faults in such an outstanding man. But whatever failings he has are far outweighed by his positive qualities II For, error or truth, whatever the verdict, he had shed light on participant governance, the quit-rent of free peoples. And his people were grateful. So they said they would bury him in the place marked for National Heroes. He was not yet a National Hero. That would come later. Yet it was a clear declaration from the Party in office which included some implacable foes. Shearerf remembered well. "His personal sacrifices (for) Jamaica ... these are his monuments." A State Funeral, they said, would be his. N.W.Manley's death on Tuesday, September 2, 1969 was a shock to the nation for in one of those curious silences which occasionally break\our reputation as a people of heal thy rumours, it had not been commonly known that he had suffered two or three heart attacks since 1953. He had survived to fight five elections and a referendum as his resilience brought him back from each with only a barely discerri­ ible shadowing at the eyes and a rise in the depth of his voice. His faculties were not impaired)although he did confide to Harry Dayes -that his memory, an astounding one, was, in the latter days, faltering. The terminal, illness came in on an ordinary 'flu, strengthened probably by his weakness from the repeated cardiac bouts. He had a history of hypertension. Down from Nomdmi, at Regardless, although very ill, he took to UWI L iba rie s 488. bed only at the last hours. As his condition worsened rapidly, he was attended by a medical team including his brother-in-law, Ludlow Moody. He went into a coma at seven on the Tuesday morning and died six hours later, just before one o'clock. A sudden surge in the pres­ sure fatally taxed his heart. He was 76 years and two months. The time of mourning was decreed from ,T.]::!..:eJg~ to Sunday. And that day was declared a National Day of Mourning. It would be a week as the country had never witnessed.fAll the flags fell to half mast. "And those of us who have lived to see this day should praise God because it is not always given to man to labour and see his labour rewarded by what he strove to achieve." ~ I 1+1'1JF~EN(E He had spoken about the final freedom from subjectiin,/\41-• ~ Party Conference on September 16, 1962. His life, for a quarter of ~ a century had been lived to this end he had lived to see the day. He I\ had caused a multitude to praise. UWI L iba rie s 489. CHAPTER SEVENTY On Thursday, he was laid in the PNP headquarters at 23-25 South Camp Road, the ornate Victorian /ouse, the first owned home of the Party. It had commodious grounds for a city residence, one of the upper middle income homes built around the turn of the century when ~ the road rode the outskirts of the City. The rooms" large and high- ceilinged. It too, like the Party, had known victory and defeat, and showed it. Nowhere is politics in Jamaica so clearly characterised as in the corporate lifestyles of the major trade unions and the political parties. modestly While both the NWU and the BITU have erected their ~wn -/{At(. handsome headquarters, the PNP and the JLP ganglions occup~ " converted dwellings, with the Socialists distinctly the more architec­ t»,, -r"v y./"'" r turally important. ••••• they took him to the Party headquarters. They laid him in the Main Hall at 11 o'clock in the morning and the first of the phenomena of deep, intense, personal mourning by hundreds of thousands of his constituents, commenced. For six hours, the double line of people moved past the bier, in solid rows, quietly, corrpulsive except for the sobs and the occasonal(whispers as they saw the legend close up, within touch, unfenced by the pomp of office or the natural circumstance that once had walked with him. * The coffin was draped with the national flag but on one wall *Already being called Old Hardship because some gaunt-minded official had "explained" that the black in the colours represented "hardships overcome." was the emblem more associated with him than the seven-year-old national insignia: the Rising Sun banner of his Party. The shuffle of feet trapped in the ritual march, the slow flow of their passing in iambic cadence as they worked by the mahogany casket, the side-bent UWI L iba rie s 490. of heads, the puzzled verification in the eyes, in the peculiarly hurrying walkaway, knowing, but not believing, for awhile, that the giant had fallen, that the titan had died) so the Party made its farewell. They remembered him as he had been. He had a lean look and walked anchored, a sure, unhurried stride that gave the hint of a lope. He was too hard-angled to be elegant but he had a masculinity that spoke his style. He had a certainty, an absolutely capable man who tackled his problems with zest, with the will to resolve. He was un­ demonstrative, particularly in public, but those whom he liked spoke of a rare warmth. He had a deep, quiet love for children who responded by swarming him. While he avoided pretentious people, he could be afflictively humble where a creative accomplishment reached the excel­ lence he valued. He made great friends in the arts and saw the reality ~ in the endeavours of painters and pugilists, writers t,r weavers. He was gentler than most of his comradesf~xcept for Vernon Arnett whose lined, anxious face and quiet smile marked a dedicated man, one of the band of extraordinary people who gave up safe careers to serve the poorling Party from its founding)• Yet he could be roused to fury when he warned that if "we create a stronger and richer middle class and a section of privileged working-class aristocrats, the masses at the . bottom will generate a heat that will blow us all up one day." He roused the country's thinkers because he spoke of great dreams, but was pragmatist enough to declare that his concept of democracy was "what is possible and acceptable." When he launched the campaign for Self Government Now~,"had I been asked, in secret, I would have said (it will take) ten years at least." He was lawyer * enough to deal a roongus. * Jamaican for UWI L iba rie s 491. He knew it would be uphill all the way, but countryboy that he was, he reckoned that like the hillwomen of the rugged highlands, above Guanaboa, whose bodies would fall with quick ease into the bearing stance as they hoisted the bancra to the head cotta, we would lean into the line of our burden and climb with certainty. And he never was to lose his faith, and pridel in the people he had led so well. "He," the New York Times said in a twin-column obituary, "led his country to Independence." He had been out of power on Independence Day, but he had led to the gate and opened it; and so the world acknowledged. And so, today at Party headquarters, they thanked him for leading to the gate. (!) Early on Friday morning, a short cortege left through the East Street gate of the Sam Isaacs' establishment and proceeded westward to the Spanish Town Road. Motor cycle escorts and official cars preceded the hearse along the nearly empty roads but a few early work­ ers identified the procession for what it was, and saluted its passage. Some raised their fists in the 30-year old salute, first made popular by the young men of the Party left, and · needfully adopted by the Moderates, who would engage with awkward eye as they poked slowly alof t . {.You could fairly tell how far ~rom centre a comrade stood by the angle of his elbow and the boldness of the clemch. Full stretch meant a total commitment to the Left, and diminished as the_ angle of elbow UWI L iba rie s 492. increased; so the Rightists ended cupping an ear. A mischief some­ times appeared to be in the corner of his eye when N.W. performed . the bravado; but his own elbow was usually at the axis, so creating the exciting dynamic the Party would never lose, in victory or defeat. It was an exciting Party in victory or defeat.) Mandeville, the mountain capital of Manchester, his birth-parisll is high and green, and once the retirement town for old English colo­ nials. The town is a replica of any English hamlet, the village green at the centre, and around it are the appurtenances that tend their several affairs: the parish church, the courthouse, market, civic offices and shops. It is seven miles from Roxborough, his birthplace . They laid him in state in the parish church, a stately stone building in fine grounds. For four hours, again there was the elegiac gait of mourning folk who had come up to the mountain town. More than 10,000 would view the body before they closed the doors to prepare for the service celebrated by the Bishop, Swaby. And afterwards they took him to Porus. The boy Norman who had lived at Roxborough until he was seven, would have regarded Porus as his town. Old Sam Manley had his busines there and it was close to Roxborough by the Royal Flat road. It was to the new-built (1885) Methodist Church at Porus that Margaret Manle y had taken her son to be receiyed. So :Ln the warm, solicitous under­ standing that Shearer had taken directly at the passing of his Party' s chief rival, the cortege, at the PNP's request, paused on its way down the mountain at the nice village of I>orus, in the afternoon. UWI L iba rie s 493. Porus, ordinarily reposeful, was packed to the sidewalks of the long, straight main that is the village. It is red clay country, strikingly attractive in the contrast of green scape and red earth. It was named for the Porras brothers, the rebel siblings who had caused Columbus much grief on the coast, the time he was shipwrecked at Seville, St Ann, for a year in 1503. Porus had been chosen by N.W. years before (not unrelated to a nascent sentiment) for the first large community centre in his Jamaica Welfare programme. In these last days of his journeyings, he had never been nearer home, and his townsmen turned out to honour him. They were still passing the bier when the short twilight ended and the Reverend Ashley Smith began the service preceding the eulogy. UWI L iba rie s 494. CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE At 0900 hours, Saturday, September 6, the Army, in the precise syntax of the military, "accepted custody of the coffin." From then, until the body was interred, the Army was in charge of the obsequies. p ,,_ • I For that day and the next, as the body laid in state in the Kingston Parish Church, a Vigil would be kept by three Officers Watch, each of five officers, resting on swords reversed around the catafalque. The Watch would be changed at intervals of thirty minutes, slow-marching from the church hall across the ancient burial place through the South Door. The military preparations had begun the day he died. The hour ~ after the announcement, a signal sent from Army hq, the white blue-trimmed two-floored building north of the Polo grounds: all leaves were cancelled, men recalled, the Colour ung in mourning drapes, drums and black arm-bands issued. The cantonment was strange · ly still. The daily practice of the regimental bands ceased (except in preparation for the funeral.) Old Soldier Manley had called for his due, owed to him since the Somme and Ypres and a score of other encounters. The Command Post went to work on such logistics as transport for the several hundred men who would parade for the State Funeral, the order of procession, the funeral route and elapsed time (at the Slow March, the Jamaican Armed Forces march at 68-70 paces per minute), the posting of men for the Guard of Honour (of uniform height), a "ready" check of the saluting cannons (a battery of four 3-pounders firing 76 times at 50 second intervals, a gun for each of his years), choosing of the bearers (they would wear sp:?cial non-slip DMS boots, UWI L iba rie s 495. i.e., Directly Moulded Soles), every last detail down to early coffee in crmy talk, "gun-fire" coffee - for the men who on Saturday would . face the special reveille at 2.30 a.m., to march the route in rehearsa The burial site had been chosen. He would be interred along the Avenue of Heroes, in the shadow of the great Cenotaph cross, erec­ ted for a memorial to his war. He was already an authentic war hero. And soon the nation would accord him the highest honour ever bestowed. He would be named * a National Hero. On September 15, with Paul Bogle, Gordon, Garvey & Bustamante. 0 Sunday, September 7 had been declared a day of national mourn­ ing. (His Party decreed thirty days mourning for the Founder.) It dawned a clear day, good for travelling. Hundreds of thousands were glad it was a good day for travelling. Those in the western town ~ Savanna-la-mar, Lucea, Montego Bay, started their journeys in the dark of the morning. By bus and lorry, train and automobile, from the grea , PNP strongholds and the heart country of the west, from the rain slope of the east, and from the southern savannahs, all the land turned to the old stone church in the afternoon. The great swelling crowds filled the ... square encompassed by the four Parades>and flowed up the walls and roofs of the buildings about it. And there were those who could not cross the mountains.Jso they stayed at radio and televi_­ sion setsJand so it was all a participant land. It was careful pomp. A salute of Guards of Honour, and slow­ wheeling Colour parties, and stiff-faced young soldiers and polirerren, UWI L iba rie s 496. in full dress and chained helmets, caught up in the decision of their heritage that they should be witnesses of a notable departure. To mark the departure of an ancestor so tremendous, only a national grieving would do. The church filled as rapidly as the Square. The accommodation was limited to ticket holders and distribution largely on PNP decisicns. Years later it was the turn of the PNP government at Busta­ mante's death to play a similar role with equal grace. And it was an ingathering of political opponents so wide it was likenec only to the independence night; so, in his death, he had forged again. The casket was borne by soldiers of the Jamaica Defence Force in scarlet full dress tunics and re-entered the Kingston Parish church on Sunday at 1.45 p.m. by the great South door. The casket had been taken from the church earlier that day at the end of the final lying-i i state and was now returned for the funeral service, the lid closed, and the last of him seen. They draped it in the national colours, of black, green and gold; a cautious cloth, without flash or flaunt, sombre but bravely bearing the makers' promise to push beyond adversit} a banner in the creation of which he had shared: "gold, crossed on , greL and black triangles." He had liked it. "Very good," he had said of it that June of 1962. (!) Edna entered the church a few minutes before three, with Dougla~ - and Michael. Norman's sister, Muriel, the only one of Margaret's four children now left, and with Douglas' son Norman, Jr., Michael's son Joseph, and the beloved Rachel, Michael's daughter; followed quickly UWI L iba rie s 497. by Governor Sir Clifford Campbell and his wife. The service was according to Anglican rites but was an ecumeni­ cal gathering of clerics, including pastors of other flocks, Catholic prelates, Protestant electeds, and a Rabbi. It began with the priest~ in procession to the altar intoning the Sentences, those solemn pro­ nouncements of portent and comfort from the Book of Common Prayer. When the Sentences and Procession of clergy ended at the altar, the hymn I Vow To Thee My Country was sung and the Twenty-third Psalm chanted. At the high altar, glowing under its famed stained glass and tapers, the Bishop of Jamaica, John Swaby, C.B.E., the 64-year-old former Suffragan, had the service. In the chancel, among several others, sat the forthright Revd. Ashley Smith, the year's chairman of the Jamaica Christian Council, the group successfully striving for an ecumenical vision among the assorted denominations, Revd. Hugh Sherlock who would give the Remembrance, G.E. Allsop, the church's Rector, and Archbishop McEleney, the American Jesuit, once head of the Catholic church in Jamaica for whom N.W. had a special affection and who had come down from America for the funeral. Ashley Smith read the leasson from Revelation 21, verses one it was read b longtime Party colleague, Winston Jones, sat Mandevill:., it was about the "new Jerusalem." And used to there were hundreds in the church who remembered how heAtalk the new Jerusalem they would build in the new Jamaica, and had sung his brave songs about it as at Jamaica Welfare brought the new way to Guy's Hill, and Lucky Hill, arrd to the flatlands of South St Elizabeth , and the other places into which he had sent his shirtsleeved evangelis1 to work 3 9 in straw and clay, the indigenous options of a land without taught metal, alumina being still under the grass; and):ow to can good harvests UWI L iba rie s 498. against the lean years,and to disinherit the illiteracy the centuries of subjugation had willed nilly-nilly to a race. The family had chosen Methodist minister Hugh Sherlock, their closest ecclesiarch associate, to give the Remembrance; the hulking, calm, sincere man who had founded Boy's Town in Kingston (and whose daughter, Ann, had been N.W's research assistant on the book he had barely begun to write.) It was a warm, unpretentious testimonial to a man whose towering stature he could only compare to the "famous men" of the Apocrypha: "Let us now praise famous men and our fathers who begat us ... men renowned for their power,giving counsel by their understanding ... wise and eloquent in their instructions." Simple and undramatic though his delivery was, the Reverend Sherlock let ~eh drop a piece of information._.. students of the cousins' quarrelsome era received with a fluster. Bustamante, Sherlock said, had expressed A/•W• gratitude to I( Q "for keeping the Union together during his 'wartime incarceration' and for helping to secure was a last benison, after three decadesJ• and while his release." It ~Id it~ not meanf~ ... healing, it drew a response, a relief that the stridency and ill­ will did not go all the way in; and curiously heartened even the rabidly partisan ones, now that, chancedly, an appreciation had once passed between the twoj and, however lightly stipulated, was pintle of a kind. R.O.C.King, an Anglican priest and a twinkling man on the cheerful days, full of saws and stories, read the prayers for the dead and said the blessing, and the final hymn was sung.flt was sung with particular power; for this was Ninety-and-nine. It had become his rallying song, not for parading a religious bent, but for discom­ fiting his political foes with the notion that he was waiting inside UWI L iba rie s 499. "the gates of gold," to welcome Labour Party apostates to the PNP fold . He had not been an irreverent man, merely holding an imp that broke out at odd times. It had become his signature, the tune that hailed his appearance; and by the personal relationship which folk bear to heavenly matters, made possible the alliance of their own affairs with whatever Providence was planning.~fM ~ And so now, the rolling old air•••• ••■-/\.the building, -lak'ttN and was immediately •••Aby the multitude outside, and grew instantly into a song of power, and a mighty salute to the giant of their season . He had not been faultless; publicly shy, symbol more than person, un- til he stepped into perspective six days ago and shattered what had kept them from seeing him. They made of it what they could) A­ national grieving. The extraordinary outpouring of a whole peoplel 6efore the flower-banked altarf in the candlelight, priests, poets, farmers, merchants, politicians, plain and professional persons.°1hey sang the National Anthem and took him out to the gun carriage. The State Funeral is for grandeur; but what gave .... Manley's poignancy was the phenomenon of a personal farewell from people who hardly knew him. It is the prerogative of some specially gifted m~n. He had not grown old enough to be a monument, nor greyed in his mind by illness nor age to become unconsidered of his people in their daily duties. The casket that the eight military bearers now raised off the catalfaque contained a vote of reluctance from every Jamaican; fo r) whether partisan, they held for him that faculty which every politician strives to elicit of his constituents, J:requently vainly: plain old­ fashioned respect. And it was a curioui; and yet not unexpected happen­ ing, that outside the church, the casket was received by an explosion of applause as it emerged from the North door~ UWI L iba rie s 500. The applause was brief, swiftly over, but it had been there; ~ and even in the face of the portentlous sonorities of the Dead March c..../ from Saul, it was not a contradiction. They had come for miles to applaud him, and they did. He had been scattered among the towns, //J Mandeville, Porus, May Pen, Spanish Town, and the others between; " but there were other places that had net had the luck to hail him in the last journeyingf and now they did. At Temple Lan~by the Old Wolmers' Yard outside the church walls, a small group sang softly Land of My Birth, the evocative PNP anthem which many non-partisans held should have been given up by the Party and made into the National * Anthem. * Except that it would give little comfort to naturalised citizens. The words were by William Seivright and the music by the Jamaican tenor, Granville Campbell. As the young soldiers of the bearer party marched the slow, precise cadence, the coffin on their shoulders, the Guard of Honour was brought to the Present Arms by Lieutenant Colonel (now Major Gen- eral) Rudolph Green and the Regimental Colours were dipped in salute. The bearer party, wheeling slowly, lined up the casket with the gun carriage and slid it to the deck. At that moment came the report of the first of the 76 guns. "When the venture (the Jamaica _Banana Producers' Association) one chronicler wrote, fumbled," "he lent his legal talents to a salvage act that (turned) it into a limited liability company engrafted on (a) cooperative ... " * By an act of salvage, he had awakened his compatriots and with *Percy Miller, the Gleaner's Farm Editor and an early PNP card bearer. UWI L iba rie s 501. success engrafted the alternative-party system on a people who for 40 0 years had known no power but that of an imposed oligarchy. He had challenged their doubts; and suddenly, with gusto, the nation had tumbled into a voting democracy. In a society prone to the emotional pulLhe had done it without demagoguery. The Old Soldier was at home on gun carriages. These were artillery pieces and he had galloped them all over France, the great wheeled thunderers lumbering behind him, laying the long snouts, searching blindly for the Bosche. Or, caught in a sudden enemy as­ sault, dead-running for his life with the umbilical cannon pounding and rattling behind him. And now it would be his calm equipage of honour, rolling gently, not behind his team of enormous artillery mi ,,··htry v1.-l.le/t, dY/ Vt21V 61 ,t,. horses, but behind the.\ efficient Lance Corporal Z>l>tb~. * *Then he held N.W's old rank but eight years later, as Corporal, he would perform with the same quiet efficiency for another dead Hero, Sir Alexander Bustamante. The Guard of Honour returned to the Shoulder Arms and the Colour Party at a low-voiced command, fell out of the ranks. The escort companies took up positions front and rear of the cortege. The funeral procession would go east and north on the Parade, east into East Queen Street, north on Duke Street, through leafy old Manchester Square to the South Gate of tne National Heroes Park for the internment. The Marshals began arraying the procession. Edna, very composed, held Rachel's hand as they emtered the car that would take them, and Muriel, to the burial place. • . . • . .. . - - - .... ■ She carried a small UWI L iba rie s 50 2 . wreath of his favourite red roses. The male members of the family would go on foot. The procession began shortly after four. In front of the gun carriage were the massed bands and the First Escort of 360 men from the First Jamaica Regiment and the clergy. * Flanking the carriage were the twelve official pall bearers. And *Partymen Florizel Glasspole, David Coore, Wills O.Isaacs, Vernon Arnett, portworker Lucius Watson, NWU president Thossy Kelly, attor­ ney Leacroft Robinson, House Speaker E.C.L.Parkinson, commerce's Aaron Matalon, athlete Mal Spence, artist Albert Huie, PNP founder O. T. Fairclough. immediately behind the carriage, N.W's military medals were borne by army lieutenant G.E.H.Williams. Then came his sons, Douglas and Michael, and grandsons Norman Jr. and Joseph; units of the Coast Guard and military marshals; the official mourning party of the Governor­ General, Prime Minister Shearer and his Cabinet, High Court justices, senators, diplomats, privy councillors, members of parliaments and mayors; the Second Escort of 120 soldiers, PNP and NWU members, and the band of the Jamaica Constabulary leading the final escort of police. All the units marched with arms reversed. It was not of design, but of history, that this last day's journey lay through much of his own, and the country's political history. It was in South Parade that he had announced, in 1954, the self-governing constitution that marked the next important step away from Colonial tutelage. And in Duke Street had been centred both his had outgrown its old ribald ways and become by now careers, the law and politics. Duke Street~a handsome thoroughfare of new and Colonial-old buildings. The first office block signalling Kingston's high-rise step into the modern warrens was erected at the Barry Street corner, in the early 'Sixties; but several pillared UWI L iba rie s 503. turn-of-the-century lawyers' chambers still adorn its half-mile length from the sea to where it turns into Manchester Square and merges with the ring road about Heroes Park. The 18th century Head­ quarters House, once the townhouse of a rich merchant named Hibbert, built by slave lab.our on a wager between he and two others, like him­ self overburdened with wealth from the blood trade, is the oldest on the street, Later it had become the legislative chamber when the capital was moved to Kingston, and held so until the new chamber, named Gordon House for the National Hero, was built across from it. A few examples of the more modern Jamaica vernaculars, of jalousied fronts and arched hallways, linger on. Norman Manley had spent most of his life on Duke Street; he had practised from chambers on the downtown end for many years until he went further up the street "to take the case of the people.I "How wise a country (it) is that (allows) a good parliament, resting on a sensible public opinion, to exercise power!" {!) The street is further felicitous in its physical setting. As the cortege in the stately military march turned north into it, the mountains wheeled into view, sun-streaked' in the afternoon its several peaks climbing into the clouds. Up there, behind a shoulder, sat his lf44DJ beloved Nomdmi. Up there, on a neighbouring mountain, another giant A. * lay ailing. Nine years older than his ~ousin, Norman, they had been *Busta lived at Irish Town, high in the same mountain range. the unmatched ones in our been triumfs of the human '\ annals. Both, in their separate ways, had . . d ~, .. spirit over aver sities. ....__, One, the adver- sity of a rudimentary education; to pull himself out of obscurity and UWI L iba rie s 504. by sheer will, defeat the odds and become ruler of his country. The other, to turn his back on wealth and privilege, to jettison every ­ material possession, to put all his brilliance, passion and awesome skills, his whole self, at the disposal of his people. The saluting cannons made flat punctuations above the music. The columns rose and fell in the rhythm of the march, long blue and scarlet columns working their drill in the excellence he would have approved. Gun metal glinted in the sun. A banner raised by two women in the ten-deep crowd on the sidewalk, said, Good-bye, Great Man. And, insistently, underneath the cannons and drums, you heard the feet . The feet told their stories. The bold strike of the heels of the Escort Party, trained, crisp, disciplined, sixty-eight/seventy paces to the minute, rain or shine, and give away not an inch; knowing in the implanted clockwork in their minds when the head of the column would pass the high brick walls of the old convent, when the staffs of the drum-majors of the massed bands would go up for the turn into the aspects of the gracefully decaying Manchester Square, and enter the Avenue of Heroes, the very straight last few hundred yards to the burial place. "Loyalties are potent realities and the business of youth in­ volves a frequent and painful discard of tile outward and the outgrown. When the dead hand of Colonialism was l i fted, a freedom of spirit was. released and the desert flowered." UWI L iba rie s SOSA. And feet that told another story in the cautious weary shuffle : of the greying politicians and trade unionists, on the firing line since 1938 when the voices were first heard at the workplace. The men and women who had braved the brutalities of the master/servant system of joblessness that condemned you to hunger, and ultimately destroyed you as effectively as from the barrel of a gun. The old resolutions now softened on the faces because their part of the missio, had been accomplished. "But ladies and gentlemen, (remember those) early years when (as) young volunteers (you) were out six nights a week! Not seeking or even thinking about achieving power, but totally dedicated to changing the political structure of Jamaica! I had the privilege of leading (you) over the years. And I pay tribute to all the pioneers . . . to the fidelity and sincerity of their works!" And feet that told another story in the quiet procession of the Party women, whose hope for the nation of their children had been made to stand tall by this matrix of a New Jamaica, now borne on the carriage ahead. Celebrant at his own Mass. Token of his own completion. "I say that the mission of my generation was to win self­ government for Jamaica. To win political power which is the final power for the black masses of my country. From which I spring. I UWI L iba rie s 505B. am proud to stand here today and say to you who fought that fight with me ... Mission Accomplished~ CV And the feet told another story in the march of the younger ones, walking the old-new road that was end and commencement. They were a trifle too far back in the great procession that was taking the Old Warrior home, so their response to the cadence of drum and trumpet was quite personal, adjusting to the road and the measure of their company, and less pre-occupied with the beat of the drum. But it was certain that they would get there. The Old Warrior had believed in them. "And what is the mission of this generation that succeeds me? It is to be founded upon the work of those who went before. By the use of your political power {to tackle) the job of reconstruct­ ing the social and economic society and life of Jamaica." UWI L iba rie s 506. The gun carriage carried past the Jewish synagogue and the BITU building and compound on the right, the powerful rival union to his own NWU, founded out of Nineteen Thirty-eight. The political power of the Cousins had been founded on worker power. For good or ill, the principles of politics and organised labour, of guide and force, had been worked as one, by both men, in their country; and it had kept the principle of alternatives in governing, alive and active; as each of the antagonists had desired. Norman Manley had been a great trade unionist for he had understood the values and had saved the BITU from ruin when Bustamante was locked up. had been secured and preserved. The alternative The gun carriage rolled past the BITU headquarters in a quiet, decent respect from some who had been his bitterest political foes. One day in the Spring of 1938, very recently having himself accepted the job of reconstruction, the mission he was to accomplish in 1962, he had been questioning the wisdom of an expatriate colleague in breaking off a job that he, N.W., thought the man was greatly capable of. The office had demanded giving up a prior benefit, a shrinkage his friend found unacceptable. A little angry at the loss by his colleague's action, the job being crucial to the task of social rebuilding, Manley's insight seized upon a principle: that there were people born with a gift for sacrifice. "He has no gift for sacrifice," Manley had confided sadly of his friend. But such a gift was painfully present in himself. He had known UWI L iba rie s 507. SAVQ. that "the case of the country" would have borne no fees ~ the re- lentless hostility of those whom, in 1938, he had called "the real aliens in the land)" those who would not "accept that tt£mass of the population are the real people" with the prerogative to call the tune. Forty-six guns had gone. Now they neared the head of Duke Street. Thirty guns were left. Thirty years. He had given thirty years of his life to politics. "But what a wonderful thirty years it has been~" he exclaimed on his 75th birthday the year before. He had regretted none of them. "And I have long since known that when you have done your hones i best, it is senseless to repine, because you think history or God let you down." Now the Park was in sight. Manchester Square becomes very wide where it debouches into the ring road that soon would be known as National Heroes Circle. The long, upslope walk from the church was now on the final cant, would be over in a little while. Now the scarps of the Blue Mountains were clearer. Standing at the burial site, Edna, with Muriel and Rachel, watched the cortege approach; a quickly clenched hand, the tight jerk of her head, the gestures he had known and loved. Sixty years ago, in England, on a December day, . she had promised to be with him on those Jamaican mountains. "And I will ride with you over the Blue Mountains knowing that we fought the good fight." One Spring day when they were young, in 1939, she had thought of a day like this and had UWI L iba rie s 508. written a note to herself: away The shadow moved/through the gloom of the woods, soundless and without direction. Where there had been a nucleus of consciousness, there was now only eternity. What had been and what might always be. A single note of a bird and a leaf falling reluctantly down. Perhaps there is warmth somewhere and an end to roaming ... Perhaps death will not follow life in an endless succession of shadows ... He was being borne by a great concourse and the setting he would have understood. The subdued but massive weiight of the crowd was an assurance that public leaders took kindly to. They, he once said, "as Antaeus of old, draw strength from the earth, from the courage of the people, the feel of their hands and the sound of their feet, the roar in their throats and the love of their hearts." They were welcoming him now and the drums were losing J I authority to the unseen force of the crowd; aliens in the land in the presence of the people. The wheels ground into the gravel at the burial site and the last of the cannons acknowledged the end of his years. The bearer party, young, solemn, bareheaded soldiers, took the flag covered casket to their shoulders. "I did not cry when he died," said Edna Manley, "but when the young soldiers lifted the coffin, I think I broke inside." UWI L iba rie s 509. 9 He was of the brave men, the special men, who go out to meet the horses of the morning. Tall, dew-soaked chargers of clashing hooves and eye-flash, and a high cry for freedom. These men walk all squared front, and strong-legged, towards the horses, ascendant in mien and manner, in voice, and in understanding of the long night whose terrors the horses have faced alone. These special men walk afraid but unfearful into the morning to meet them, amidst the hooves and the wild torn cries of horses who know their assailability and are ashamed for it. These men turn and lead; and, for awhile, the tribe pays regard to reason. UWI L iba rie s !:i .L O • CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO Christian and Jewish burials require that the ground be con­ secrated. Heroes Park had never been consecrated; and so the priest8 and the Rabbi said their prayers over the open grave. The casket was rested on the webbing of the lowering device. Slowly it sank out of sight as the flag was lifted from it. The military buglers blew the Last Post and the Reveille, the evening and morning calls. With quit . dignity, Edna went forward and laid the first wreath, of the red ros , _ he had so loved. "And looking back over the years, I declare they have been great years. I have known all things in politics, the hard way. I am glad. I would not have chosen my way in life in any other way. I affirm of Jamaica that we are a great people. Out of the past of fire, and suffering, and neglect, the human spirit has survived; patient and strong, quick to anger, quick to forgive, lusty and vigo r · ous but with deep reserves of loyalty and love; and deep cape,ci :_y for steadiness under stress; and for joy in all the things thai:. make life good and blessed. Bless this dear land, and bless our people, now and forever more." 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