British Guiana: Causes of the Present Discontents
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206401900406 |
| Date | 01 December 1964 |
| Published date | 01 December 1964 |
| Author | Elisabeth Wallace |
| Subject Matter | Article |
British
Guiana:
Causes
of
the
Present
Discontents
Elisabeth
Wallace*
"Among
a
people
without
fellow-feeling,"
wrote
John
Stuart
Mill
a
century
ago,
"the
united
public
opinion,
necessary to
the
working
of
representative
government,
cannot
exist...
An
altogether
different
set
of
leaders
have
the
confidence
of
one
part
of
the
country
and
of
an-
other
...
Each
fears
more
injury
to
itself
from
the other
nationalities
than
from
the
common
arbiter,
the
state."
He
might
well
have
been
describing
the British
Guiana of
today
where
there
is
little
more
sense
of
community
among
the
East
Indian
majority
and
African minority
than
among
Greeks
and Turks
In
Cyprus.'
Yet
until
a
decade
ago
the
two
peoples,
like
the
Cypriots
of
the
pre-Makarios
era,
got
on
reasonably
well
together.
What
has
happened
to produce
a
situation
in
which
Indians
and
Africans
fear
and
distrust
each
other
so
much?
Geography,
economics,
and
history
all
help
to
provide
the
answer.
Although
Canadians
know
that
British
Guiana
is
in
South
America,
they tend to
think
of
it
as
part
of
the
West
Indies.
Yet
the
yearnings
of
its
people
for
their
own
"continental destiny"
appear
nowhere
more
clearly
than
in
their
insistence
that
they
are
not
West
Indians
and
their
refusal
to join
the
now
defunct
federation
of
the
West
Indies.
Few
think
of
describing
themselves
as
Guyanese,
instead
of
Indians,
Africans,
or
Portuguese,
2
and
especially
during
the past
three
years
there has
been
singularly little
indication
of
the
fellow-feeling on
which
nationhood
is
based.
II
Situated
just
north
of
the equator,
and
a
British
colony
since
1814,
the
country
is
almost
as
large
as
the
United
Kingdom,
but
ninety
per
cent
of
its
population
and
almost
all
its
cultivated
land
are
confined
to
a
narrow
coastal
strip
occupying
only
four per
cent
of
the
total
area.
The
savannah grasslands
of
the
interior
provide
meagre
grazing
for
cattle.
Four-fifths
of
British
Guiana
is
covered
by
dense
tropical
forests,
but
only
a
few
trees,
such
as
greenheart, purpleheart,
wallaba,
rnora,
*
Department
of
Political
Economy,
University
of
Toronto.
Of
the
600,000
Guyanese
almost
half
(47.8
per
cent) are East
Indians,
whose
forebears
went
there
as
indentured
labourers
on
the
sugar estates
after the
abolition
of
slavery
In
the eighteen-thirties.
One-third
(32.8
per cent)
are
Africans,
the
descendants
of
slaves
imported
by
the
Dutch
from
West
Africa
in
the
seventeenth
and
eighteenth
centuries.
The
remainder
of
the
population
is
made
up
of some
23,000
Amerindians,
who
mostly
live
in
the
interior,
and
small
numbers
of
Portuguese,
Chinese,
British, Canadians
and
Americans.
2
'They
still
appeal
to
themselves,"
wrote
the
West
Indian
novelist, John Hearne,
"in
terms
of
colour,
hair
texture,
religion,
or
of
...
foreign
heritage."
"British
Guiana
Staggers to
its
Destiny,"
West
Indian
Economist,
II
(Oct.,
1961),
12.
514
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
and
crabwood,
are
good
for
timber.
They
do
not,
as
in
Canada,
grow
in
large
stands
of
one
species,
but
are
widely
scattered,
one
specimen
often
being found
five
or
ten
miles
from
the
next.
There
are
also small
quan-
tities
of
coconuts,
manganese,
diamonds
and
gold.
The
Demerara
Bauxite
Company
(familiarly
known
as
Demba),
a
subsidiary
of
the
Aluminium
Company
of
Canada, has
for the
past
twenty-four
years
conducted
vast
operations
at
Mackenzie,
sixty
miles
inland
up
the
Demerara
river,
where
it
employs
some
3500
people.
3
Bauxite,
the
only
major
industry,
together
with
sugar
grown
on
the
coastal
strip,
account
for
about
seventy-five
per
cent
of
British
Guiana's
exports,
while
rice
provides
another
fifteen
per
cent.
Bauxite
is
a
modern
upstart
in
comparison
with
the
three-hundred-year-old
sugar
industry. Sugar
and
its
by-products
make
up
more
than
half
the
value
of
all
exports and support
more
people
per
acre
than
any
other
agricul-
tural
crop.
In
British
Guiana,
unlike
most
West
Indian
territories,
less
than
two
per
cent
of
the
cane is grown
by
independent
farmers,
as large
estates
are
far
more
economic in
a
land
where
expensive
drainage
and
irrigation
is
necessary.
The economy
presents
many
problems.
In this
predominantly
agri-
cultural
country
seventy-five
per
cent
of
the
food
consumed
is
imported.
The
coastal
area
is
four
feet
below
sea
level
and
all
fields
must
be
drained
and
in
the
dry
season
irrigated
by
a
five
thousand
mile
network
of
canals.
The
salt
water
is
only
kept
out
by
a
sea-wall
or
dyke
which
requires constant
repairs.
Necessary expenditures
for
this
purpose
and
for
drainage
and
irrigation are
extremely
costly,
especially
as
most
of
the
rainfall
has
to
be
pumped
off.
The
sea-wall's
possibilities
as
a
vast
bill-board
are
fully
exploited
during
the
periods of
political
unrest
which
have
become
almost
endemic.
In
recent
months
it
has
been
covered
with
such
slogans
as
"P.R.
or
no
P.R.,
Jagan
Must
Stay;"
"B.G.
Wants
Independence
Now;"
"Kill
to
Prevent
P.R.;"
"Guyana
must
be
Free;"
"P.R.
or
Death;"
and
even
"Partition
Now."
The
capital
city
of George-
town
is
largely
built
on
mud,
with
many
of
its
white
wooden houses
balanced
on
floating
rafts.
As
no
railways or
modern
roads
connect
the
inhabited
coastal
strip
with
the
interior,
inland
travel
is
mainly
by
river
boats
and
small
aircraft.
Not
one
road
runs
from British
Guiana
into
the
adjacent
states
of
Venezuela,
Brazil,
or
Dutch
Guiana.
The
soil
at
the
company
town of
Mackenzie
is
almost
as
infertile
as
a
desert.
A
half
inch
of
topsoil
covers
180
feet
of
sand
and
clay which
must
be
removed to
mine
the
bauxite.
There
is
a
thick
tropical growth
of
trees,
but
these
live
largely
on
the
mulch
created
by
their
own
fallen
leaves,
and
owing
to
lack
of
soil
reforestation
would
be
impossible
if
they
were
cut.
From
1946-60
the
population
almost
doubled
and
is continuing
to
increase
rapidly.
The
average
bnrth-rate
of
42.4
is
phenomenally
high
3
British Guiana
was
for
long
the
only
and
is
still
the
world's
third
largest
pro-
ducer
of
bauxite, ranking next
after
Jamaica
and
Surinam
(formerly Dutch
Guiana).
BRITISH
GUIANA:
CAUSES
OF
THE
PRESENT
DISCONTENTS
515
and
life
expectancy
is
rising.
The
death
rate
is
declining,
largely
owing
to improvements in
public
health,
although
such
diseases
as
yellow
fever,
malaria,
leprosy,
and
tuberculosis
have
not
been
wiped
out.
Unemployment
is
a
major
problem, especially
in
the urban
centres
of
Georgetown,
New
Amsterdam,
and
Mackenzie.
The
per
capita
income
of
about
$U.S.250
a
year
is
relatively
high
in
comparison
with
neigh-
bouring
countries,
but
has
recently
been
decreasing,
although
from
1948-
53
economic
growth
was
rapid.
The
riots,
fires,
looting,
and
strikes
of
the
past
few
years,
combined
with political
instability
and
remoteness
from
large
markets,
have
discouraged
new
businesses
from
entering
the
country,
while
some
of
those
already
established
have
left.
Yet
the
government
is
anxious both
to
diversify
agriculture
and
encourage
new
industries
which
are
offered
special
financial
aid
through
the
British
Guiana
Credit
Corporation.
The
Industrial
Development
Corporation,
established
in
1963
to
operate
public
enterprises,
is
also
charged
with
encouraging
private
investment.
It
undertakes
to
rent
well-equipped
buildings
and
industrial estates, assist
with
local
and export
marketing,
offer
training
programmes,
and
help
with
research.
The
government
is
publicly
committed
to
a
mixed
economy
in
which
private enterprise and
the
state
contribute
freely
to
social
and
economic
progress.
Dr.
Jagan
has
stated
that
public
corporations
will
not
be
launched
as
substitutes
for
or
competitors
with
existing
private
businesses,
and
that
his
goal
is
co-operation
between
the
public
and
private
sectors
of
the
economy.
Efforts
to
diversify
it
and
attract
new
industries
have
to
date made
little
headway
against the
drawbacks
mentioned
above.
The
govern-
ment's
desire
for
expansion
of
a
conspicuously
underdeveloped
country
is,
however,
quite
understandable.
More
industries
would
help
to
provide
badly-needed
work and a
living
standard
above
subsistence
level
for
its
people.
The economy
is
dominated
by
two
Leviathans,
"Demba"
bauxite
and
Booker
Brothers.
The
latter's
activities
are
far
more comprehensive,
ranging
from huge
sugar
and
rice
estates
to
manufacturing rum,
gin,
and
drugs, and
operating
shipping
and
insurance
companies,
cattle
ranches,
Georgetown's
leading
department
store,
and
a
local
taxi
service.
For
a
century
this
firm
has
overshadowed
all other
businesses
in
the
country,
and
there
are
those
who
allege
that
B.G.
stands
for
Bookers'
Guiana.
Bookers
owns
roughly
half
the
colony,
employs
about
25,000
people,
and
produces
about
thirty
per
cent
of
the
national
revenue,
in
contrast
with
twelve
per cent
produced
by
Demba.
Dr.
Jagan
is
given
to
attributing
his
country's
economic
ills
to
a
combination
of
British
imperialism
and
exploitation
by
foreign
com-
panies
such
as
Bookers
and
the
Canadian
and
American
bauxite
firms.
The
reputation
of Bookers
and
Demba,
however,
both
with
the
govern-
ment and
the
community
at
large,
has
improved
markedly during
the
past
decade,
as
the
result
of
strenuous
and
enlightened
efforts
by
their
managements.
They
are
now
usually
considered
good
employers
who
pay
respectable
wages
and
whose
genuine
interest
in
their
workers
is
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