Af­ter the Ja­maican ref­er­en­dum on Ja­maica’s fu­ture in the West In­di­an Fed­er­a­tion on Sep­tem­ber 19, 1961, the re­gion­al uni­ty move­ment en­tered an ir­recov­er­able frac­ture phase. The Fri­day, March 27, rev­e­la­tions in Par­lia­ment by Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Sean Sobers, rep­re­sent­ed a con­tin­u­a­tion of this frac­tious be­hav­iour.

The Cari­com shenani­gans be­hind the reap­point­ment of Dr Car­la Bar­nett as Cari­com Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al con­firm that noth­ing much has changed in 65 years.

Right af­ter the Ja­maican ref­er­en­dum, the then Sec­re­tary of State for the Colonies, Iain Macleod, sent a se­cret minute to Prime Min­is­ter Harold Macmil­lan on Sep­tem­ber 22, 1961, in which he said, in part :

“1. The Ja­maican ref­er­en­dum has re­sult­ed in a de­feat for Man­ley on the Fed­er­a­tion is­sue. We ex­pect­ed and hoped for a nar­row but clear af­fir­ma­tive. The re­sult is a nar­row but clear neg­a­tive.

2. This is a most griev­ous blow to the Fed­er­al ide­al for which we and en­light­ened West In­di­an opin­ion have striv­en for so many years. It is cer­tain that the Fed­er­a­tion can­not con­tin­ue in its present form and must be doubt­ful whether it can sur­vive at all.

3. The de­ci­sion of Ja­maica to quit the Fed­er­a­tion must be tak­en as fi­nal…”

Hump­ty Dump­ty would nev­er be put back to­geth­er again, yet at­tempts were made.

In an Emer­gency, se­cret and per­son­al telegram on Sep­tem­ber 21 from the act­ing Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al of the West In­dies, Sir John Morde­cai, to the Colo­nial Sec­re­tary Macleod, the day be­fore Macleod wrote to his prime min­is­ter, the fol­low­ing was re­vealed:

“3. It is al­so rel­e­vant that Arthur Lewis, who is now in Trinidad and has seen both Prime Min­is­ter and Pre­mier, has been for­mal­ly ac­cept­ed by the for­mer as dol­lar-a-year rep­re­sen­ta­tive to work here for the next three months to ex­am­ine prospect of sal­vage pro­pos­als. It is a good sign that Williams, while still non-com­mit­tal, per­son­al­ly wel­comes this arrange­ment.”

The her­culean ef­forts of act­ing Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al of the West In­dies, Sir John Morde­cai, to han­dle the af­ter­math of the ref­er­en­dum dis­as­ter in the ab­sence of the sub­stan­tive Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al, Lord Hailes, who was on hol­i­day in Scot­land, must nev­er be for­got­ten. Hailes broke his va­ca­tion to meet Macleod in Lon­don and then re­turned to the of­fice on Oc­to­ber 17, 1961.

The fact that Lewis, then Prin­ci­pal of the UCWI, was re­cruit­ed by Sir Grant­ley Adams, Prime Min­is­ter of the West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion, with the con­cur­rence of the Pre­mier of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Dr Er­ic Williams, put the fed­er­al sal­vage mis­sion on a foot­ing that would lead to a ma­jor schism be­tween them.

The de­clas­si­fied Cab­i­net Min­utes of the Fed­er­al Cab­i­net meet­ing on Sep­tem­ber 22, 1961, re­veal that it was Lewis who ap­proached Adams on Sep­tem­ber 20, 1961, to “as­sist in any suit­able ca­pac­i­ty in the dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion cre­at­ed by the Ja­maica Ref­er­en­dum re­sults…”

The Colo­nial Of­fice con­vened an ur­gent meet­ing in Lon­don on Sep­tem­ber 26, 1961, with the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, at which Arthur Lewis was present.

Back in Trinidad, Dr Er­ic Williams held a press con­fer­ence on Oc­to­ber 8, 1961, where he con­firmed that he met Lewis be­fore he went to Eng­land for his Colo­nial Of­fice meet­ing. In­deed, in a se­cret and per­son­al note to Grant­ley Adams on No­vem­ber 9, 1961, Lewis re­vealed that he met four times with Williams (Sep­tem­ber 22, Oc­to­ber 6, No­vem­ber 3 and No­vem­ber 8). Lewis con­fessed that he was vague on what Williams’ true in­ten­tions were about the fu­ture of a fed­er­a­tion of nine mem­bers af­ter Ja­maica de­part­ed.

On the day af­ter Williams’ press con­fer­ence, there was a Cab­i­net reshuf­fle in the UK and Iain Macleod was re­placed at the Colo­nial Of­fice by Regi­nald Maudling.

In the cam­paign for the 1961 gen­er­al elec­tion in T&T, the fu­ture of the Fed­er­a­tion was min­imised. Af­ter Williams won on De­cem­ber 4, 1961, he met Er­rol Bar­row, who had al­so won his elec­tion the same day in Bar­ba­dos. That meet­ing in To­ba­go did not go well.

Lewis toured the oth­er eight fed­er­al ter­ri­to­ries be­fore re­port­ing to Adams on No­vem­ber 9. While on No­vem­ber 29, Ju­nior Colo­nial Of­fice Min­is­ter, Hugh Fras­er, telegraphed to Lord Hailes ex­press­ing un­cer­tain­ty about the UK Gov­ern­ment’s fed­er­al tac­tics.

The is­sue of hav­ing Lewis around for fu­ture dis­cus­sions had waned with both the Colo­nial Of­fice and Williams. By Jan­u­ary 2, 1962, Lewis wrote con­fi­den­tial­ly to Hugh Fras­er to say : “…let Trinidad go it alone, and es­tab­lish the oth­er is­lands as a fed­er­a­tion cen­tred on Bar­ba­dos…”

The schism was re­al. On Jan­u­ary 14, 1962, Williams an­nounced that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil had ap­proved a res­o­lu­tion call­ing for T&T to with­draw from the Fed­er­a­tion. The fi­nal rites were now per­formed. Min­is­ter Sobers’ state­ment two Fri­days ago in Par­lia­ment re­vealed noth­ing new. It was busi­ness as usu­al for Cari­com with or with­out T&T.

Pro­fes­sor Hamid Ghany is Pro­fes­sor of Con­sti­tu­tion­al Af­fairs and Par­lia­men­tary Stud­ies at The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI). He was al­so ap­point­ed an Hon­orary Pro­fes­sor of The UWI up­on his re­tire­ment in Oc­to­ber 2021. He con­tin­ues his re­search and pub­li­ca­tions and al­so does some teach­ing at The UWI.