Empire Day

Great Britain's colonial administrators have had for 100 years the vexing and recurrent problem of the whites and blacks in Jamaica, her largest West Indian possession. Anticipating complete emancipation by seven years, Jamaica's slaves first rose in a quickly-crushed rebellion in 1831. Independent white planters, resentful of London interference, vehemently opposed the British Abolition of Slavery Act of 1833, kept the blacks in serfdom if not in slavery until 1865. That year they had the man's-size job of quelling a first-class black revolution in which 608 people were killed. Jamaica legend has it that some Negro participants in that revolt hid for years in the hills.

Intermittently since then the old Jamaica story of low pay and virtual serfdom, has cropped up. Early last month sugar plantation workers rioted, caused several days' disturbances. Last week economic discontent reached the general-strike and general-riot stage in the island's capital, Kingston.

Dock workers, earning 16-c- to 18-c- an hour, asked 25-c-. Bus drivers, earning $5 and $7.50 a week, asked $10. Bus conductors, earning $2 and $3 a week, struck for $6.25. Street cleaners with top salaries of $5.22, asked for $7.50.

Shipping was tied up. all transportation services stopped, refuse and litter piled up on Kingston's streets. Armed only with stones, angry mobs forced Chinese grocers to close their shops, shut down the city's electric light plants, intercepted food vans and distributed the loot to their own hungry, underfed supporters.

Representatives in Jamaica's Colonial Legislature empowered Captain-General* & Governor Sir Edward Brandis Denham to declare a state of emergency if necessary. Eighty British soldiers and 400 native policemen were mobilized; 100 local militiamen, 250 special constables were called out. The British cruiser Ajax, with 550 well-armed bluejackets, rushed to the scene from Bermuda. On Britain's Empire Day--May 24--police and mobs clashed. Three Negroes were killed, 30 persons went to the hospital, 70 labor leaders, including forceful chief Labor Leader Alexander Bustamante, were jailed. At week's end the dock workers' strike had been settled.

In London had appeared news dispatches from Editor William J. Makin, of the Jamaica Standard, formerly editor of Pearson's Weekly. Wrote Editor Makin: "Starvation and abject poverty stalk this land. . . ." To heated Laborites' inquiries about Jamaica's "horrible conditions" in Britain's House of Commons young Malcolm MacDonald, Secretary for the Colonies, answered: "I am not satisfied with the position in Jamaica and the West Indies generally."

*Old Spanish title still retained by Britain.

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