The Politics of the 1960s

THERE HAD BEEN a long struggle to move to Adult Suffrage where each person, man or woman who reached the age of 21 was entitled to vote, as opposed to the period before where ownership of land or possession of wealth of a certain value gave you that right.

The disturbances of the 1930s that rocked the Caribbean and awoke the attention of the British authorities helped to reset the political agenda. The Eight Army of Liberation, so called, that excited the colony by putting in the Legislature leaders steeped in Unionism sent a signal. In 1951 Planter O W Forde had warned other planters that Trade Unions were here to stay. But what appeared a golden path for the Trade Unions did not go as smoothly as was hoped.

The split of the Eight Army into the Big and Small Four also broke Union solidarity since Joshua had formed his Federated Industrial and Agricultural Workers Union that won over members of the United Workers and Rate Payers Union and continued to exist for some time. One thing that stands out about the 1960s was the number of party defections. In 1954 there was only one party in existence, that of Ebenezer Joshua, his newly formed Peoples Political Party. Others, including new faces ran as independents. This included George Charles and George McIntosh. New faces included Maurice Browne and Leopold Martin in Central Windward, William Falby and Alban Radix in South Windward and Conrod Forbes and Wilbert Phillips in St. George.

The only new parties to have emerged were the Labour Party in 1955 and the Peoples Liberal Movement that contested in 1957. Milton Cato who had fought with the Canadian Army during the Second World War returned to St. Vincent on Christmas morning 1948. He had been called to the Bar of Middle Temple in England in absentia, and to the Barbados Bar on December 17, 1948. His brother was a doctor in Barbados and a close associate of Prime Minister Grantley Adams.

Cato had a brief flirtation with the Eight Army, and it was hoped that he would have contested in North Windward. Nothing came of that, and Ebenezer Joshua went there instead.

The Labour Party did not perform too well in his first attempt at the polls.

Latham who had won the bye-election for the seat vacated by Evans Morgan in South Windward won that seat in 1957 for the Labour Party. Afflix Haynes who in 1954 ran as an independent was able in 1957 to win the St. George seat for the PPP. Stinson Campbell won the Kingstown seat for Joshua in 1957. Milton Cato secured victory in 1961, while Hudson Tannis suffered defeat at the hands of Alpheaus in Kingstown.