JNF-The-Working-Class-Struggle-of-Half-a-Century

of deaf ears so far as this territory was concerned. Nine years later another
commission came, the Lord Moyne Commission (1938). It was
the St. Kitts Workers League that took the field and wages a relentless
battle for land settlement in St. Kitts.
Labour’s Land Policy
The clash of interests between the large land owners and the working
masses was an obstacle to the introduction of land settlement in the island.
In its role as champion of the under-privileged, the St Kitts Workers
League launched a campaign in 1935 to help the great body of landless
people to gain a stake in their country. Its representatives made
representations to Sir John Maffey, Permanent Under the Secretary of
State for the Colonies, on his visit here in February 1936. In its memorandum
the League stated, It is our firm conviction that a Land Settlement
Scheme for this island whereby the growth of a sturdy peasantry
will be encouraged, will prove the means of bringing a measure of
economic independence to the Presidency, and of removing the masses
of our population who are the producing class of a community which is
essentially agricultural, from the existing condition almost amounting
to economic and industrial slavery. As far back as 1897, a Land Settlement
Scheme for this island was recommended by the Sir Henry
Norman Commission which visited the West Indies in that year... In
1929 similar recommendations were made by the Lord Oliver Commission.
Contrary to the views that may be held in some local quarters,
and even in the spite of them, we very strongly urge the view, for your
consideration, that no lasting solution of our economic, industrial, social
and even spiritual problems can be found unless the creation of a
class of peasant proprietors becomes the dominant feature of our program
for future development of the resources of the Presidency and island.
To give our working people a sense of property, values, and associated
as that sense is sure to be, by deeper one of civic responsibility,
will form a sure foundation upon which the future citizenship and
stability of our islands can be built.
But these worthy aims met stiff opposition. The large land
owners marshalled their forces under the umbrella of the St. Kitts Agri-
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