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

that the wave of sound statesmanship and patriotic zeal which swept the
Caribbean eight years earlier should now also provide some source
from which the trade union leadership would be drawn.
The second mass meeting was held on 8 th February 1940. The
draft rules were presented, discussed and finally adopted. Election of
the first officers and executive committee was carried out. The choice
of trade union leaders could be no problem, no mystery, no surprise.
Could there be any better selection for the guidance and protection of
the new organization than from the people who had been instrumental
in bringing it into existence? In high spirits, the huge gathering elected
the leaders of the St. Kitts-Nevis Trades and Labour Union from
among the armour bearers of the St. Kitts Workers League. The first
Union President was Mr. Edgar Challenger who was Vice-President of
the League.
A strong sense of loyalty to the common cause had directed the
masses in 1937 to return the League’s candidates in the first general
election. This abiding faith had moved the working population in 1932
to choose their political vanguard from stalwarts who were true and
tried by tests of economic severity. Before that the people had been
looking and longing for leadership from unselfish, dedicated men and
women.
The same cannot be said of neighboring islands in the Caribbean.
The delegates at the Dominica Conference of 1932 and other early
political leaders in the West Indies had a serious task before them. This
mainly involved the wrestling of political concessions from the hands of
the British Colonial Office. They did the job well but that very fact later
produced a demand for trade union leadership – a demand which
they did not completely fulfill. Many of the earlier political organizations
which paved the way had declined with the passage to time. Their
captains were not seen at the helm of militant trade unions at the time
when the movement most needed the force of courage and experience
from the inside. Even the once powerful Workingmen’s Organisations
of Grenada and Trinidad, led respectively by the illustrious T. Albert
Marryshow and the veteran Captain Arthur Cipriani, did not merge their
dynamic power with the Trade Unions of their countrymen. In our own
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