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

istrate came to the conclusion that the complainant had not finished her
work and did not deserve the payment of her wages and also ordered
her to pay twenty one shillings (21s.) costs. It was easy to see that in
the prevailing atmosphere it was the order of the day to keep the working
people circumscribed.
Education Policy
Education of the masses was commonly acknowledged to be a vital
need of the country. Social and economic conditions had long been at
very poor. It was the responsibility of the Government of the day to
take the initiative in the spreading of popular education but this was far
from being the case. At a meeting of the Federal Legislative Council on
24 th April, 1928, the Governor of the Leeward Islands, Sir Eustace
Fiennes, declared his policy on education in the course of an address.
He said, I do not believe in over-educating the working class. It is the
greatest mistake to educate them out of their station. It simply fills their
minds with inflated ideas.
The contrast between the policy of 1928 and that of 1968 is
striking. Presently our state is spending nearly one and a half million
dollars on education out of its total revenue of nine million dollars. The
road block to education which was put down by way of an official policy
forty years earlier has now been destroyed. We have entered an avenue
leading to wide, free and fuller education of the masses. Other obstacles
were numerous but these have been securely swept aside in the
militant march of progress.
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