A NEW DOMINION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXII, Issue 75, 25 March 1912, Page 7

A NEW DOMINION.

’!• i'. > !' THE WEST INDIAN COLONIES. ’/A proposal which is receiving wide support has been' made that the, .West Indies should combine to form a West Indian Dominion. They are the oldest colonies under’the Grown, and the present 'time is 1 opportune for the ■ realisation of such a'movement. The Hon. O. G. 'Mti.rrUy, the Administrator of St. Vincent, puts forward the scheme in order that the Wont Indies ait 1 a Whole can participate in the economic advantages of 'the Panama Canal. ' The Federation, it is proposed, shall consist of:—Trinidad and I Tobago, British Guiana, Barbados, Grenada, St. \dncent, St. Lucia, Dominica, Antigua ' (including, as a dependency, Mountserfat), St. Christopher, and Nevis (including’ as a dependency, the Virgin’lslands). i; The * population of these constituent parts of the proposed Dominion is over 1,000,000, or almost ’equal to that of A ictoria, 'and''the area over 100,000’ : sqhare miles, or half that of France.' Mr Murray omits ’Jamaica and the Bahamas. They are, of course,’ remote from" one another, as well as from ‘the' group'■of. colonies dealt with in his scheme, and he says : “Whatever nmy have been Jamaica’s, desire towards co-operation, the physical difficulty ( ? reated by a thousand miles of sea has so far made any such proposition impracticable.” UnderMr Murray’s scheme each Federal colony would preserve, its control and direction Vpf purely . local •affaivs hnd and though !their constituencies differ (in Barbados there is, for instance, a popularly‘ elected House of Assembly—the third oldest in the Empire—and a'• nominated Leg-' irslatiye Council; , in British Guiana” there is a partly elected Legislature), Mr Murray does not think it advisable to change them. The' proposed 1 ederal Council for the West Indies, it is suggested, should be mainly elected by and from the members of the various local Legislatures. The ex officio President would be the HiVh Commissioner, the other officers being Secretary for West Indian Affairs, and a legal advisor to the High Commissioner. Each Cbloiiy would retain its Governor. Apart from the important!change in the position of the islands which the opening of the Panama Canal is likely to bring about, there is another important reason why the West Indian colonies should federate. When the Royal Commission on Trade Relations between Canada and the West Indies was sitting, there were hoard, m tho different communities and in the press, constant complaints of impotence to act in matters essentially affecting tho" common welfare of the islands and British Guiana, ’owing to non-combination. The mworlessness for action of those colonies as long as they are disintegrated units has often been demonstrated, but never so clearly as when Canada recently Refused to negotiate reciprocity with, any individual colony hut only with tho colonies ns a whole. This attitude has turned opinion very strongly in favour of federation.