Culturally heterogeneous, economically underdeveloped, and often overcrowded, the Lesser Antilles are a unique microcosm of emerging small-island societies. As they are physically close but often psychologically remote from the other Americas, their recent rapid changes sometimes perplex observers. This book can serve as a guide to understanding many factors which created present conditions in the British Leewards and Windwards, currently fragmented into seven administrative units.
Carleen O’Loughlin is qualified to deal effectively with contemporary problems of the islands through a decade’s experience in the University of the West Indies, a post in the West Indies Federation, and her present role as an economic consultant in the U.N.’s FAO.
This study convincingly demonstrates that in a small area with fewer than a million people social, economic, and political changes are interdependent and must always be so treated. Indeed smallness is a basic factor in many regional problems. Small islands usually suffer most from hurricanes, eruptions, and land and sea erosion; and they possess scant soil and water resources, endure high per capita taxes and import costs, and have little chance to lift the curse of monoculture.
Island by island, Miss O’Loughlin analyzes the geographic, demographic, politico-historic, and economic distinctiveness of the Leewards, comparing this group, divided by three separate governments, to the Windwards, with four administrations. Diversities of culture are treated in less detail than economic and political variations, for a thorough study of history and society would require quite another volume. Among the hopeful signs which she sees are improvements in land and air transport, a general boom in tourism, and recent expansion of the banana industry, a unifying factor. Less bright are the decline of arrowroot, the old dilemma of sugar, and various marketing and industrial problems.
A demographic section sketches the region’s immigration patterns and the post-World War II emigration to Britain and its recent decline. The resulting perils of overpopulation require better land use and industrialization as counterbalances. Education varies greatly, but generally suffers from shortages of teachers, equipment, and technical training. The young University of the West Indies has made distinctive contributions along these lines. Health, housing, and the slow growth of native capital receive elementary but sound treatment. In the last section, the author surveys political functions— public finance, civil service, and the controversial grant-in-aid system initiated to move these islands toward more viable economies.
Non experts have been puzzled by the failure of the short-lived West Indies Federation, which collapsed in 1962. The larger excolonies, Jamaica and Trinidad, needed federalism before the 1950s, but their impressive economic expansion during that decade made individual independence more desirable. Their withdrawal and the failure of the smaller islands to unite with Barbados, ruined hopes for a workable joint nationhood in the Lesser Antilles. A stronger federal scheme, providing independent revenue, a customs union, and freedom of movement for citizens might have saved federalism. Of course, peoples emerging from the limitations of colonialism tend to reject a new “big” government controlling their destinies. The fiasco of federalism left the “Little Seven” on their own. In the present transitional era, their temporary solution of associated status with the United Kingdom at least avoids the stigma of colonialism.
To illustrate her interpretive study, the author includes pertinent tables on recent emigration, vital statistics, educational matters, production, tourism, and the extent and nature of government expenditures. There is also a selective bibliography and an index.