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by the Church to work hard, and be obedient to their exploiters, have faith in the Christian God and food will always be guaranteed them.  But now things have come to the worst and this is arousing the Negro slaves.  That is why their religious dope peddlers are doing their best to divert this growing revolutionary spirit among the masses into safe channels, by holding  out promises of Government relief to them.

These Church people are forced to admit that there is squalor and degradation among the great majority of the labouring classes, their food is insufficient in quantity and quality. Considering the nature of the work they have to do, a great proportion of these people of all ages and both sexes are suffering from malnutrition; in the country districts, for the most part there are no sanitary conveniences, this applies universally to all villages.  Diseases prevail which are preventable and curable and are sapping the energy and life of the population.

The same conditions which exist in the British colonies also prevail in the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, where agriculture is the main occupation of the populations.  All of the large sugar cane plantations are owned by French companies which make great profits by robbing the Negro workers.
  The conditions which prevail in the Virgin Islands of the United States are most appaling.  The Negro workers hardly get more than two days work per week for which they receive an average wage of 35 to 50 cents.  Poverty exists everywhere and is taking its toll among the children of the poor.

3. Forced Labour

Forced labour also exists in the West Indies.  Whenever there is a shortage of labour for public works, the Governments of the various colonies especially in Haiti, conscript or force the natives to do the work. Nearly all of the public roads have been constructed by forced labour gangs under the military supervision of United States Marines.  In the British Islands all forms of repressive legislation, such as vagrancy laws, are enacted in order to enable the imperialist rulers to find an excuse to force the Negroes to work.  Workers and peasants are arrested on all kinds of frame-up charges, thrown into prison and there assigned to chain gangs and made to build roads and other forms of public works.

According to the latest reports, the situation has become so deplorable in the British colonies that the "Labour" Government, in order to avoid the general uprising of the toiling population, has been forced to appropriate a small sum of money to help the populations in Trinidad, Jamaica and British Guinea.

4. What must be done?

The workers and peasants in the West Indies must build up a real revolutionary trade union movement.  For example in Trinidad where the labour movement has reached the most advanced stage, the left wing opposition to the reformists misleaders, (Cipriani and Bishop who presently contorl the Working Men's Association) should immediatly begin a wide campaign among the rank and file in the various unions, as well as the unorganized on the basis of concrete everyday demands which should be linked up with the ultimate demands of the class interests, to win the masses away from the reformists and develop the left wing movement.

Rank and file committees should be set up inside and outside the unions.  These comittees must take the initiative in putting forward the demands of the 

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[[caption]] Group of Delegates in attendance at the First International Conference of Negro Workers - Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 8, 1930 [[/caption]]