Viewing page 9 of 19

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

150,000 children were assigned to European farms. This is merely one of the many examples of the forced juvenile and child labour which makes the Empire what it is.

These facts should serve to remind the white workers of England that they have a great obligation toward the colonial peoples in supporting their struggles for freedom from the yoke of British imperialism.

"Negro Worker" Banned by Imperialists[[/boxed headline]]
By A. R. (Trinidad).

Governor Hollis, the Mussolini of Trinidad, in his effort to discourage and suppress the organization of Trade Unions in the British West Indies, has by an order in Council under the Seditious Publication Law, an ordinance enacted during the last imperialist war prohibited the importation and circulation of The NEGRO WORKER, the official organ of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers.

The "Negro Worker" deals with the problems confronting the working class and the black toilers particularly in the struggle against starvation, imperialist war and capitalist robbery, looting and oppression of the colonial masses.

Trinidad is one of the largest colonies of British imperialism in the West Indies. It is a few miles off the coast of Venezuela, South America. Like most of the West Indies islands it has suffered from a chronic economic crisis, now tremendously intensified by the world economic crisis of capitalism.

There is a great deal of discontent and unrest in the island owing to the crisis in the sugar, oil, and cocoa industries, where thousands of workers have been unemployed during the last eighteen months. During the present sugar crop, the sugar estates, most of which are owned by British capitalists, are employing children at wages between five and seven and a half pence per day, instead of the adult worker which they used to employ at wages between 1/6 and 2/- per day. 

Unemployment has grown by leaps and bounds. Suffering is widespread. While the British Government has been forced to pay an insignificant dole to unemployed workers in England, the dole is denied to the colonial masses in this island. Destitute workers crowd the streets, begging charity from the diminishing tourist trade. Every night hundreds of homeless workers can be found sleeping on the sidewalks. Suicides of unemployed workers and ruined peasants are greatly on the increase. Prostitution is rife, as hundreds of working class girls are forced to sell their bodies for the price of a meal. Foreclosures of peasant holdings and the sale of homes for back taxes are daily announced in the capitalist press. 

There is an agitation for freedom and Federation. The British Labour Party, had promised self government to these islands, but when it came into power and was asked to fulfil its promise, instead of redeeming its pledge, appointed a Commission which is expected to leave England some time this autumn to merely enquire into the advisibility of Federation. 

The Trinidad Working Men's Association, the leaders of which have been fooled by all kind of promises by the British reformist labor politicians like J. H. Thomas, Lord Passfield, Arthur Henderson, in order to get their support, are beginning to realize that the Labour Party, despite its name "labour" is as imperialistic as the Tories and will never support the struggles of the colonial

14

peoples for self-determination. The Association is the only workers' movement in Trinidad. 

The "NEGRO WORKER" which has a wide circulation in the West Indies, is the only working class paper which exposes the exploitation and oppression of the masses, and its suppression is intended to isolate the struggles of the West Indian workers and peasants and to prevent advanced political ideas from penetrating in these islands. But Governor Hollis and his masters at the Colonial Office must realize that it is as impossible to prevent revolutionary ideas penetrating in to the colonies, at it was futile when the proverbial King Canute sat on the beach and attempted to prevent the waves coming in.

Down With British Imperialism!
Long Live The Free Federated West Indies!
Long Live the "NEGRO WORKER"!

[[image]]
[[caption]]Native cutting sugar cane on a British plantation in Trinidad at 1/6 per day from sunrise to sunset]]

---Colonial Dictators---
The answer given by Sir Phillip Cundiffe Lister, Secretary of State for the Colonies, in the House of Commons on June 1st to the question why the "Negro Worker" was banned from Trinidad is of tremendous political importance as it shows to the colonial peoples that Crown Colony Governors are officially vested with the power of absolute dictators.

The Secretary of State, in reply to Mr. Wallhead (I.L.P., Merthyr-Tydfil) said that the action of the Governor in Trinidad was a matter within the Governor's discretion, and there was no reason to question the propriety of his action.

Mr. Maxton then asked why the Governor of that colony was being allowed 
15