The Washington times. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1902-1939, 1923-02-14
BRITAIN PLANS
CARIBBEAN
STATE
Bill in Parliament to Give Do
minion Status to Island
Possessions.
By KATHERINE HUGHES

Possessions.
By KATHERINE HUGHES
The consolidation of the British
west Indies into a dominion is
Delng arranged by the British gov
eminent, it was learned here today.
Visions Of the daShing Morgan
and his brother buccaneers of the
West Indian seas are to be driven
into the shades of the past. Trini-
dad and ST.. Kits run may have
to be relegated to oblivion with
the buccaneers, and these United
States with a monarchicaf donin-
ion to the north is now to have
cut-and-dried twentieth-century
monarchical dominion lying across
the eastern door.
Bill Before Parliament. !
The bill for the consolidation of
the British West, indies into a
dominion Of the British Empire, and
which is about to be introduced at
the present session, of the British
parliament, is the outcome of a
sequence of steps, taken by the
British authorities since 1918. -,
After the armistice in that year,
when question of the foreign debts
sAA NSCs w N1C<AuOO-ILCH
q member Of the Administration at
Washington-sugges that the ces-
ston Of British and French territory
In the vicinity OF the United States
differed an easy way for France
and Britain to meet the payments
over which Europe was beginning
to growl.
; Immediately after this statement,
which was given considerable pub!
licity, there was much discussion
IN Great Britain. concerning colo
NAL territories in these waters. In
a contribution about this time to
the Nineteenth Century Review and.
after Sir Samuel Hears, who had
been a member Of the colonial Of.
flee staff for years, made a frank
complete and doubtless inspired
analysis of conditions in the West
indies, which he aptly termed the
pAmerican Levant."
Mission Investigates
He pointed out Britain's eco
nomic and political need of consoli-
dating these islands and giving
them some definite status; otherwise,
he held, they would be drawn by
economic currents into the United
States and absorbed by us.
The matter took on such import
ance in the eyes of the British
government that a mission under
Col Henry Wood, was sent from
London to the West Indies to re-
port on conditions. Among those
detailed for the new task of en-
pire-building was the present first
lord Of the admiralty, Col. L. c. S.
Amery, who visited the Canadian
capital at the same time. There
was not a little need of amicabIe
adjustment between Canada and the
West Indies at the time, for the I
latter, reacting to worldwide cur
rents Of indeDendeht tl1nght and
action as well as with regard to |
their individual trade needs, were /
disclined to make the exact type CT
preferential within the Empire" /
trade agreements wanted by Canada. |
The matter, was finally threshed !
out at the last imperial conference
of Great Britain with her dominions
and dependencies when Sir Robert
Borden and his finance minister,
Sir George Foster, presented Can /
ada's complaints in the matter.
Winston Churchill, the colonial Sec
rotary then presiding, assured the
Canadian representatives that the
government of Great Britain would
attend to the matter and bring
Dominion Is Solution.
The proposed dominion status of
this American Levaut is evidently
the solution of the problem ad-
vanced by the empire builders, and
foreshadowed in the speech of the
youthful Prince Of Wales in his
Wait tn the West Indies. He then
assured his hearers that Great Brit
ain would never, never barter away
any British citizens-least of all
these beloved subjects of the West
Indies. The statement was OBJ
yiOusly intended to soothe his future
subjects fears or to still their
hopes of the wide arms of the
American giant imagined on the
horizon.
With Albert Sarraut, the colo
NAL minister of France, making the
grand tour of Frances colonial pos
sessions off the American coast
Martinique, ST. Pierre. Miquelon
and the rest-telIing them that they
are a part of the Utmost being of
France and never. never will France
part with them, it would seem that
alluring visions of the deep-pursed
American giant are disturbing the
imagination of these virgin lands
also.
French possessions on this side
of the Atlantic are small in COM
parison with Britain -but 1t may
be that French territorial consol-
idation in the Caribbean is being
considered.
~saI AAa-,1r~ N4n~.a