The Moyne Commission

The Moyne Commission was established on the date of August 3rd 1938 and it came to an end on February 20th 1939. The Commission was led by Lord Moyne (formerly known as Walter Edward Guinness) The Commission was launched because of the disturbances throughout the 1930s in the British Territories of the Caribbean between two local populations that caused it and its purpose was to carry out inspections of the social and economic conditions in various territories such as our very own Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago and the Leeward as well as windward Islands. The commission was launched by Lord Moyne formerly known as Walter Guinness and he was joined by some of the greatest minds in the world in their fields. The likes of Dr. Mary Blackloch who was an expert in tropical medicine, Hubert Hudson who was an economist and Dame Rachel Crowdy, an eminent social reformer. The Moyne Commission was created under immense pressure from the middle class representatives of the region for the kind of constitutional reform that would satisfy their class designs for social and political mobility according to (Cynthia-Barrow Giles,p.79) the commission sought for not a responsible government but a more representative government for countries. It was recommended by the commission to extend because the adult suffrage was insurmountably high. However, it failed to lower the power of the native governors who were in authority of the executive in the colonies.

       After close observation, as a student of Politics I strongly believe that the Moyne Commission was absolutely not a waste of time because even though it may not have achieved all the things it intended to, however it made a great impact and accomplished things people never saw possible. I believe the Moyne Commission was not a waste of time because in its writing, it had genuine concerns for critical problems, it made needed recommendations to improve conditions and the commission made remarkable changes which we enjoy today to not only British territories, but throughout the Caribbean.

To begin with, the commission’s concerns for critical, outstanding issues in society was inspiring. They sought to make changes where these were concerned and in some areas succeeded. In their report they targeted areas like the colonial policy as they made sharp criticisms on it, they also exposed the horrible conditions in which the masses had to bare. Some of these horrible conditions included health. The people of the British Caribbean at that time did not get to enjoy benefits we do now in terms of health which was unfair moreover, diseases were easier to contract because people weren’t given opportunity to receive medical attention. Can you imagine how easy it would’ve been to get deadly diseases in modern day society like the Zika virus or Ebola back then? Health conditions being poor also resulted in a very high infant mortality rate in which several infants under one year of age died most likely due to contracting virus’ going around because the immune systems of infants that age isn’t strong enough to fight off diseases. The Moyne Commission also targeted the education system’s frailty and was especially serious about the dangerous situations sugar workers were put in and unsafe conditions at workplaces. Child labor was also a high concern and as they believed it was cruel and uncalled for; the discrimination against women at workplaces was also spoken about in the report because it was believed women deserve just as much respect as men got because of the fact they worked equal hours and for very unfair reasons got less pay than men received and the “higher-ups” were called out as “feminists”. All concerns were listed in the report with a goal to improve them and make people happy.