UNLIKE the circumspect JAG Smith and Sir Harold Allan, who worried about the education level of the masses in promoting Adult Suffrage, Norman Manley was clear.

At the launch of the People’s National Party in 1938 at Ward Theatre, he faced the question of franchise squarely:

“There can only be one sensible system and that is to give the vote to all adults of the country.”

Manley, called ‘Father of the Nation’ by his comrades, led Jamaica to its greatest period of economic growth during his first administration from 1955 to 1959, which coincided with the death of his great friend and irreplaceable finance minister, Noel ‘Crab’ Nethersole.

In hindsight, his compass gone, he never recovered from Nethersole’s death and history now confirms that, thereafter, his most productive years were behind him. His second stint from 1959-1962 with Vernon Arnett at finance saw him enmeshed in the distractive federal enterprise which sapped his mental capacity to the fullest.

Federation, Referendum and Destiny

Ultimately, he did not live to see his ideas on the proposed federal structure incorporated into an economic union of West Indian states. But always a man ahead of his time, he would have predicted the inexorable certainty of the Treaty of Chaguaramas in 1973 and the formation of CARICOM. In an ironic twist of fate, Alexander Bustamante, who had belittled Manley’s early nationalist ideas of “building a new Jamaica” on the basis of self-governance and full independence, would now lead Jamaica into an unfamiliar dispensation without the benefit of perception, vision and intrinsic authorship.

Addressing the House of Representatives in 1953, Busta confirmed in unmistakable language, his support for the very process that he would later abandon for the straight political road. He pledged:

“…to work towards self-government in Jamaica with a view to achieving federation in the British Caribbean area and Dominion status within the framework of the British Commonwealth of Nations.”

Manley himself sums up Busta’s position on the issue:

“He opposed self-government till he could see clearly the inevitability of Independence.

We shared in the formation of Federation. And then we split on the very issue.”

Trevor Munroe and Arnold Bertram, in Adult Suffrage and Political Administrations, also enjoin the point in stating that as late as 1959-1962 Busta was still opposed to Independence:

“Even in this period, Bustamante still mentioned that political independence for Jamaica was viable neither on its own, nor in a Federation with the other West Indian territories. As far as he was concerned, the perpetuation of colonial rule was a far better prospect for Jamaica than being yoked with the pauperized territories of the Eastern Caribbean.”

Norman Manley did not feel betrayed by Bustamante’s wavering positions. Apart from the politics of the issue, he saw more clearly than his contemporaries the impending economic challenges of small nations, to pool resources and delimit their capacity in order to meet the inequitable assault of inter-national finance, neocolonialism and the coming threats of globalisation.

In his column, ‘Root of the Matter’, excerpted from the Public Opinion newspaper of April 16, 1965, Michael Manley provides clear justification for his father’s federal vision:

“…the case for Federation is complete and unanswerable. It will create for our infant industries the priceless advantage of larger markets. It will make possible degrees of regional specification which are unthinkable in the present situation where minute sections of land with, perhaps sixty or seventy thousand people, must somehow contrive to fend for themselves in a harshly competitive world… It will give to the West Indies, collectively a voice and a status in the diverse councils of the world, far greater

than that enjoyed by the several units”.

Interestingly, as early as 1929, Marcus Garvey pronounced his support for the federal idea:

“We venture to assert that Federation of the West Indies is the only reasonable vision…

We cannot contemplate… a ridiculous policy of disintegration of a people belonging to a single race with a single history and with a common outlook, instead of… welding together the scattered elements into a single whole… by pooling our products we would be able to muster a great variety and quantity of products and supply to the outsider.

Federation to us means co-operation rather than interchange.”

Norman Manley’s embrace of the idea of a West Indies Federation was never personal.

He had spent many difficult years nurturing his people on the path of nationalism but he sought to walk the tight rope of political independence within a federal structure, to better reconcile his nation’s well-being with the external economic currents, even if he had to walk alone. The masses, long suspicious of their Caribbean neighbours, would not take the unknown journey with him. Having felt the impulses of the people for the simpler insular path, he could have made an unprincipled political decision to go into Independence as prime minister. But his legendary integrity and conscience demanded otherwise and he paid a cruel price at the polls.

With his defeat in the 1961 Referendum on Federation and the follow-up general election urged by the British, which he was not compelled to call, he never realised his dream of a Federation of West Indian States.

In his book Caribbean Leaders, the eminent Gleaner editor, Theodore Sealy, a personal friend of the two leaders and a major commentator on the life and times of both men, who also travelled with them to the London Independence Conference, provides us with an authentic insight into Manley’s essential character which influenced his thinking on the issue:

“Norman Manley was in every sense a great man. His faults lay in his very virtues – his righteous sense of consistency; a commitment to principle even when in political terms the practical course was sharply different on the nation’s compass.”

Independence and Denial

There would be great consolation however, as the final victory would be self-government and full independence that he had fought for throughout his political career.

Though denied the laurel wreath by the ungrateful curve of politics, he accepted his fate and that of his party with stoic clarity:

“History decreed that we should lead the people to the brink of the river but not lead across… History gave us the role to create the modern Jamaica that has become a nation… Let no man quarrel with history.”

Looking back, Manley lays bare the democratic impulses guiding him on the Referendum issue and the

call for General Election with the historically pertinent questions:

“Why did I decide on the Referendum? Why did I so totally commit myself and the party to its results? Why did I not leave this smallest loophole for escape back to the old road, if the Referendum failed?”

His answer parallels the tragic nobility of Sir Thomas Moore’s uncompromising devotion to principle:

“Standing on this side of the event and looking back, if I then had the knowledge I would still have decided to hold the Referendum because it was the right thing to do, whatever the outcome. One act of democracy in practice on a crucial occasion is worth a thousand protestations of democracy.”

He would also summon his patriotic impulses to proclaim with pride:

“I thank God I have lived to see twenty-four years of work… crowned with the achievement of independence… I look back on the long years of struggle… I remember the sacrifices they made. I remember the mockery they endured… I remember how some of them, nameless today and unsung, gave their lives that Jamaica might throw off 300 years of colonial bondage, might lift up their hearts to aspire to all that independence means and freedom for a people.”

Norman Manley’s Last Days — Dreaming with a Hero

On Norman Manley’s arrival at political meetings, the comrades would immediately burst into one verse of his favourite hymns:

“There were ninety and nine that safely lay

In the shelter of the fold:

But one was out on the hills away,

Far off from the gates of gold,

Away on the mountain wild and bare,

Away from the tender shepherd’s care…”

But his time was fast shortening and soon the comrades would greet his coming in song no more. With his son Michael succeeding him and looking the part, he could rest easier and prepare for the final journey. Once possessed of steely sinews now totally gone, it was good that the formidable horseman of long ago could spend most of his last days at Nomdmi, his cottage refuge in the high mountains, away from the cut and thrust of unkind public life. Looking out through the tall pines and down the winding valleys, with darkening eyes, he was at peace with himself.

In the solemn solitude of nature’s glory, he saw through the prism of decades past, faint images of Thomas Manley, his courthouse-loving father whose lawsuits took his family to financial ruin and who eventually passed on when he was only six years old. Moving on, he dwelt for some time with the blessed memory of his widowed mother, Margaret, labouring over her brood in survival days at Roxborough, his first home in Manchester, which was eventually sold.

But he sought not to be detained by such unpleasantness, quickly remembering the happy, carefree days that came after at Belmont, his mother’s unpretentious family estate, nestled in the hills of unsullied, rustic Guanaboa Vale, St Catherine.

He smiled wryly as he recalled that it was there that he first met twenty-year-old Bustamante, then known as Aleck Clarke, his cousin. His smile became more pronounced as he saw through time, his elder, restless, gregarious cousin winning the villagers at draughts and showing off his expertise at breaking horses. And then cousin Aleck was gone, leaving on one of his many adventures abroad.

With the sun rising to eclipse the grandeur of the majestic, swaying pines and the supporting cedar on the high ridge of Nomdmi, he glimpsed with welcomed joy his younger brother and constant companion, Roy, as they swam in the Belmont ponds, rode long hours through the little-used Juan De Bolas Mountain trails and roamed uninhibited the friendly, verdant countryside.

Through distant images conjured in his weakening mind, he suddenly felt a second spring, as the ageless but gently dissipating mists allowed him a salutary view of schooldays gone. He relived, again, the nervous pranks and urbane nuances of Wolmer’s, where he stayed for only a year; his transfer to Guanaboa Vale Elementary School due to a precipitous deterioration in family finances and afterwards his outrageous riding through Spanish Town to Beckford & Smith School, later renamed St Jago High School.

Then just before the lengthening evening shadows began to obstruct his worn-out lens, Jamaica College, his alma mater, appeared. Straining to peek through momentarily revived and animated eyes, he saw its sublime spire; the classrooms that bore silent witness to his early unfulfilled potential, eventually realised by a dramatic surge in academic excellence and the time-worn playing field where his athletic legend began. With the night fog gathering on the Blue Mountain range, forgetful of his numbered days, he nodded in rare self-acknowledgement at his six wins at Boys’ Champs in 1912: first in 100, 220, 440, hurdles, high jump and long jump. Then, too, he relived, briefly, his torrid pace bowling and other storied feats, played out on the sporting fields of his momentous JC years.

In this said dream, I beheld his sad but appreciative smile as he remembered well Reggie Murray, the celebrated headmaster, who taught him mathematics and, like him, became a war hero. Then, with growing satisfaction, he surveyed his old school haunts and recalled a special mate or two.

But his unaccustomed peace was soon interrupted in the fading dusk, on the chilly mountainside. While the weeping winds blew their eerie, nostalgic songs, he saw through the illusion of fate’s dark window, his dear mother die before his 17th birthday; then after her, the fun-loving Roy, who had enlisted with him in World War I, giving his life for a dying soldier, on a field of blood, near the River Somme in far-away France.

In the teary-eyed silence that followed, the once firm knees of the old woodsman buckled. After a moment he recovered. There he stood, the celebrated Rhodes Scholar of 1914, establishing vaulted records at Jesus College, Oxford, followed by his greatly acclaimed practice of the law, which inevitable earned him the much-craved silk. But he revisited those ephemeral triumphs for only a short while.

As the winds died down, he pondered on destiny’s summons, which moved him to prepare the more meaningful transcript of the case for the people and suddenly felt another surge of energy, with his cousin Busta once more at his side. How well he remembered 1938 and the many victories they won for the working man. Strangely, among the images that came to him was that of Garvey; how he so wished he could tell ‘the great man’ he was sorry for the legal anguish he visited upon him in his early, successful but privileged career.

But his wounded conscience would be soon reprieved, as he looked back at his penanced years and saw faithful colleagues, who fought with him on long-forgotten battlefields, in pursuit of the national cause. There was his great friend and confidante, the kind genius, Crab Nethersole; the able and gentle Vernon Arnett and the brilliant Ken Hill, both of whom he always liked; the persistent OT Fairclough; the dependable Florizel Glasspole; the caring Dr Ivan Lloyd, one of the first to answer the call; the combative Wills O Isaacs; the quiet, diligent Eddie Burke and Thom Girvan, who led his Jamaica Welfare on its glorious journey “to build a new Jamaica”.

He saw the women too. Una Marson, who, in the early thankless years, worked with him to promote adult suffrage appeared; so did the valiant stalwart and educator, Edith Dalton James; Aggie Bernard, the heroine of 1938, and Iris King, the path breaking mayor and legislator of that momentous time.

With faces quickly disappearing and then becoming blank, he was happy that he distinctly made out Vivian Blake, party stalwart, brilliant Queen’s Counsel and once his junior in chambers. And yes, oh yes, there was his young protégé, PJ Patterson, another splendid legal mind and formidable political organiser, who together with Michael “should take the party back to power”. As Michael’s features became more distinct, there to his left was his older brother, Douglas, who resembled Norman more. It was fortuitous, the old warrior thought, that he could find quiet contentment with a son succeeding him as party leader and another, who had not only beaten the great Herb McKenley and ‘Co Co’ Brown in equalling his Boys’ Champs 100 yards record 30 years later and excelled in academia, but whose quiet intellect would complement his brother’s own cerebral ideas and

non-stop activism.

With the tempestuous winds now stilled in reverent respite, he spotted many others. He thought he had glanced the unsung pioneer Wilfred Domingo and a little way off, the imperious William Seivwright. Then in squinty sequence came the happy warrior, ‘Teacher’ Cooke and to his right, the NWU fighter Ken Sterling but with eyes dimmed failing, he could not be sure and the other names just would not come. In the background, beyond the fast-moving figures, he heard for one last time, the powerful voice of Clarence Davidson, the designated party singer, singing the PNP’s anthem, The Trumpet, in an unusually halting, mournful tone:

“The Trum….pet has soun…ded, my coun…try… men all,

Awake… from… your slum…ber and an…swer….the call….”

Then his famous brow that pondered the cause of hundreds of litigants, and afterwards his nation’s destiny, began to furl in accentuated crease as he distinctly remembered the Federation issue, the referendum and his principled but controversial call of the general election in 1962. Soon that smile of resignation reappeared and he shook his head as his beloved Edna called him in. And he went to sleep.

The next morning, he came down from his mountain sanctuary for the final time. The following Tuesday there would be the by-election for his seat. It would be his last day. When Dr Kenneth McNeill, who as a young lad was with him in 1938, held it for the PNP, there was comforting consolation from the demoralising losses of the 1962 and 1967 general elections.

But as he himself had said in his farewell address to his Party’s General Conference in 1968, the fates had already decreed that his work was done. Having achieved political independence for his country, he and his generation would not be asked to cross the river and confront the economic challenges on the other side. And so, he was not to know nor partake in his party’s joyful rebound. Earlier that morning, he had lapsed into a coma and was already on his way “to the gates of gold”. It was September 2, 1969.

Norman Washington Manley, scholar-athlete, maths teacher, war hero, Rhodes Scholar, legendary barrister, party founder, member of the House of Representatives and former premier of Jamaica was dead.

In a moving eulogy at the ancient Kingston Parish Church, his old friend Father Hugh Sherlock summed up his place in the long sweep of our textured history, quoting from the poem, The Pioneers by VH Friedlander:

“We shall not travel by the road we make…

For us the heat by day, the cold by night,

The inch-slow progress and the heavy load…

For them the shade of trees that now we plant,

The safe, smooth journey and the certain goal…

And yet the road is ours as never theirs…

For us the master joy, oh pioneers!

We shall not travel, but we make the road.”

Epitaph for a Hero

Vic Reid, in the epilogue of his powerful biography of Norman Manley, Horses of the Morning, offers an epitaph from an unknown writer, which not only extolled his virtues but also honour the men who stood with him in the long struggle:

“He was of the brave men, the special men, who go out to meet the horses of the morning; tall, dew-soaked chargers, of clashing hooves… and a high cry for freedom…

These special men walk careful but unfearful into the morning to meet them, amidst the hooves and the wild torn cry of creatures who know their assailability and are ashamed for it. These men take hold, turn and lead; and for awhile the tribe pays regard.”

Theodore Sealy, a personal friend, provides an intimate portrait of the old warrior for posterity:

“Such was the man, a marvel among men, yet so simple as a person. He was father, prophet, leader, fighter, but having all those external roles, within him when in the hours of quiet he shed his public armour, he was tender, even shy; solicitous in deep silences, rustic with the folk and moods of high mountains, steeped silently in communion with the graphic arts; transported with the romance of music or intrigued with its abstractions; living a shared creative life with his gifted partner. In these retreats from the arena, his soul and spirit were recharged and nourished for the drain and drama of public life.”

Paul L Buchanan is Member of Parliament for West Rural St Andrew.

Norman Manley was born July 4, 1893.