The Spirits of Albion and Port Mourant Estates – Jock and Cheddi

Mar 31, 2021 Letters

---

DEAR EDITOR,

Was it Kahlil Gibran who observed that there is nothing called ‘the truth;’ there is only ‘a truth.’
How many would know that with his parents being major shareholders in Albion Estate, Corentyne, a young Jock Campbell ventured out there and spent nearly two years in that community, next door to Port Mourant Estate, Cheddi Jagan’s birthplace, before returning to England to enter University. He admitted that it was that experience, which made him commit to improving the lot of the sugar worker, if he ever rose to the power to do so.
Fast forward to the time of the early 1960s, when on a visit to Guiana, Jock and Cheddi had one of their interactions, during which the latter suggested redistributing the industry’s acreages into 15-acre plots to the some 28,000-sugar workers over the existing 10 estates. Jock however temporized on the suggestion and countered by undertaking to set up a model of cooperative small cane farming.
Indeed, Bookers Sugar Estates had already initiated such a model and was functioning at a specially created location, named Belle Vue on the West Bank of the Demerara River – a cane farming housing scheme, with each house-lot accommodating a kitchen garden. A playground with a community centre was a feature of the settlement of 57 pioneers drawn from the various estates.
The following excerpts from my book titled ‘Being Personal With Sugar’ tell the rest of the story of small cane farming development in the sugar industry:
“The commitment to Dr. Jagan, who was then Premier of British Guiana, translated into BSE Ltd. and Demerara Company, together with then Barclays Bank (DC&O) (now Guyana Bank for Trade and Industry) and Royal Bank of Canada (now Republic Bank), establishing a Cane Farming Development Fund, in the sum of nearly $4m – impressive enough at that time.
The Fund was a special window through which ‘registered’ farmers could access loans for both capital works, i.e., the establishment of new acreages of cane, or the rehabilitation of existing acreages. It was also to finance routine crop expenses.
I was BSE’s representative who met with vaulted managers of Barclays Bank (DC&O) and Royal Bank of Canada to organize the establishment of the Cane Farming Development Corporation. I was the virtual understudy to Keith Massiah, at the time Legal Draftsman (who later ascended to the position of Chancellor of the Judiciary), providing the information needed for him to craft the very comprehensive National Cane Farming Committee Act, and the creative Regulations thereto in the form of a Contract between Manufacturer and Cane Farmer, the provisions of which, when breached, constituted a breach of the law.
Being a ‘registered’ farmer became necessary, following the passing of Legislation, which specially identified the status of (small) cane farmers and described their relationship with the respective sugar estate administrations and particularly with the factories, which processed the cane supplied.
The Legislation included the:
a) National Cane Farming Committee Act (1965)
b) Cane Farmers Contract (General Conditions) Rules
c) Cane Farmers Special Funds Act
I stomped the coastlands and held endless sessions to convince farmers of different levels of understanding of the advantage of entering into the new cooperative dispensation. This meant that I had to continually persuade different District Cooperatives Officers of the importance and urgency of achieving targets in processing the registration of previously uncoordinated groupings into formal systems of operational and financial management. For an extended period, the exercise took up no less than a seven-day week. Then there were still the exotic legal and administrative procedures concerning collateral, transports, etc.
After prolonged and intensive activity, some of the Cane Farmers Cooperatives came into being.
There were also individual farmers supplying Skeldon, Albion/PM and Rose Hall Estates, while others supplied Diamond Estate as well. They too had to conform to the new legislation.
Transactional relationships between all registered cane farmers and ‘Manufacturer’ estates were dictated by the National Cane Farming Committee Act. In particular, the price of cane, sold and bought, was computed on an inflexible formula initially advised by the industry for inclusion in the Regulations to the Act. However, other farming groups, such as those still existing at Buxton, BV/Triumph and Plaisance, were not included in this new arrangement.”
With the recent closure of Wales Estate, arrangements were made to transfer its farmers’ cane for grinding at Uitvlugt Estate.
The foregoing should be considered a continuing tribute to the two men from Albion and Port Mourant – now one estate registered as Albion/PM.

Yours truly
E.B. John

---

---