The Development of the Political System in the British Virgin Islands an Overview

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM IN THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS AN OVERVIEW

Norwell Harrigan Caribbean Research Institute College of the Virgin Islands

Paper prepared for CARIBBEAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION 6th Annual Conference St. Thomas, U.S.V.I., May 27-30, 1981 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE POLITICAL SYSTEM IN TKE BRITfSH VIRGIN ISLANDS AN OVERVIEW*

INTRODUCTION The literature of comparative government as a discipline initially confined, almost exclusively, to Britain and her 'dominions', some western European countries, Russia, and the United States. This work was predominantly a descriptive analysis of institutions and it has been criticized not only for its parochialism but also for its configurative and formal- ist ic approaches. This dissatisfaction let to a movement from the ideographic to the nomothetic approach but the emergence of a number of new nations and non-western polities introduced a plethora of complexities which made the search for new methodologies for comparative purposes at once more challenging and more urgent. The tasks as Dwight Waldo put it were (1) "to discover, define and differentiate the 'stuff' . . . to be compared wherever in the world it might be; and (2) to develop criteria of differentiation that are useful in ordering and analysing the 'stuff'

once it has been identified. " l

*This paper is exeracted from a larger study now being revised and updated for publication. l~wightWaldo, Comparative Public Administration: Prologue, Problems and Promise (Chicago: Comparative Administration Grou~,American Society for Public Adminis- tration, 1964) p. 11: Strenuous efforts have been made and are being made to pursue these objectives. The 11po15ticalsystem1' and other key concepts have been defined with more or less agreement,and hypotheses for systematic testing have been formulated. But the proliferation of political systems is somewhat analogous to the parable of the sower: Some of the seeds fell on good ground and brought forth fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundred fold; and some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them; and some fell upon stony places and sprung up and were scorched and withered by the sun (and some did die).2 Notice has undoubtedly been taken of this situation. But the typologies that have so far been erected appear to divide political systems into developed (or advanced) and developing (or under-developed, less developed, transitional, emerging, and ather terms which connote llbackwardnessll).Looking, for example, at Binder 's "Traditional-Conventional-Rational, '13 or Almond and Powell s "Premobilized Modern-Mobilized ~odern"~ or even Riggs ' "~used-~rismatic- iff racted~~ models the notion is inescapable of movement along a continuum - from any given

point to a pre-determined end. '

2*~heBible

3-~eonard Binder, Iran : Political Development in a Chan ing Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962 4-~abrielAlmond and Bingharn G. Powell, Jr . , Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1966).

5*~redW. Riggs, Administration in Developing Countries : The Theory of Prismatic Society (Boston: Houghton Mifflin tompany, 1966). But quite apart from claims that these models have serious analytical shortcomings there is perhaps a more important con- sideration, namely, that they appear inadequate to explain reality insofar as the totality of political systems is concerned. There seems to be little doubt that, at least among island systems scattered throughout the world, there are a number which will remain in many ways in a condition of permanent 11under-development''6 since, while they may be "tran~itional,~~ they are not moving towards "development1' in the context of the currently accepted usage of these terms. And while it is true that these societies constitute only a small part of the earth and its population, they nevertheless pose problems which are of tremendous importance to them3and which should at least be of interest to other countries with which they must co-exist. But in addition political systems should hardly be classified in a manner which ignores any systems althodgh it may appear comparatively insignificant. There seems to be, therefore, a strong argument for attempting to bring these systems into the fold. This paper proposes to look briefly at one such system which may be called a Microstate - The (British) Virgin Islands.' A view of the history of the islands as a Microstate system exhibits the influence on the development of a political system #

6'~hispossibility is raised, for example by Riggs, op. clt., p. 4. 7'~olumbusnamed them 'Las Once Mil Virgines' in 1493. They were permanently settled by the English in 1672. of limited natural resources, remoteness from the dominant thrusts of world political and economic interests, the oppor- tunism of the casual and temporary influence of European migrants, the uprooted quality of the culture of a slave system, and the traditional non-developmental interests of government produced by the erratic exercise of power by a transient offi- cialdom. Drawn from such data as is readily available this paper will attempt to present a brief overview of the evolution of the political system from the settlement of the islands three centuries ago until the present; to relate this evolution to theoretical formulations of political development; and to enumerate some of the more pressing contemporary problems of the system which need to be addressed.

THE WHITE COLONY: POLITICAL RETROGRESSION I A descriptive analysis of the historic past is a pre- requisite to an understanding of the political system in the socioeconomic present. While this paper is intended primarily to serve that purpose, it might be a useful exercise to pull together, with the aid of some of the pertinent concepts from the literature, the factors which appear to have operationalized the system. This should help to provide a tentative explanation of contemporary phenomena as well as contribute, if even marginally, to the conceptualization of the "Microstate system1' and the development of a methodology for analysing it. Two ecological factors appear to be of considerable importance, namely, smallness and the sea. These are at least partly responsible for the relative isolation of the group and for the type of settler who was attracted to it - "the poorer whites who could not make a living in the larger islands . . . (and) who disliked even the limited order and sought a freer life away from all restriction either of law or morality and, perhaps more important, of taxati~n."~Given this manner of man and frontier conditions, it is not surpris- ing to find brutish living (which indeed was not uncommon elsewhere in the seventeenth century). The isolation, poverty, and brutality of the settlers,

however, did not preclude the birth of a political system; for I there is no such thing as a society which maintains order without a political system of some kind. Almond and Powell argue that the impulses for political development . . . in- volve some significant change in the magnitude and content of the flow of inputs into the political system. Development results when the existing structure and culture of the political system is unable to cope with the problem of challenge which confronts it with further structural differentiation and cultural secular- ization. ... A decline in the content of the flow of inputs may result in development in a negative or regressive sense.

sosirAlan Burns, History of the British West Indies (rev. ed.) (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1965), p. 350.

'Almond and Powell p. 34. In this analytical scheme the British Virgin Islands provide examples of each phenomenon. 10 Initially the islands had few wants, and therefore, a simple and inexpensive system, the structures and interactions being occasional or intermittent. The deputy governor and nominated council exercised both the legislative and judicial functions and money for public use was raised by voluntary contributions. But the settlers were Englishmen first, last, and always. Their political culture was transplanted from the "Mother Country" and their attitudes, values and beliefs about such things as the monarchy, representative government, the institution of slavery and the hierarchical social system were by and large the same as they were at "home ." These kinds of normative values were largely dormant, however, until the growth of a stable population and substantial economic progress made the "frontiersmen" respectable. Thereafter an elite oligarchy assumed control of the system and did whatever they perceived to be necessary to concretize these values.

Of primary importance in this connection was the clamour for and grant of representative government and constitutional courts of justice. This led to structural differentiation in

10.~oraftill historical account of the islands see Norwell Harrigan & Pearl Varlack, The Virgin Islands Story (Essex, England: Caribbean Universities Press in association with Barker Publishing Co., 1975). the sense that role specialization increased as new roles were established and new structures emerged. As the elite class dwindled any and all white persons were recruited by the oligarchy in order to maintain its hegemony. After a time "to be a white man was becoming in itself a sufficient qualification for admission to civil rights. l1 And the socialization resulting from the structure of the society and the small number involved ensured the survival not only of normative values but of the style of political behavior which they had adopted (although they had no monopoly on the uninhibited behavior of colonial legislators). The scale of the society remained small and the political system comparatively simple. Even at the highest level of development systemic inputs were almost entirely demands of a regulative nature (largely praperty rights) and supports of a material kind (chiefly payment of taxes) and obedience to the laws. Other kinds of demands and supports were hardly ever recognized. A memorial from the "free coloureds" for admission to civil rights was circumvented by the provision that they must vote for a white freeholder to represent them. The anomic activities manifested in slave risings were largely ignored as demands on the system for freedom and the reallocation of goods and services since the slaves were not

II. Elsa Goveia, Slave Society in the British Leeward Islands at the End of the Eighteenth Century (New Haven: 'Yale University Press, 1965), p. 93. regarded as a part of the political system even though they

did in fact influence the pattern of power affecting rule and authority. But these activities, together with those of the churches, indicate how the system was influencing the environment and how the environment eventually shaped the system.

The political system never really gained momentum. Within a quarter of a century after the islands were granted self- government economic degradation set in. With the inability of the planters to sell their principal products - sugar and cotton - and the consequent outflow of the white population the second phenomenon - retrogressive development - began. In a period of about eighty years there followed in quick succession the abolition of the assembly, the establishment of a unicameral legislature, the reduction of the elected element and later its abolition, the absorption of the colony into a federation, and finally the abolition of the legislative council. In a little over 125 years after the British Virgin Islands had pledged themselves to pay in perpetuity for the right of self-government their last political state had become nearly as bad as their first. There seemed to be hardly any awareness that the twentieth century had arrived. In the system of crown colony government the colony stood on the lowest rung of the constitutional ladder. The "legislature" (in the person of the Governor) had practically nothing to legislate about and the function of the executive was the maintenance of law and order and the collection of taxes from miserably poor people. Because of the close connection between wealth and power, poor economic conditions and the absence of a supply of new blood the capabilities of the system had declined and the roles and structures had become atrophied. In the modern parlance the system had moved to "formalism" - the forms had ceased to reflect reality - and representative government, even as it was then interpreted, was quite dead. Five factors apparently contributed to the atrophy of the

political institutions and the degradation of the political

system:

1. European attitudes. It seems clear that the local 'elite' would have gone to any lengths to maintain their con-

trol over the society. In this attitude they had the active support of the authorities in Britain. The local people could not, under any circumstances, be entrusted with power.

2. Economic degradation. With the abolition of slavery it became increasingly difficult for the planters to make two ends meet. In 1846 the total value of trade was approximately 517,000. Ten years later it had dropped to b8,000. The governor's pleas for "a little capital to be judiciously dispensed among the planters"12 and the request for loans from

la~espatchfrom Governor Macintosh to the Rt. Hon. Sir George Grey, dated Antigua, 7 August 1854. the British government elicited no response. By 1847 the last of the main British holdings had been withdrawn and to all intents and purposes the plantation system had ceased to exist by 1864. By 1865 the black population "owned the greater part of the soil.ll Of an estimated population of 6,000 one in every ten were freeholders and one in every eleven owned sufficient property to be taxed. But generally they had nothing to sell but a small surplus of small stock and a large surplus of labor. By the end of the century trade was valued at less than E6,000.

3. Emigration. With the serious downturn of the economy the planters abandoned their estates. In 1834 there were 477 whites in the islands. Ten years later there were only 200.

Of the still smaller number in 1864 only four were proprietors.

By 1891 the white population was down to thirty-two. The blacks too began to move away in search of work. There were 6,459 in 1844 but only 4,607 in 1891 and it can be assumed that those who left the islands were the most qualified. 4. Education. The first day school was opened in 1827. An education survey in 1838 found the islands "in a deplorably neglected state . . . (and) great apathy appeared to reign in the legislature with reference to the education of the Negro. cr 13

This apathy was applied to "all class of the community" by 1869.

13~roma report by C. J. Latrobe, dated Barbados 14 April, 1838. The education reports of the eighties indicated that there were 317 pupils in ten schools described as being in "a dirty, neglected state of utter confusion and worthlessne~s.~In one school "the marks gained, or rather given by the utmost

stretch of charit; amounted to barely 7 out of a total of 66.11.11 Rtb the absence of goals beyond Iimoral and religilaus educationt1

and "the training up of a race of industrious and God-faring colonists," offerings in the schools, except for the rudiments of reading, writing and ciphering, were negligible. The middle class, for whom secondary education in the West Indies was generally reserved, was regarded by some as non- existent and by others as too small to justify the establishment of a secondary school. Initially, learning was little in the numbers affected; when numbers had grown, in its quality.15

5. Attitude to government. This was summed up by the president in 1887 as follows: The Government is not popular and does not possess the confidence of the people, partly owing to the small amount of attention bestowed on them, the high duties payable on certain articles especially bread stuff, and the fact that they do not realize what becomes of the money they pay, and in a certain degree to local influence . l6

14~eportof the Federal Inspector of Schools, 1882. 15A full treatment of the Education System of the Virgin Islands has been prepared by Pearl Varlack, Caribbean Research Institute, College of the Virgin Islands, St. Thomas. 16~espatchfrom Acting President Porter to Governor Holland, dated Tortola, 27 September, 1887. THE BLACK COLONY: POLITICAL DEVELOPMENT While all this was taking place the islands were moving inexorably into another phase. Underneath the existing social system a new society was slowly but surely taking shape among the blacks. Initially they were to all intents and purposes outside of the political system and were a part of the economic system merely as chattels. As slaves they were conditioned to obey rules but they could not have helped observing that what appeared most important to their white masters were freedom, the ownership of property, and the ability to emigrate in the face of worsening economic conditions. When freedom was achieved by Act of the British Parliament the blacks began to translate these observed objectives into reality. Conditions became really bad and those who could left the islands as soon as an opportunity presented itself. The more aggressive of those who remained purchased, individually or collectively, the abandoned estates and became small- I holders raising ground provisions and stock for subsistence, the surplus being exported tothe nearby Danish islands. The stratification of this new society is difficult to describe. The elite class, in the sense of power holders, was reduced to an English Commissioner and one or two whites in the government and the two or three English clergymen representing the Anglican and Methodist churches. Coloured descendants of the planters, who were also few in number and almost entirely town people, occupied a certain social prestige vis-a-vis the rest of the inhabitants. But, except in an informal way, and largely through the Commissioner or the parson, they had no influence on the political system. They did not wield economic influence, being only small shop- keepers and as poor as most everyone else (there was a remark- ably equal distribution of wealth--or perhaps poverty); nor were there many who had the advantage of appreciably better educational opportunities. There developed, though, a very definite town/country dichotomy. The British islands became in fact the rural area for more commercialized St. Thomas. This situation sustained the main concern of all the inhabitants; their economic well-being food, shelter and clothing. But to the extent that these objectives were attained thanks were due to a merciful God, not to the government or the political process. Willy nilly, however, the islanders were brought within the orbit of the political system, for with the disappearance of the white population it became necessary for the blacks to bear an ever-increasing share of the tax burden. A visitor to the islands several years earlier had remarked that "justfce, lon2 considered blind, had here all her other faculties impaired. "I7 An important means of earning money to pay taxes was smuggling - a paradoxical situation where one had to break the law in order to comply with it - which had long since come to be regarded as more of a national sport than an offence. And judging by the

17~relawneyWentworth, The West India Sketch Book (London; Whitaker and Co., 1934), p. 199. - - attempts to recruit blacks into the ranks of tax-payers and the methods used to enforce compliance with the law, this consnent appears to have had equal validity in the post- emancipation years. The fact that they were characterized as "amiable and docile1' notwithstanding, the people were constrained to assert themselves against what they regarded as injustice and several anomic incidents occurred. In fact, the situation became more in the nature of two armed camps - government and governed - each glowerill@at the other in a pattern of mutual injury and revenge.

By the beginning of the twentieth century when efforts were being made by the British government to improve the economic conditions, the political picture had changed to a state of resignation. The Commissioner was the symbol of authority to which the people had grown accustomed. They therefore obeyed the laws and paid their taxes when it was impossible to avoid doing so. Somewhere a long way off was the Queen who, in a final showdown, would somehow come to their rescue. Above all was God and they were his children. It has been pointed out that "each new generation emerges upon the political scene as a tabula rasa, politically speak- ing, upon which a political system must seek to imprint its image. . . .11 18

avid Easton and Robert D. Hess. "The Childfs Political World, l1 Psychology and politics (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968), p. 92. The agents of socialization stressed attitudes that had become in many ways societal norms. The extended family unit instilled in the young the importance of working their own land and of being self-reliant and thrifty. The church fought from the pulpit for God-fearing colonists who need not worry about life after death if they obeyed the laws of God and the King. The schools taught respect for authority and the privilege that it was to be a subject of the greatest Empire the world had ever known. The political orientations of the young were also influenced by a conanunity partly apathetic, and partly afraid of the government and a focus on extraneous matters that had little or nothing to do with the islands or their people. Even the exposure to authority patterns was negative. The Commissioner, for example, was seen not only as head of the government but also as a benevolent despot who disgraced wrongdoers by sending them to prison and the single policeman (always called "the corporal1') was also a bogeyman with which to frighten naughty children. For half a century the authorities complained of the apathy of the people towards the education which was available and which was really designed to maintain a community of

"hewers of wood and drawers of water. 1119 But the beckoning

''The author has on many occasions in the 1950's .and 1960's deputised for the head of the government. As a schoolboy in the 1930's he would have thought anyone who suggested this as even a remote possibility to be at least slightly mad. hand was still towards new and different pastures. It was the ambition of every parent to send as many of his or her children, and of every youth to emigrate if he could, first to St. Thomas and later to the United States, that "haven of all nations. '120 By and large the islanders were satisfied to leage the political system in the hands of the Englishman and his "down island" lackeys. As a result of all this, therefore, the system remained regulative and extractive and few demands came from the society of which the political system was a part. Systemic inputs were exogenous, primarily generated by the Colonial Office and the Governor (for example, the establishment of the agricultural station in 1901 which helped temporarily to boost the economy was an act of the British government, and the constructio- of a hospital and the improvements of roads were the initiative of the Commissioner with little local participation). But the outputs became even more oppressive. The year 1938 can be regarded as a watershed because it provides empirical evidence of the formal articulation of a desire to participate in the political process. 21 But this did not happen in a vacuum, although the society might reasonably have been regarded as apolitical since lack of participation inevitably leads to a desire to escape

20*see British Virgin Islands Development. Plan, 1951 (mimeographed), p. 151r (U.S. Virgin Islands), 1926. 21.~citizens Committee and a delegation from the Teachers Association appeared before the West Indies Royal Commission demanding economic and political change and substantial education reform respectively. from political activity. Over the years there had been informal face-to-face activity, some measure of training in primary groups below the level of the political system, and improved educational opportunities. Included in these phenomena were the return of emigrants either permanently or on a visit; the occasional "trouble- makerf1 (never dignified by the title of leader) whose views, as simple as they might have been, were ahead of his contem- poraries; the flgrape-vine," by which communication moved horizontally among the people and vertically to the Ifpower structureff (the impact of Government Hmse servants on decision-making can never really be known but it must have been considerable); a growing number, in the town, of small groups (social, sports, literary clubs and the like); and in the country and town the weekly "class meetingsfr of members of the Methodist Church and quarterly meetings of class leaders and local preachers; and an emergent llintelligentsiall comprised of those who had been abroad to school and others who had obtained a world view of some sort, particularly school teachers, by self-education, some of whom were appointed to various official advisory bodies. 22 The set was in place for playing out the scenario of challenges to "positive" political development if only in abbreviated form: Nation-building or loyalty and commitment

22.~onehad reached university level but they were, nevertheless, the literate and informed section of the society. to the islands; Participation or the pressure from groups in the society for having a part in decision making; Distribution or the pressure from the domestic society to employ the coercive power of the political system to redistribute income, wealth, opportunity and honour. 23 And the principal actors appeared as a functional leadership, "the process of mutual stimulation which by a successful interplay of relevant individual difference~,controls human energy in the pursuit - of a common cause" - persons whose "will, feeling, and insight direct and control others in the pursuit of a cause which he represents. 1124 Again exogenous factors came into play; political turbu- lence throughout the British West Indies in the 1930's must have heightened local dissatisfactions; and the Secoild World War which brought about unprecedented opportunities for em- ployment in the United States Virgin Islands greatly improved the economic situation. These inter-related factors (exogenous and endogenous) and this sequence of events culminated, logically enough, in the Freedom March of 1949-which led to the reconstitution of the legislative council and in a real sense the beginnings of another Microstate. 25

23*~lmondand Powell, p. 35. z4*see P . Pigors , Leadership or Domination (Boston : Houghton-Mifflin, 1935). 25-Some 1500 from all over the colony marched on Government House on Nov 24demanding the removal of the Commissioner and constitutional reform. Improved economic conditions and substantial grants from the British government under the authority of various Colonial Development and Welfare Acts passed after the Second World War provided the resources to meet a further challenge to "positive" political development - State building, which is "associated with significant increases in the regulative and extrative capabilities of the political system.1'26 And the changing structure of the society created stimuli in response to which interest articulation moved from the individual's articulation of his own interest to nonassociational,associational and in- stitutional (including the churches) interest groups, with access channels through demonstrations, ltelitellrepresentation, political llparties,llthe legislature and the bureaucracy. The relatively slow development of interest articulation is due in no small measure to a low standard of education, lack of good communication, both physical (imposed by rugged topography) and media (other than the llgrapevinelt). Concurrently interest aggregation or "the converting of demands into general policy alternatives" passed to the bureaucracy, the legislature, and the llpoliticalparties" and the pattern of policy moved from the Governor (or his representative) in his sole discretion to Governor-in-Council (i.e. with the advice of the executive council which he was not

26.~1mond and Powell, p. 35, bound to accept) to the Executive Council which became the principal instrument of policy and* dominated by a majority group in the legislature and finally to Ministers. The inputs in the form of demands from the domestic society thus became the major determinant of policy and therefore the determinant of systemic outputs. LaPalhmbara argued that the concept of political develop- 27 ment is a serious pitfall and its use should be suspended. The case of the Virgin Islands in relation to the manner in which it "devel~ped~~and the direction in which it seems to be moving would appear to be prima facie evidence of the need for research into the politics of the Microstate.

ISSUES FOR ANSWERS An institution, as Lerner points out, is "the behavorial patterns formed by a people whose goal is to enhance as much as possible the values they hold important."28 The transfer of institutions to a different setting is, therefore, likely to create problems. Historically the political system in the Virgin Islands has been largely mimetic. The adoption or adaptation of British institutions by a political system whose political culture evolved from centuries of economic and social exploitation must raise questions of their viability

27*Joseph LaPalombara , Bureaucracy and Political Develo~ment(~rinceton: The University Press, 1963),

28. ~i~lima73;~ZiihiTton-(edJ, The ~ran~&of ~nstitutions f-3.C; : -Duke-Unfversity Press,1 1 and whether the structures and roles will allow meaningful comparisons to be made. The contemporary political issues which are matters of more or less discussion or speculation on the local scene appear to derive from the characteristics of the Westminister model which is defined as "a constitutional system in which the head of state is not the effective head of government; in which the head of government is a Prime Minister presiding over a Cabinet composed of Ministers over whose appointment and removal he has at least a substantial measure of control; in which the effective executive branch is parliamentary in- asmuch as Ministers must be members of the legislature; and in which Ministers are collectively and individually responsible to a freely elected and representative legislature. 11 29 Elections bring a substantial number of the eligible voters to the polls. What is unclear is the how and the why:@ Unlike other Caribbean states political interest was not initially articulated by workers unions which were (and still are) non-existent in this small-holders society. There has been neither a charismatic leader on a territory-wide basis nor an ideological approach to the voters. And although, since the early days when a hat was passed at political rallies to help "finance" a campaign, rumours have been rife as to the part that expatriates and well-to-do natives play in the

29.s.~. deSmith in Readings in Government and Politics o'f tbd West Indies, Singhan et a1 (eds.) Jamaica, UWI. promotion of candidates for election no concrete evidence is available. The apparent influence exerted on the government seems however, to provide grounds for speculation and investi-* gat ion. The "party system1' has so far failed to function as political parties are expected to do. The llstructuresll whiah emerged, labelled "political parties" and appealed to the electorate have been facetiously referred to as performing the "politics of the undeadl1 for like the vampires they rise from their resting-place prior to each election, suck the electors1 blood and return before day-break (which is shortly following the election) and continue the process until a stake is effec- tively driven through the hearts. Sir Arthur Lewis has pointed out that "the idea that democracy is effective only when there are two parties, one in government the other in opposition, is an Anglo-American myth-" ;31 and there is ample evidence that the assumptions on which the party system is based are widely questioned and modifications are to be expected. But observers of the Virgin Islands political scene

30*Since 1950 only one legislator who lost his seat has been re-elected.

3i*~.Arthur Lewis, Politics in West Africa (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 70. In the nine member Virgin Islands legislature, five are llgovernment'' and four are "opposition" members. The latter cannot form an alternative government unless at least one member in effect "crosses the floor." The record shows that one chief minister bolted his party following election in order to bring another group to power with himself retaining the chief minister1s post. view the functioning of the parties as a near calamity which will seriously inhibit further "development." On the face of it, however, it does not appear that the party represents llformalism" as defined by Riggs; that is, where "the forms do not represent reality" or "there is a striking incongruence between formally prescribed institutions and actual behavior. "32 It rather suggests an electoral device intended to perform a particular function in the system but which, in the absence of a suitable conceptual framework and descriptive analysis, is labelled a political party and compared with the British Labour Party ar theAmerican Demo- cratic party the functions of which are very largely different. Weber treats llbureaucratizationll as the very essence of the political modernization process. 33' The problems and conflicts between ministers and officials are obviously here, as in other Caribbean countries, although the reasons may not be identical. An aspect, however, which apparently troubles some is the growing lack of subordd.nation to the formal rule- makers and the connection between civil-servants, acting as economic pressure-groups, and the political power structure, formal and informal. This, it is feared, could lead to widespread corruption, a situation which the islands could hardly sustain.

-- -- 32*Riggs, pp. 15-21. 33*~axWeber, from Max Weber Essays in sociology ed. Hans H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York, Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 214. The function of the Executive Council as a rulemaking structure is another matter of some concern. Chapman regards the doctrine of ministerial responsibility in Britain as a source of weakness and states that both civil servants and ministers are inhibited by the habitual secrecy in which they carry out operations and which they must realize is at variance with any interpretation of public service.34 But the Virgin Islands adopted the same operating rules notwithstanding the fact that very little is really secret and usually reaches the public almost immediately in a garbled form which no one will correct because of the secrecy rule. This has been the cause of articulation on every major controversial issue particularly by non-associational interest groups operating intermittently without organized pro- cedure for establishing the nature and means and the l8,ck of continuity in internal structure. This could eventually lead to confrontation which would be another unsustainable situation. Every effort made to entrench 'public hearings' on major issues in the constitution has so far failed in contra-distinction to Demas' view that "a small community has the potential for developing a real democracy where there is widespread popular participation and a strong sense of social cohesion. ,138 Perhaps the greatest challenge that the political system

34*Brian Chapman, British Government Observed (London : George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1963), pp. 54-61. 35*~illiamG. Demas, The Economics of Development in Small Countries (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1965), p.82. faces is the issue of the future political status of the islands. On this interest articulation is intermittent and usually on some incident, but aggregation occurs neither through the formu- lation of general policy nor the recruitment of political personnel more or less comitted to a particular pattern of policy. The latest example was the manifest interest articulation on the question of capital punishment and the commutation by the governor of a death sentence. Aggregation resulted in a unanimous resolution passed by the legislature demanding the removal of the governor and the appointment of a native islander to succeed him. To this the British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs replied: It is not Her Ma$estyts Government's policy to appoint local persons as Governors prior to the grant of independence; this is because for so long as the territory remains a dependency ul- timate responsibility for its affairs rests with Her Majesty's Government. If, however, it remains the unanimous wish of the Legislative Council not to have a Governor appointed from the United Kingdom to the colony of the British Virgin Islands, then it would certainly be appropriate for the Council to consider the constitutionA1 implication of their wish. Her Majesty 's Government would be willing to consider any representations made in consequence of this. 36 Neither the legislature nor any interest group or political elite reacted to this blunt dismissal of a reasonable request of the people and the implied threat by even a demonstration of the symbolic capability of the political system. More recently the broader question has been articulated

36*See Island Sun (Tartola Virgin Islands), Nov. 25,1978. in the press with a specificity of policy options on the future of the colony viz. (1) retention of the colonial status, (2) the creation of a Greater Virgin Islands (in- volving union of the British and United States groups) in some form of association with the United States, and (3) some form of autonomy not excluding independence. A call for the establishment of a citizens' committee on the future of the British Virgin Islands has not apparently been answered due, perhaps, - not so much to a lack of interest as to the vagueness about the manner in which such an interest group would be structured.37'*

CONCLUSION Because no significant attempt has been made to provide explanations of the system or to discover "quasi-laws" which govern its operation there exists what might be called a "macrostate emulation syndrome." Until the Microstate is the subject of serious attention and a methodology is adopted to enable explanation and prediction to be made, comparison will be impossible and the art of "muddling throughtt3*will continue to dominate the political system.

SZ*See Island Sun, Nov. 8, 1980.

38-~eeSamuel H. Beer and Adam Ulam (eds. ) Patterns of Government 2nd ed.; Rev. (New York: Random House, 1962), p. 252.