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The Dependency Question
Nicholas JG Sykes
Besides being a man of the cloth, scienceand math teacher and Secretary of the Cayman Ministers' Association(CMA) among the several hats he wears, there is also another sideto the Rev'd Nicholas Sykes; that of a budding historian.
It is a side to the Rev'd Sykes that has only recently come tolight with the publication of A Study of Church and State in theCayman Islands: The Dependency Question', his first text to date,though he does have other published works under his belt.
Though he migrated to Cayman since 1981 from neighbouring Jamaicawhere he taught college for 10-odd years, it was not until 1984that the Liverpudlian assumed the rectorship of the St Alban'sChurch of England in the Cayman Islands on Shedden Road, in GeorgeTown. The Rev'd Sykes is married and has three children - Margaret(now Mrs Armstrong), Nicola and Peter.
Cayman Net News has undertaken, beginning today and every Tuesdayhence, to publish the Rev'd Sykes' book in its entirety.
About the author
The Reverend Nicholas John Geoffrey SykesBSc, MTS, DipEd, DipSM, admits to having done nothing much inhis life that someone else at one time or another has not done.If there is a claim to the remarkable in any way, it might bein the wide range of endeavour which his life has encompassed.
If he has not fulfilled the ideal of being a true polymath, inwhich expertise in, say, theology, is entirely equal with thatin architecture or mathematics, he can nevertheless claim to possessworthwhile experience in fields which our modern age, in its lackof wisdom, regards as unrelated.
Father Sykes' ideal modus operand' is to be a builder of bridgesbetween those banks of thought whose underlying connection havebecome obscured or, indeed, inundated. This is what he perceivesis meant by being a "peacemaker" in the teaching ofChrist.
Building bridges, however, is not a task for the faint-hearted,as any engineer will know. A collapse in the middle or a failureof the foundation on either bank are disasters to be shunned,and such can only be avoided by painstaking care and the higheststandards of workmanship. A generalist whose endeavours span whatour century regards as many fields must be engaged in a multiplicityof bridge-building programmes all the time with extreme care.
This book represents a bridge between the past and the present,and so far as the author himself is concerned, between his experiencesof research and teaching and some surprisingly unexplored fieldsof local history.
About the book
Whatever the reader's experience of theCayman Islands and their history might be, this book should surprisehim, as indeed it has surprised the author in its development.
One of the surprises for the author is that there is indeed sufficientdocumentary evidence to find the answers to nearly all the questionshe was asking, and to recount the story with considerable confidence.
Some readers will find the resulting story to be so surprisingthat their credibility will be strained. There will be those,for instance, who having seen the Cayman Islands described as"formerly a dependency of Jamaica" may come to readthe book supposing that there is no "dependency question"to be posed in the first place.
The question of the relationship of the Cayman Islands to Jamaicafor much of their history as British islands arose for the authorfrom his work with the Church during the last two decades.
It was profoundly gratifying to see the very same question beingposed, and indeed urgently worried about, by successive governorsin their extensive correspondence with successive colonial secretariesin London over 150 years ago.
To see questions which had been thought about so recently jumpingout of the handwriting of documents preserved from those earliertimes was astonishing (and as anyone who has studied the Earlof Sligo's writings will testify, what handwriting it is! - "LordSligo's spiders" as Brian Kieran aptly described them). Itwill be seen that understanding on the dependency question providesa key for unlocking the doors to several corridors of the Islands'story.
The author hopes that his work will be enjoyed, studied, debated,and re-visited many times over.
CHAPTER ONE
1959 -THE END OF AN ERA
It is well known in the Cayman Islands thatsomething important happened in 1962. A popular idea of what happenedthen is that the Cayman Islands ceased being dependent upon Jamaicaand became directly a Dependency of the Crown of Great Britain.This is the impression given by countless popular articles; butimpressions can be misleading.
Less well known is that something important happened in 1959:A new constitution for the Islands, the first in the modern era,came into effect (on the 4th July of that year). A popular ideais that this was to prepare the Islands for what was to happenin 1962. But this idea is wrong.
Why these ideas are wrong we shall see very shortly. It is worthtaking a minute, however, to reflect on what the implicationswould be of our being misled about apparently well-known thingsoccurring only some 30 years ago, with much written and said aboutthem. If, by the repetitive printing of inaccurate ideas, thestrands of the historical thread have become damaged in 30 years,it is not hard to imagine the result of such a process over awhole century or more. Let us, then, with care and sensitivity,begin our undertaking to repair the strands.
We will begin with 1959, which was a more truly definitive yearfor the Cayman Islands than 1962. In early 1959, the Cayman Islandswere a Dependency of Jamaica, and along with Jamaica, the CaymanIslands were one of the several components of the political associationof British Caribbean territories known as the West Indies Federation.
(At that time, the Cayman Islands answered to no fewer than fourproviders of government, namely Cayman's own Vestry, the JamaicanGovernment, the Government of the West Indies Federation and theBritish Crown and Parliament.) All the components of the Federationwere British dependencies. The Federal idea was the hope and intentionthat in a few years' time, a new nation would be formed from thesecomponents, a self-governing Dominion of the West Indies withinthe British Commonwealth.
At the same time, however, the larger components, most notablyJamaica, were moving rapidly towards responsible self-government.On the 4th July, 1959 the new constitution for Jamaica came intoeffect there, providing for a Premier (in place of the recentprovision of a Chief Minister) and a Cabinet (in place of theLegislative Council).
The veto powers of the Governor were to be exercised only on theadvice of the Cabinet, and only Bills relating to defence andinternational relations were to be reserved for the special assentof the Queen. However, the West Indies Federal Government wasalready in place, consisting of a Governor-General appointed bythe Crown and assisted by a Council of State, and a two-HouseLegislature.
(1.1) It is not surprising that the beginnings of a "warof laws" should come about between a Jamaican Governmentthat provided a high level of internal responsibility and theFederal Government, whose powers seemed to encroach upon thatresponsibility.
Prior to the date of the new Jamaican constitution, the 4th July1959, the constitution of the Cayman Islands was provided forby British sources, namely by the Cayman Islands Act, 1863 (1.2)and by the Jamaica (Constitution) Order in Council 1944.
The Jamaica (Constitution) Order in Council included provisionfor the Cayman Islands, on account of those Islands being a Dependencyof the larger territory. But in 1958, the Imperial Parliamentenacted the Cayman Islands and Turks and Caicos Act 1958, whichrepealed the Cayman Islands Act, 1863, providing also for thecontinued operation of all the laws that applied by virtue ofthat Act.
The reason for the 1958 enactment, which conferred power uponthe Queen in Council to make provision for the constitution ofthe Cayman Islands and of the Turks and Caicos Islands, was clearlyset out at the time by the following statement:
"It is proposed that there should be a separate Order inCouncil for each Dependency to provide for a constitution whichwould follow the pattern of other small territories in the WestIndies. The link in future will be with the Governor, rather thanthe Government of Jamaica [my italics]. At present, the CaymanIslands and the Turks and Caicos Islands come within the termsof the Jamaica (Constitution) Order in Council, 1944 and amendmentsthereto, but these Orders in Council will cease to have effectwhen the final Jamaican Constitution (1.3), which will make noprovision for the government of the Cayman Islands, comes intooperation. It is desirable that the new Constitutions for theCayman Islands and the Turks and Caicos Islands should be broughtinto operation at the same time as the new Constitution of Jamaica...."(1.4)
This statement makes it clear that the 4th July 1959 constitutionsfor Jamaica, for the Cayman Islands and for the Turks and CaicosIslands were created to be independent of one another. This date,the 4th July 1959, marked the end of the era of dependency uponJamaica.
The first Constitution Order in Council specifically for the CaymanIslands was issued and a distinct Government for the Islands wasthereby established, taking its place with the other distinctGovernments of the members of the West Indies Federation. Underthis Constitution Order, the former Legislative Assembly of Justicesand Vestrymen was replaced by a smaller Legislative Assembly andan Executive Council.
It must also be said that the new constitution for the CaymanIslands conferred certain powers on the Jamaican legislature tocontinue to legislate for the Islands, and the Jamaican legislaturedid so by amending the Cayman Islands Government Law, which hadbeen enacted in 1893 in Jamaica, to reduce its scope, and by repealingwhat remained of other unwanted legislation.
The new Constitution for the Cayman Islands, effective from the4th July, was created by Order in Council on the 13th May 1959.The 4th July 1959 is one of the defining dates of Caymanian history,and it is rightly commemorated in the Cayman Islands every yearby the Public Holiday "Constitution Day".
"The link in future will be with the Governor, rather thanthe Government of Jamaica." These are important words, notonly in respect of what was to lie ahead, but also to gain a moreaccurate interpretation of much of the history of the Islandsup to this time.
For the time being, from the 4th July 1959, the Governor of Jamaicawas also and equally to be the Governor of the Cayman Islands.But this was not by virtue of any Jamaican law or any enactmentfor Jamaica. It was provided for by the Constitution for the CaymanIslands. To have the Governor of Jamaica as the Governor of theCayman Islands does not by itself necessitate, or imply, a stateof dependency of the Cayman Islands upon Jamaica. This is a factthat must be born in mind when the earlier history of the Islandsis considered.
The events of 1962 are well known and do not need any detailedconsideration here, though some interpretation of them is in order.Evidently, they were not caused by a decision by Cayman Islandersto sever a constitutionally dependent connection with Jamaica;for such a connection had already been severed.
They occurred, first, because the West Indies Federation was collapsingfollowing the withdrawal first of Jamaica and then of Trinidad,and secondly, because the Independence Constitution being negotiatedby the United Kingdom for Jamaica excluded the centuries-old roleof a British Governor, a Governor who could also be Governor forthe Cayman Islands.
On the 31st May, 1962 the Federation formally went out of existence.Jamaica had already withdrawn as a result of its September referendumin 1961, formally seceding in early 1962. Following extensiveconsultations, the final form of Jamaica's Independence Constitution(which like previous Constitutions was provided by the UnitedKingdom in the form of an Order in Council) became known, andthe date for the Independence of Jamaica was agreed to be the6th August 1962.
Meanwhile, in the Cayman Islands, there was debate over whetherthe Cayman Islands should request to be transferred back constitutionallyto Jamaica from the disintegrating Federation, a course of actionthat would require the disposal of British sovereignty after the6th August, or whether the Islands should retain British sovereignty.
The result was a new Constitution Order for the Cayman Islands,coming into operation on the 6th August 1962. Under this Constitution,all the powers formerly exercised by the Governor of Jamaica asGovernor of the Cayman Islands were conferred upon an Administrator,appointed by the Crown upon the advice of the Secretary of Statefor the Colonies.
Applying an ecclesiastical analogy, it is as if in 1962 the CaymanIslands were confirmed in the state into which they were baptisedin 1959.
COMMENTS
- The details of this course of events may be checked by referenceto Clinton V Black, The Story of Jamaica, Collins, pages 214-5and 222-6.
* See Appendix 1
- i.e. the Jamaican Constitution of 1959. In the Federal periodthe 1959 Jamaican Constitution was intended to be the final constitutionfor the Island. It was the subsequent collapse of the Federalstructure (which of course was not intended in 1959) that broughtto the forefront the need for an Independence Constitution forJamaica.
- quoted by Elizabeth W Davies, The Legal System of the CaymanIslands, Law Reports International, p.35. Emphasis added.