system with strict party discipline, with a sharp and clear cut division in
Britain between Conservatives and Labour, with a multiplicity of parties
in France leading to coalition government, and two parties in the United
States differing so imperceptibly in aims and objectives that the voters
have a choice between Tweedledum and Tweedledee and will continue
to be so limited unless and until the most obvious aspect of America's
political backwardness is corrected, the absence of a powerful labour
party ; (c) the control of the executive by the people's representatives,
either through the Prime Minister and his cabinet in Britain, or through
the President in the United States.

 In this framework of world experience, to compare western democracy
with Trinidadian democracy is like comparing a palatial residence on
the hill we call Lady Chancellor Road with a pitiful shack on the hill we
call John John. But even a comparison with other Caribbean territories
reveals the backwardness of Trinidad and Tobago in all its nakedness.
Puerto Rico today is fully self-governing, with a two chamber legislature
based on a party system copied from the United States; its chief
executive, the Governor, is elected and is the leader of the majority
party. Surinam has just achieved equality with the metropolitan country,
Holland ; fully self-governing, except in external affairs, its organisation
follows the Dutch pattern, even to the point of drawing its Ministers
from outside of the members of the Legislature, but on condition that
they retain office only so long as they retain the confidence of the Legis-
lature. Jamaica and Barbados have a strong party system, with a two-
chamber legislature, the lower house entirely elected, the upper chamber
entirely nominated ; a Chief Minister and a Premier, respectively, with
a cabinet selected by each; and a government moving steadily closer
and closer to the goal of full responsible government, with the Governor
restricted more and more to the position of the Sovereign in' Britain,
acting only on the advice of her popularly elected Ministers.

 We are now in a position to consider the proposals of the Consti-
tutional Reform Committee. The Committee found Trinidad and
Tobago the outside child of world democracy ; its reform proposals do
nothing to make the child legitimate. With all the world experience
before them, with the British Guiana example only four years away, and
with self-government in the Caribbean broadening slowly down from
precedent to precedent, the Committee, our representatives, hit us blow
after blow below the belt. Let us consider the monstrous reforms"
it wishes to inflict on us.

 1. Perpetuation of the single chamber legislature, instead of substi-
tuting the two chamber legislature of world democracy. The single
chamber legislature is undemocratic. To say that it is colonial is, in
fact, to say all that is necessary. Instead of sending legislators to take
courses in parliamentary procedure, we ought to get someone to give
them a good course, on parliament.

 The Trinidad Guardian justifies the Committee's proposal on the
ground that a unicameral chamber has characterized Trinidad's consti-
tutional life tl roughout its existence, and that a bicameral system would