THE MOYNE REPORT ON THE WEST INDIES REGION

Abstract

IT is long since complacency in Colonial rule gave place to a more critical mood in which the responsibilities of trusteeship could find full expression ; and, more than any previous period, the interval between the World Wars was remarkable for a series of exhaustive inquiries into the social and economic health of the Colonial Empire. The survey of British Africa, directed by Lord Hailey, was the first of these ; the second, on a similarly comprehensive scale, is the report, recently published, of the Royal Commission (chairman, Lord Moyne) on West India. It is a document notable for the exceptionally wide range of its inquiry and for the realism and courage, not to mention the humanity, of its conclusions and recommendations. Two shorter documents, concerned with special aspects of social and economic conditions within the West Indies, provide a powerful reinforcement*.