Confucius: Without Knowing The Force Of Words It’s Impossible To Know More!

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]omething I read or heard someone say on TV (rest assured it was not local television!) sent me searching for Henry Hazlitt. It turns out he was a self-taught economist who popularized the subject as a journalist and wrote a best-selling book about it: Economics in One Lesson. One esteemed critic declared it the best of Mr. Hazlitt’s seventeen books, “unstinting in its praise of free markets. In the simplest language, rarely citing statistics, he laid out what he called the fallacies of regulating economic activity—like trying, for example, to raise wage levels through minimum wage laws or union bargaining.”

Mr. Hazlitt, who died at age 98, having lived seven years in a hospital, also wrote: “Fallacies when they have reached the popular stage, become anonymous anyway. The subtleties or obscurities to be found in the authors responsible for propagating them are washed off.” According to his New York Times obituary, Hazlitt’s earlier mentioned 222-page book sold more than 600,000 copies.

Considered by several current luminaries “one of the most brilliant intellectuals of our century,” Henry Hazlitt also published in 1916 the tutorial Thinking As A Science, from which I’ve lifted the following: “A man with a scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. The richer and more copious one’s vocabulary, and the greater one’s awareness of fine distinctions and subtle nuances of meaning, the more fertile and precise is likely to be one’s thinking. Knowledge of things and knowledge of the words for them grow together. If you do not know the words, you can hardly know the thing.”

I recalled the above-quoted passage on Wednesday as Calixte George—not to be confused with the erudite former president of the Saint Lucia Senate, who was at different times responsible for the Kenny Anthony government’s agriculture, communications and the police portfolios—sought for the second consecutive time to verbally wrestle Timothy Poleon into the dirt of local politics. It seems Calixte George, Kenny Anthony’s once upon a time political attaché and speechwriter, was far from satisfied with his performance on Tuesday’s Newsspin and so he called the following day, determined to set the record according to his needs—or the needs of his party. In all events, on Wednesday he was Poleon’s first caller. And straightaway he let Poleon know words had “legal meanings”—and conceivably illegal meanings. He neglected to proffer supporting details but it soon was apparent what else was on his mind when he referenced my own comments  immediately following his unsettled match with Timothy Poleon the day before.

Three or four days earlier I had challenged via Poleon’s lunch-time program a public statement by the opposition MP Moses JnBaptiste that sought to attach what I considered a self-serving meaning to simple words publicly spoken by the EU’s Mr. Mikael Barford at the naming of the Owen King EU Hospital on Sunday 21 February 2016, in particular: “The health sector is often viewed as a burden on a given country, as it requires too much from the government’s treasury while contributing little or nothing to the fund. However, the quality of the facility, equipment and staff of the Owen King EU Hospital holds enormous potential for the hospital to earn a considerable income and be self-sustaining. I encourage the government to be creative in its approach to income generation of the hospital. Public Private Sector Partnerships and Service Level Agreements have proven successful in other countries to open up the healthcare market and make it also attractive to insurance companies and tourists. In my view, whatever options government chooses should not add an undue burden or restrict access to service to those most in need.” At least twice during his address Mr. Barford said he looked forward to the opening of the hospital before September 2016!

While MP Baptiste did not deny Mr. Barford had spoken the words I cited, he nevertheless dismissed them as a mere suggestion from the funders of the hospital, to be given serious consideration or to be outright rejected—and by all the evidence it seems the Kenny Anthony administration had chosen the second option. As for me, I had heard in the words of the EU delegation head a sound recommendation, not lightly arrived at. Barford was not altogether unfamiliar with our healthcare needs and the economic quicksand that threatens us. As I say, the reason I called Poleon on Tuesday was to remind him and his listeners that both the House opposition and the Saint Lucia Medical & Dental Association, as of one voice, had made absolutely clear their feelings about the government’s announcement that it was seriously considering the EU’s PPP recommendation. Finally, I confessed to Poleon that it was hardly surprising that the opposition party would seek to give a convenient twist to the lapidary words of Mr. Barford. Have they not been stubbornly seeking, for more than two years, to persuade different House Speakers to embrace their interpretation of the Saint Lucia Constitution’s “as soon as convenient” (Section 36) on the basis, to quote Calixte George, that “words have legal meanings”?

Actually, it is well-established procedure, here and elsewhere, that when writing statutes the legislature intends to use ordinary English words in their ordinary senses. In Caminetti v United States this was how the U.S. Supreme Court put it: “It is elementary that the meaning of a statute must, in the first instance, be sought in the language in
which the act is framed, and if that is plain . . . the sole function of the courts is to enforce it according to its terms . . .” If a statute’s language is plain and clear, the court further warned that “the duty of interpretation does not arise, and the rules which are to aid doubtful meanings need no discussion.”

What about the meaning of “as soon as convenient” as contained in our constitution that can reasonably be considered “doubtful” and therefore in need of discussion? On Wednesday, it seemed to me Calixte George instructed Poleon that he understood “as soon as convenient” to mean “as soon as practicable.” Keeping in mind “practicable refers to a project or idea as being capable of being done or put into effect,” I have no problem with the interpretation proffered by the former prime minister’s speechwriter. But it would appear his party may have. In 2016 the leader of the House opposition told reporters on-camera that “it would not be in the interest of our party at this time to nominate a candidate” for the position of deputy Speaker. In other words: it is at this time neither  “practicable” nor “convenient.”

I anticipate the conveniently blind may wish to question my citing a U.S. Supreme Court precedent. May I assure one and all that the English courts also share the view expressed in Caminetti v United States. In Becke v Smith, Justice Parker stated: “It is a very useful rule in the construction of a statute to adhere to the ordinary meaning of words used.” Parker restated the rule in different words in Gay v Pearson.

There is one reason, yes, just one, that the House does not at this time have a deputy House Speaker. And it is this: both sides have together determined that to nominate a candidate for the position does not suit their political agendas. No number of invented reasons can change this fact. For those who would argue to the contrary, be reminded of Henry Hazlitt’s words: “A man with scant vocabulary will almost certainly be a weak thinker. If you do not know the words, you can hardly know the thing.” Words that bring to mind a certain over-lubricated president of a nonexistent republic!