Does House Speaker Francis Know He’s Aping St Clair Daniel?

“What experience and history teach us is that nations and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on any lessons they might have drawn from it.” Hegel’s observation was as indisputable in his time as it is today. Consider, if you will, Wilfred St. Clair Daniel’s hagiography, conceivably designed to serve an agenda not exclusively concerned with his unexamined life.

By popular account, he was born in 1923, worked as a school teacher, served as a Methodist lay preacher. A founder member of the People’s Progressive Party, he had aided and abetted John Compton in his birthing of the United Workers Party. He was president of the St. Lucia National Trust. With Compton pulling the strings he landed the position of House of Assembly speaker from 1967 to 1979. Many were taken aback when he took a job at the tourist board, under the direction of presumed communist George Odlum. A short time before the 1979 elections, Daniel had tossed him out of the House when he showed up outfitted in U.S. Army fatigues and rubber boots and attempted to join collar-and-tie journalists in the press section. Nevertheless, Daniel was a member of Odlum’s Labour Party entourage at the ceremony to mark St. Lucia’s acceptance to the United Nations General Assembly that year. It turns out Daniel had also worked as editor of the Voice, the island’s oldest newspaper.

All of the above I easily discovered via various search engines. What I did not know for a fact, what was rumored but I could not confirm, was that Daniel, generally considered the epitome of even-handedness, impartiality, genteelism, moral rectitude and fair play, especially lauded for his oratory, had on more than one occasion succumbed to guttersnipe proclivities. At a political rally in 1957, the church preacher and secretary of the People’s Progressive Party had uttered such profanities as had landed him before the courts. Referencing Maurice McClean Mason, a Labour Party election opponent, he had announced: “Maurice Unclean Mason has robbed both the living and the dead. He cannot give account of what he did with the five thousand pounds with which he was entrusted by the West Indies Federal Labour Party.”  

Daniel was represented in court by fellow PPP stalwart and lawyer Hunter J. Francois, assisted by Henry Giraudy, destined to be the UWP’s lifetime chairman. The prosecuting attorney was Allen Lewis, later to be appointed Saint Lucia’s governor general and turned into a political football, father of former beleaguered Prime Minister Vaughan Lewis. Allen Lewis’ assistant was Kenneth Monplaisir. A Mr. W. Hercules presided. In consequence of his potty-mouthed outburst, Wilfred St. Clair Daniel was fined $200 and barred from voting or holding elected office for five years. One week earlier, a Vieux Fort court had judged and fined him for using insulting language at a Federal Elections rally.

And now, dear fellow jaded observer of social hemlines, I hear you thinking: “Whaaat! For such a simple matter as referring to a fellow election candidate as un voleur, a politician was not only fined but also disenfranchised?” According to folklore, Compton and Maurice Mason were buddies, “close as a crab louse can be to the begetting of a child.” (Apologies to Norman Mailer.) So now, in the continuing best interests of history, join me at an unforgettable sitting of the Saint Lucia House of Assembly with our original Speaker presiding.

April 11, 1989. An atypically ebullient Prime Minister John Compton presented before the House what he referred to—in the spirit of the time—as his “Glasnost Budget.” (Glasnost reflected in the late 80s a commitment of the Gorbachev administration to allow Soviet citizens to discuss publicly the problems of the system and potential situations.”) On the occasion the prime minister postponed the usual follow-up debate to Thursday the 13^th. Shortly before the House convened that morning, Julian Hunte, the Leader of the Opposition, informed attendant press personnel that his side had much to say about the budget and feared they would need more time than the allocated two days. Hunte said he had appealed to the prime minster (the two shared a remarkable relationship: they were married to sisters) to permit the debate to continue until Monday. Compton insisted on wrapping things up on Friday. He said he had important off-island commitments that could not be postponed. 

The debate followed the customary pattern, much time given to vituperative cross-talk unrelated to the matter at hand. Finally, it was time for the Speaker to make the ritual announcement: “Honorable members, the question is that the Estimates of Expenditure presented on 11 April in the sum of $370,413,919 be referred to the House Finance Committee. I now put the question. As many as are of this opinion say aye.”

For once, there was no reaction. The opposition leader’s facial expression suggested absolute bewilderment. As if a synapse in his brain had short-circuited. He recovered quickly. Enough to discern a miracle had occurred. His eyes lit up, he seemed barely able to contain himself as the Speaker groaned: “As many as are of a contrary opinion say no.” The last word had barely fallen out of Daniel’s mouth when, to a man, the eight-member opposition thundered: “Nooooo!”

Speaker Daniel had little choice but to follow the House Orders: “I think the nays have it . . . the nays have it!” Too late, the nine-member government side realized they had made history, if at their own expense. Minutes earlier, and from the vantage of the press box, it seemed the prime minister and his health minister were locked in a contentious exchange. Tourism minister George Mallet appeared to join in. Small wonder they did not notice the Speaker’s desperate subtle signals at the conclusion of Choiseul MP Evans Calderon’s contribution. When it seemed there would be no follow-up addresses, Daniel put his “as many as are of this opinion” question. It later emerged that Lansiquot had refused to take the floor after Calderon, in dangerous defiance of the prime minister. Lansiquot had set his mind on speaking the following day, that much he had confided in this writer shortly after the prime minister’s presentation two days before the start of the debate. It remains conjectural why another government member was not ordered to follow Calderon.  

In the ensuing commotion, the Leader of the Opposition jumped to his feet and requested the Speaker adjourn the session. Otherwise, said Hunte, the opposition would be left no other choice but to demand the resignation of the one-member majority government. When it became obvious his ultimatum had fallen on ears that hear not, Hunte stood up and moved with other opposition MPs closer to the Speaker’s chair. Evans Calderon and the MP for Soufriere, Baden Allain, kept their seats. Meanwhile, the prime minister had taken the Speaker’s stage-whispered directive and called for a recess. In the absence of the Speaker and the Mace, the prime minister and his team nestled closely, save for a scowling Lansiquot who stood apart waving an angry index finger at a now expressionless Compton.

When the meeting resumed several minutes later, a seemingly unperturbed Compton rose as if nothing unusual had occurred. “I move that the 1989/90 Estimates of Expenditure be considered by the House Finance Committee now.” Without question, his face reflecting the innocence of a sleeping newborn, the Speaker said: “Honorable members, the motion has been moved . . .” Hunte was on his feet again. He said he had been advised that in the circumstances the House could not proceed. “All the House may do now is adjourn until another date.”

Speaker: The only person who can determine what the House does on legal advice is the person who occupies the chair.

Hunte: I’m saying I know you have the authority to have me arrested. Arrest me. But someone has got to stand up for justice in this country. The correct thing is to have an adjournment until proper legal advice can settle this whole matter. There has been a violation of the House Standing Orders.

Speaker: What Standing Orders?

Hunte: I am calling on the prime minister to adjourn the meeting for the reasons I just gave. We cannot proceed, I say. Arrest me, if you so wish. But I insist the government either call for an adjournment or resign.

Daniel had had more than enough. His visage changed abruptly from that of a big brother gently admonishing a much younger sibling to that of a headmaster scolding an unruly student. “Honorable Leader of the Opposition, your conduct does not become a member of the House,” said the man who had made history by becoming the nation’s only election candidate to be disenfranchised and fined for conduct unbecoming a gentleman. “I would hate to have to suspend you.”

In the heat of the moment, possible suspension was the least of Hunte’s concerns. “Go ahead, then,” he said. “Name me.” The anger he felt was obvious. “What we have here is naked injustice. Name me if you must but my objection stands.”

Daniel was at the end of his tether. He ordered the Leader of the Opposition to take his seat. Hunte refused, on the ground that someone had to take a stand against dictatorship in democratic Saint Lucia. The Speaker repeated himself and once more he was ignored. “Well,” he said, “this House will proceed. You will not get what you expected. Due notice will be taken of your conduct, and the necessary action taken at the appropriate time.” Contempt coated his every word. “The question before the House is that the Estimates of Expenditure . . .” Hunte was once again on his feet in protest. “Mr. Speaker, why is the opposition being treated with such disrespect?”

“Sit down!” Daniel growled. “Sit down, and I’ll tell you!” Hunte continued to protest. The back and forth lasted several minutes, none of it recorded by the attendant TV personnel— on orders from the Speaker. Finally, Hunte and his team did what would become “a Labour thing” whenever the party is on the opposition benches. They picked up their papers and walked out.

Hunte fired a parting shot: “You can have your chamber!”

A barely ruffled Daniel continued. Having put the first part of the ritual question undisturbed, he added, without the slightest sign of discomfort: “As many as are of this opinion say aye.” The assenting response assaulted the ear drums, and not only because of the volume. Maybe out of habit, an unabashed Daniel went on, as if ghosts occupied the opposition benches: “As many as are of contrary opinion say no . . . I think the ayes have, the ayes have it.”

It had been a most unusual day. The press had questions, and evidently the Speaker anticipated them. He said the Leader of the Opposition had “in effect negatived the first motion to refer the Estimates to the Standing Finance Committee. On resumption of the interrupted session the government moved a new motion to have the Finance Committee immediately consider the Estimates.” Perhaps because of the Alice in Wonderland atmosphere I find myself tempted to cite Humpty Dumpty and his singular way with words. I choose instead to reference the more pragmatic Joe Abercrombie, by whose measure “rules are for children . . . and in war the only crime is to lose!”