There once lived in the town of Vieux Fort a man named Louis Boriel. Vieux Fortians and persons elsewhere knew him as a self-made man who owned land, animals and other property. Stories abound how he came to his riches. He was the grandchild of East Indian indentured labourers who had been enticed to the Caribbean from their homes when former slaves from Africa refused to work the same lands, after emancipation. I knew Louis through my mother’s father, Gaston Alphonse, who was a master carpenter in the town and who had built many large, beautiful homes, some for the Boriel family. I kept in touch with Louis after my grandfather passed on, even after I had moved to Castries.
When I entered politics our paths crossed more regularly due to the many public meetings held in Vieux Fort. I was therefore not surprised when Prime Minister Allan Louisy informed me in September or October of 1979 that Louis Boriel wanted to speak to me personally. By then the party with which I had contested the elections had formed the government and I was curious to discover what Louis had to say to me. It was suggested I pay him a visit at his town house in Vieux Fort, preferably on a Saturday of my choosing. Of course I was not about to wait until I had a free Saturday. I therefore phoned his home one Friday. His wife took the call and I informed her of my plan to visit Vieux Fort the following day and that I would like to call on her husband.
On arrival at the Boriel residence I found the man of the house seated in the porch overlooking the town’s main street, awaiting my appearance. Following the usual pleasantries I discovered that Louis wished to caution me to avoid corruption in public life. “You are young,” he said, “and if you work well, money will come.” He reminded me that he had known my family for a very long time and considered them upright and decent God-fearing folk. To my great surprise he informed me that my grandfather Gaston, with whom he shared the same ethnic origin, was his godfather. It occurred to me that my grandfather may have owed his consistent employment in the 1950s-60s to the Boriel family.
I discovered that the revelation of family connections and the warning of corruption were merely the tip of a deeper, more philosophical matter that Louis wished to bring to my attention. It turned out the reason I had been summoned to meet the gentleman had more to do with the practical work of politics: creating jobs and putting money in peoples’ pockets. He did not offer any biblical quotation, such as always having the poor among us. Neither did he caution me about certain known individuals who liked to harvest where they did not plant. No, it wasn’t any of these things he wished to delve into. His next few words had a far wider and more universal application, even as he offered them in the context of little Saint Lucia.
“Peter,” he said finally, “if you were to gift every Saint Lucian one million dollars in his hands today, do you know that in ten years the same people who are poor today would still be poor?” I did not press him for an explanation, sensing the quickening of his story. Besides, I had always known there was more to poverty than the lack of money or job opportunity. I must admit, however, that the idea of poverty had never been put to me in quite the way Louis had just put it. I recalled hearing (and believing) from a very early age that if one were to succeed in commerce and wealth gathering, one needed a mentor or guide who had walked the walk, so to speak. It had been taken as gospel in my youth that only persons who had acquired wealth and property were able to offer advice to others who wished to emulate their success. At that time it was claimed by those with information that poverty was an attitude of mind, as are wealth accumulation and thrift. And the difference between property and poverty is like night and day, as every sensible child can tell.
The other and perhaps more important point of Louis’ statement is that not everyone has the ability to use money correctly or wisely. The human brain appears to be wired differently. This may help explain the phrase “differently able persons”. It is a phrase which may aptly be applied to well co-coordinated individuals who are unable to grasp the concept of saving, and which idea a more physically challenged person may find easy to grasp. In addition, a growing number of people are socialized by television and its foreign tastes and in the consumer goods it advertises. The continuing glamourization of tobacco smoking on TV, for example, even in the midst of the wealth of knowledge which exists today on its harmful effects on humans, is a case in point.
I am aware that we live in a democracy and as such we cannot tell grown folks how to live their lives; that the best we can do is to subtly suggest. We are also painfully aware that job creation has become the new political mantra of every politician seeking office. And that is not such a bad thing. My concern, however, is that the mere creation of jobs, no matter how laudable, is only a small part of the responsibility of government; any government. A government has an even larger responsibility to inform those for whom it is creating jobs, that what they do with their pay is as important as the job itself. People must be told, if no one had told them before, that the use to which money is put will condemn them to misery or extricate the tribe from poverty and want. It is therefore crucial that such education as may be designed by government-paid experts and others ought to be incorporated into a works programme once tax-payer dollars are used in the creation of those jobs.
I know of certain political colleagues who have repeated ad nauseam the need for government to inculcate a culture of savings and thrift in the society, beginning with the re-introduction of a school savings programme, from grade one. I repeat the call for government to encourage citizens to save in the hope that someone will listen and act on it. It is the view of many that savings for adult workers ought to be encouraged either as deposits in a bank or as investment in land. Such savings ought to be a priority ahead of a motor vehicle, for example, unless the latter is needed for the job or for earning more income.
Returning briefly to cigarette smoking: statistics suggest that in countries such as ours, people who smoke are often among the poorest and lowest paid. Again, there are exceptions to this observation which perhaps proves the rule. Be that as it may, a government-initiated public works programme would do well to encourage participants to quit smoking. It seems a crying shame that some thirty years after Louis Boriel first expounded his theory of poverty with his notion of a million-dollar gift to each citizen, the pyramid of wealth and poverty remains basically the same. With such an assessment, which has been confirmed by the government statistics on poverty, it may well be fair to conclude that Louis Boriel’s unspoken words on the Saturday we met in Vieux Fort were: “A fool and his money are soon parted.” Had Louis Boriel had the grey matter and opportunities of Nobel laureate Sir Arthur Lewis, he may well have added to the great man’s theory on money and poverty by observing that wealth can also be lost by gambling, excessive drinking, fornication and other forms of licentious behaviour.
Those who may be poor today and are determined to transform their lives for the better ought to remember that regular work without the wise and thoughtful use of their earnings guarantees nothing. Indeed, such income may well lead to more frustration, especially for those who experience difficulty making useful life-style changes.
