Four or five years after he was awarded (with Theodore W. Shultz, an American) the Nobel Prize for Economics—for his studies of economic development and his construction of an innovative model relating the terms of trade between less developed and more developed nations to their respective levels of labor productivity in agriculture—Sir Arthur Lewis accepted from the late John Compton an invitation to pay an official visit to the land that gave him birth.
It had been years since Lewis set foot on Saint Lucian soil. A government scholarship had taken him to the London School of Economics, from which he graduated in 1937. He earned his doctorate in economics three years later. Lewis lectured at LSE from 1938 to 1947, was professor of economics at Manchester University from 1947 to 1958, principal at the University of the West Indies from 1959 to 1962 and from 1963 (the year he was knighted) to 1983 was a professor at Princeton University.
He helped establish the Caribbean Development Bank, and served for three years as its first president. He also was advisor on economic development to many international commissions and to several Asian, African and Caribbean governments. There is no record of Lewis having worked in Saint Lucia. According to one published account he was forced to leave his home island not long after graduating high school—when his heart was set on becoming an engineer—upon realizing “the governments and companies of British colonies, including his native Saint Lucia, refused to employ blacks except in the most menial of occupations. Lewis was in 1933 the LSE’s first black student.
To return to his official visit. Few of his fellow countrymen had heard of him. He’d written several books, none available at local bookstores, library or schools. As I report in my ‘Lapses & Infelicities’ (available from Amazon and STAR Publishing): “His appearance at the Morne Technical College proved anything but inspiring. It is remembered largely because of the lukewarm reception by the student body and for a particular question put to him by one of the group: “We know nothing about you. Where have you been? Why are you here today?’ Sir Arthur responded with a smile. “Well, I had a family to support,” he said. “I could not find work here.”
Recalling the episode years later, the cocky student now more familiar with the vicissitudes of life in this nation that is named for a saint, said: “I never imagined how far this whole matter would travel or that it would still be the stuff of rum-shop gossip two decades later.” For reasons he did not quite understand back in the day, he said, “the government and the principal at Morne Tech were convinced George Odlum was behind the whole thing. That he had coached me to attack our first winner of the Nobel Prize. The education ministry gave me an ultimatum, delivered by my school principal: apologize to Sir Arthur or risk possible expulsion.”
The student chose the rock over the harder place. He submitted to Sir Arthur—after several adjustments by a hand-picked committee—his amende honorable. Chuckling at the memory the now father of two told this writer the authorities made a far bigger deal of his childish faux pas than did his soft target. “Would you believe Sir Arthur actually took the trouble to write back to me,” he said. “Sir Arthur insisted there never was a need to apologize. My questions did not offend him. Actually, he offered encouragement. He said I had demonstrated the kind of pluck needed to make it in this world. I know now he was speaking from experience.”
There’s a lot more to be read about the Morne Technical College incident that had only hinted at the presence in our midst of a growing monster. Sir Arthur’s final visit was even more controversial than the first. Although he passed away in Barbados on June 15, 1991, it was Saint Lucia he had chosen as his final resting place. The everywhere else revered economist was entombed near the college that today bears his name—but not without shameful public behavior. As George Odlum wrote pointedly in his Crusader newspaper: “While the world looked on awed and reverential the mood in the streets of Castries was sullen, contrasting with the adulation and praise from the outside world.”
More telling was what Odlum had chosen to leave out of his account. For instance, that the reported bad-tempered and sulky mood at the passing of a universally acknowledged Saint Lucian genius spoke volumes about the operators of our education system that places no emphasis whatsoever on the accomplishments of the sons and daughters of Saint Lucia!
