DID YOU KNOW about the UK Colonial Development and Welfare Act of 1940 which promised British territories extra funding for social and economic development. However to be eligible the colonies had to agree to a series of labor and social reforms. Despite tremendous pressure Bermuda refused to implement any of the social reforms, i.e. No minimum wage, no trade union act, no labour laws, no pensions, no compensation for workplace injury, no labor dispute conciliation, no reduction in the 54 hour work week. He goes on to say that the American vice consul stated “a small group has made Bermuda its own paradise by controlling legislation and by seeing that taxation policy kept all but themselves in strict economic subjection while they themselves accumulated fortunes subject to no taxes whatsoever. The system impressed one American business man stationed here that he term it “A modified form of slavery’, which indeed it is.” Steven High in his book Base Colonies in the Western Hemisphere, 1940-67 Palgrave MacMillan , New York 2009
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 02:19:21 +0000