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I have a duty, first to thank and to congratulate the Honourable Cynthia Forde, the Member of Parliament for St. Thomas, for her extraordinary leadership in organising this annual series of activities to celebrate the life and the achievements of a great Barbadian Patriot, and Labourite, the late Tom Adams.

There has been, for some time now, the risk and the danger that the record of the Tom Adams’ administration would become the victim of a peculiar form of political devaluation.

For some, it has become fashionable to treat the era of Tom Adams as the Forgotten Decade. It has also, regrettably, become the case that Tom Adams and his legacy have not been accorded the admiration and respect that they undoubtedly deserve.

We come to understand Barbadian politics better when we fully grasp the nature of the forces which lie behind these tendencies.

Where the Barbados Labour Party, as a political institution is concerned, it reflects its major failing. The Party too often lacks the language and techniques by which to acknowledge and to properly salute its major achievements. The position represented by CLR James in his 1958 piece on “The Political Situation in Barbados” to the effect that the Party depends too heavily on the strength of its good works only for its political success is still very relevant.

The fact that Adams himself left no memoirs, and that none of the principal figures of his administration have, as yet, published anything for the benefit of history have all contributed to the area of darkness surrounding the legacy of the Tom Adams administration.

It has also to be said that the predominant attitude on the other side of the political divide has been to treat the Tom Adams era as a political aberration made possible by the vicissitudes of the electoral process.

This tendency to dismiss the legitimacy of Labour Party administrations is, famously, to be found all over Nigel harper’s letter to Thompson, in which he complains that the Barbados Labour Party is running a country it did not want.

It is also to be found in the fact that no member of the Adams administration, among whom are some of the most outstanding statesmen in our nation’s history, received national honours or any form of recognition in the period between 1986 and 1994.

The vandalisation of the political legacy of Tom Adams and his administration serve as a convenient, but insidious partisan political purpose.

It should, however, not be so. The political era 1976 - 1986 was in fact one characterised by extraordinary achievements on all fronts, and one that has left permanent and highly beneficial legacies that have greatly enriched life in Barbados.

Tom Adams presided over a period of export diversification in the aftermath of the first oil crisis with sugar, tourism and manufacturing all prominent sources of income employment and foreign exchange.

As one who believed in generous wage increases for workers, overall real wages in the Barbados economy grew by almost 5% between 1975 and 1980. The increased economic activity and the attendant benefits to the country’s workers fuelled a marked growth in savings, as the ratio of domestic savings to GDP reached 25% as compared to less than 5% in the 1960's and early 1970's.

This lecture series can be of great worth by helping to bring clarity to the way in which the legacies of one of the most formative periods in Barbadian development come to be projected for the ages.

I trust also that it will rescue the image of the man, Tom Adams, and restore him to his rightful and exalted place in the pantheon of Barbadian history.

There is much that can be said and will be said about the policy aspects of his political career.

But at a time when everywhere there seems to be a pervasive and all engrossing lacklustre nature to the political process and political figures, there is an aspect of the political career of Tom Adams that needs constantly to be highlighted.

There are few finer sights than to see a political master at work. It involves the display of the capacity to move people and to change things by the power of words. It involves the sophisticated use of the intellect, wit, and the command of a sense of occasion to influence things.

It is a very high art, not bequeathed to many.

Tom Adams simply ought to go down in history as the person in public life in Barbados who best mastered the art and the techniques of politics in a way that separated him from the very best of his and any other times.

Most people in public life endure the power relations of politics because they have no choice. He relished it, and brought an interesting sparkle to his politics, such that he could never be ignored.

They are few politicians, ancient or modern, who would choose to speak as Adams spoke on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Central Bank of Barbados:

"I have had the malicious pleasure - I believe in German it is called schadenfreude - of appointing a committee which consisted of the Governor, Mr. Frank Walcott, Mr. Wendell McClean and an official to examine the Central Bank’s shortcomings in respect of actions it took earlier in 1976. I only wish that the proceedings of that committee could have been tape recorded so that I could have had the full pleasure of hearing what they said to each other! I think that the most persistent debate of the last six years has not been the Barbados Labour Party against the Democratic Labour Party; it has been the Central Bank against the Barbados Workers’ Union. And there are many secrets which the protagonist and antagonist have in this particular battle, not the least being the salaries of the Governor of the Central Bank and the General Secretary of the Barbados Workers’ Union. It is my opinion that the Governor of the Central Bank does not necessarily come out best in this regard. And I will say this since he stands upon his dignity where this matter of salary is concerned".

It is even better to hear Tom Adams speak about himself. Questioned about the advice he received from his father, he said:

"He always told me not to be sarcastic. I wish, I hope that I followed that advice at all times". On behalf of the many victims of the most sarcastic tongue in the history of Barbadian politics, I have this evening to say that if ever I have a wayward son, I shall call him Tom!

That apart, he could find the words to speak on behalf of all Barbadians in these terms:

"I do tend to have specific goals rather than generalised goals. But the specific goals are all formulated within the general concept of the social democratic development of Barbados, of our making ourselves as well off a country in economic terms as anywhere in the world, and of ensuring that all of our citizens then share in the prosperity which the achievement of such a goal would make possible".

This evening, at a time when we are still celebrating the two-hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade, I will structure my remarks to focus on what I regard as Tom Adams’ greatest contribution to the social democratic development of Barbados.

It concerns the programme of reparation and empowerment with which his name will always be associated, the programme embodied in the Tenantries Freehold Purchase Act to begin to correct the great injustice of our inheritance from slavery and to make Barbados a property owning democracy.

This is not the only aspect of Tom Adams’ legacy that could command the attention of an entire lecture.

Indeed, there were initiatives that were introduced under Adams’ leadership that were so fundamental to Barbados’ development, that they have not only endured and stood the test of time, but have been expanded and enriched by succeeding administrations without their initial ethos and essence being altered in any way.

Consider the fundamental contribution of Adams to the Governance of Barbados affairs.

The Administrative Justice Act put on the Statute Books by the Adams administration has stood largely unaltered as a guardian of our democracy against administrative and Ministerial impropriety and tyranny. It has been called upon to offer our citizens redress against injustice in high places in a way that makes Barbados stand out as a model democracy.

The social democratic development of Barbados has also been fundamentally assisted by the presentation of the Status of Women Report in 1978 and the actions taken in respect of its core recommendations to remove our womenfolk from the status of an underclass which has been their lot throughout most of our preceding history.

We take matters like these for granted today when, in so many spheres of life, women are outperforming men.

Similarly, the Status of Children Reform Act, which wiped the concept of illegitimacy off the statute books, and Family Law Reform have forever, for the better changed the place and status formerly deprived and marginalised Barbadians within the mainstream of our society.

The structure of our modern economy and the promise of a fully developed Barbadian economy focused on the export of high quality services have very much been the products of main economic engineering with which the name of Tom Adams is intimately associated.

It must also be said that Barbados finds it easier to operate in today’s liberalised global economy because Adams was in advance of his time and at variance with perceived conventional wisdom of his age in respect of the manner in which the private sector and market forces could be made to work in developing countries.

This, however did not prevent him from acting upon the understanding that in our kind of society the State must behave like an entrepreneur - as evidenced in the investment to build the Heywoods Hotel, the Arawak Cement Plant, the Barbados National Bank and the Insurance Corporation of Barbados.

Every year, when the IMF officials pass through and tell us how wicked and wrong is it for Governments to invest in building the productive capacity of the economy, I remember Tom, and give thanks for his superior, more enlightened example. The concept of a fully developed Barbadian society resting its development on a strong, modern physical and social infrastructure, not the least being an artery of modern highways, was also an essential aspect of the legacy of Adams from which we are still benefitting and to which we now, in our times, in our own way, have a special duty to contribute.

As he himself said, he tended to have specific goals. One was to introduce tax reform as an aspect of economic management and development to such an extent that it came to be admired and used as a political tool by his chief adversary on financial affairs.

As we come to grapple with issues related to climate change, global warming and new processes to support sustainable development, we remember how far Adams was in advance of his times for the initiatives he pioneered to generalise the use of solar energy technology in Barbados. We are now on the cusp of exporting such technology to Africa.

The enduring effects of the legacy of the Tom Adams’ administration extend to cover the work of institutions, all performing vital social and economic functions, which are so ingrained in the functioning of our society that we are inclined to take their existence for granted.

I refer to the existence, for example, of a National Drug Service; the existence of an Institution (the NCF) responsible for Cultural Development; the existence of a National Training Board which has transformed the livelihoods of countless thousands of young Barbadians by providing opportunities for vocational training on an unprecedented scale.

At the regional level, the existence and functioning of the Regional Security System as a coordinating mechanism through which the Small States of the Eastern Caribbean collectively meet their security challenges is yet another vital institutional reminder of the vigour and vision of the leadership of Tom Adams.

In the great sweep of Barbadian history, the most enduring and the most impactful aspect of the contribution of Tom Adams to our social democratic development will undoubtedly be recorded as the great reparation he brought about and the social and economic transformation he set in motion through the initiatives he introduced to correct centuries of injustices in respect of the ownership and control of land.

All across Barbados a great transformation in the conditions under which people live in communities and the distribution of ownership of land is now in progress.

It holds the promise of converting Barbados into a property owning democracy and a fully developed society, at the heart of which are strong and well ordered communities.

It is easy to forget that this great transformation is of recent vintage and was, in fact, set in train only in 1980 to correct the worst aspect of our inheritance from slavery.

Barbados has inherited a peculiar form of human settlement and a unique set of social relations in respect of access to and ownership of land which were formed in the immediate aftermath of Emancipation.

As Beckles recounts in “Great House Rules”, in 1838, the 83,150 emancipated persons were released in Barbados into a closed and hostile world that offered them no real solutions in relation to their settlement.

The 508 plantation estates of the day occupied virtually all of the arable land in the island. Significantly, however, unlike the situation in other Caribbean countries where land was plentiful and available, the ex slaves in Barbados had no means by which to effectively escape from the clutches of the plantation system.

The plantocracy of the day, desiring a continuous supply of labour to make their plantations financially viable devised a regime of settlement on the land to capitalise on the situation of a large body of houseless and landless persons.

The tenantry system, as the dominant form of human settlement in Barbados emerged out of this sad state of affairs.

It was a regime whereby planters rented to workers portions of land on the condition that they provided the plantation concerned, on which they were allowed to locate chattel houses, dependable and frequent labour as specified by contract. The tenantry system, thus conceived, was not intended to facilitate human settlement; rather it was designed to perpetuate a special Barbadian form of exploitation.

Beckles describes it as a form of debt bondage, a legal system of entrapment. For the tenantry system came to be regulated by draconian legislation, notably the Master and Servants Act of 1840 which reinforced, through the law, a relationship of exploitation between the planter and labourers. At the core of this relationship were a set of rules which so engrained insecurity of tenure and put the lives of tenants in a state of permanent contingency.

Penalties for breach of duty under this 1840 Act ranged from a fine which could be equivalent to the labourers’ wages, to eviction from the rented spot.

The development of tenantries all across Barbados resulted from these circumstances whereby ex-slaves erected chattel houses on loose rock foundations on marginal lands of the plantation.

The resulting arrangement approximated village type settlements without ever aspiring to the status of well ordered communities.

There was no provision for roads nor other essential services. And the insecurity of tenure and the spectre of eviction meant that the housing stock in which dwelt the majority of our citizens remained in a most deplorable condition down through the years.

The regime legitimised by the Master and Servant Act lasted for almost a century until 1937.

In 1897 the Landlord and Tenant Act was introduced which favoured the Landlord, and perpetuated the landless situation of the labourer in a manner intended to guarantee a continuous supply of labour to the plantation.

This Act was amended from time to time (1955, 1956 and 1969).

In addition, the Security of Tenure of Small Holdings Act (1955) and the Tenantries Control and Development Act of 1965 were introduced all granting tenants an increased measure of security on rented plots that their foreparents had occupied or tilled for generations.

They took some of the brutality out of an iniquitous system.

But the underlying conditions of underdevelopment and social marginalisation remained. In a word, a large mass of Barbadians subsisted on lands that they did not own, in houses that they could not develop, and in communities bereft of essential services and amenities.

It was this situation of “landless freedom” with all of its ills and consequences that the Tenantries Freehold Purchase Act of 1980 was designed to correct.

The specifics and details of the arrangements of this legislation as it pertains to Plantation Tenantries are very well-known and will not be repeated here at length.

The transforming spirit and effects are what must concern us. It has fundamentally changed centuries of a tortured and adverse history by transforming tenants into potential landowners, and overthrowing an iniquitous regime that was allowed to fester on our social landscape for almost 150 years after Emancipation, and more so, for a decade and a half after Independence.

The terms under which the land transfer takes place not only amounts to a form of reparation for past injustice, but in a small society where land is scarce and land prices are under constant upward pressure, the 10 cents per square foot arrangement for the purchase of plantation tenantry land represents an extraordinarily favourable set of purchase arrangements which have no peer.

Importantly, as well, the right to purchase freehold title has triggered investment by the newly enfranchised landowners in home improvement all across Barbados. It has contributed so vastly to the improvement of our housing stock that many rural communities today are now unrecognisable as compared to their condition in 1980.

The sheer scale of what is being undertaken, as a force for social transformation, cannot be underestimated. In respect of Plantation Tenantries, some 7200 lots have been identified, of which 4,740 have by July 2007 been already conveyed.

It behoves us to accelerate the process whereby those additional 2,500 Barbadians can purchase land in today’s world at 10 cents per square foot.

For land ownership and security of tenure produce benefits that serve not only to empower the individual beneficiaries but the entire nation.

They form the basis for the emergence of Barbados as a genuine property owning democracy. Land title, used as collateral for acquiring loans to finance other economic and social investments is now one of the chief means by which wealth is being created in favour of those who have traditionally owned nothing in this country.

It is for these very good and various reasons that the Tenantries Freehold Purchase Act and its transforming effects have rightly been hailed as being revolutionary.

We would do well, however, to remind ourselves that the great transformation intended to be accomplished by this legislation has not yet been fully attained.

The legislation also makes provision for persons living in plantation, urban and rural tenantries, amounting to some 3,000 in urban areas and 2,500 in rural tenantries to purchase their lots as well.

The purchase price was previously intended to be based on the open market valuation as opposed to the ten cents per square foot for plantation tenants. The open market price was perceived to be beyond the means of most potential beneficiaries.

Hence in 2001, the Act was amended to allow non plantation tenants the right to purchase at no more than $2.50 per square foot, instead of the full market price for the first 5,000 square feet. If the open market price of the land exceeds $2.50 per square foot Government will pay the difference to the vendor up to 500 square feet.

In some instances, the subsidy that Government will provide to beneficiaries for these land transfers will amount to between $7.50 and $10 per square foot.

To fully discharge its obligations under this programme, the Government of Barbados will have to subsidise the transfer of lands in our urban and rural tenantries to the extent of hundred of millions of dollars over the coming year.

At a time when there is so much legitimate concern over our land prices in the open market it is important that the full scope and scale of the betterment that has been and will be afforded to working class Barbadians by the 1980 legislation be fully appreciated.

It is also important that the potential transforming effects of the Rural and Urban Development Commissions be grasped and supported.

Tenantries in Barbados evolved in an haphazard manner, bereft of essential services and facilities.

It is not enough to enable homeowners to purchase land to improve their homes.

Government has a responsibility to systematically develop all communities in Barbados by providing them with infrastructure and social amenities to enrich the lives of our people.

This is the purpose for which these two Commissions were created and explains why they constitute such a vital part of the contemporary social transformation of our nation.

They form part of the spirit and the substance of the transformation of modern Barbados that was embodied in the legislation to which Tom Adams gave leadership in 1980.

Whatever the cost, whatever the effort required, we must ensure that this programme of transformation is fully carried through in the search for full development within the context of social justice in Barbados.

Issues in relation to Barbadians’ access to land and housing in today’s Barbados are legitimate if sometimes contentious issues which should enjoy robust and healthy national debate. I touch this evening on two other issues.

The first concerns the matter of the ownership of land in Barbados by non- nationals, and the related question as to the merits and feasibility of introducing Alien Landholding legislation today.

There is a history to this matter that has properly to be told.

In June 1970, the DLP Administration decided that legislation should be enacted to control the holding and disposal of real property by aliens. A Bill was drafted and taken to Parliament on January 20, 1976 but the Dems in the remaining nine months of their administration made no attempt to pass the Bill.

On return to office in 1986 this matter was raised again in the form of a question from a DLP Member of Parliament. On November 25, 1986 Mr. Richard Byer, Member of Parliament for St. George South tabled Parliamentary Question No 50 as follows:

"Will the Minister state whether the government intends to initiate legislation to amend the law relating to the acquisition and transfer of land, whether by freehold or leasehold or otherwise, so as to:

1. Regulate and control landholding by aliens;
2. Stipulate the interests and the duration of the interests which aliens may own in land; and
3. Stipulate the maximum amount of land which any alien, whether individually or otherwise, may acquire in Barbados so as to stop such large scale purchase of land by aliens as have been taking place in recent years in Barbados".

The DLP Government replied to the question in Parliament on February 3, 1987 as follows:

"It is not the intention of the Government to introduce such legislation at this time but the matter will be kept under constant review". Again on June 11, 1991 Mr. Leroy L. Brathwaite, Member of Parliament for St. Michael North East raised a similar question and yet again on April 27, 1993 the DLP Government indicated that it had no intention of passing alien landholding legislation in Barbados.

Recognising that it was a matter that we should not allow to remain fallow, on 20th April 1998 the House of Assembly under this Administration established a Select Committee drawn from both sides of Parliament to enquire into and report on, inter alia, existing laws, rules and regulations relating to ownership of interest in land in Barbados by non nationals.

The Committee reported to the House of Assembly on 18th December, 1998.

At page 7, the Report states:

"Having considered the above evidence and information, the Committee is of the view that the evidence does not support the perception that there are tracks of land in Barbados which are owned by non nationals, but rather than non-resident nationals own a large number of lots in Barbados".

Among its recommendations, the Committee advised Parliament accordingly:

"The Committee is of the view that there is no need at this time for restriction of non-national ownership of land in Barbados.....and accordingly so recommends".

Subsequent to this, Barbados has become a signatory to, and is, since 2001, applying the provision of the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas, creating the Caribbean Single market and Economy (CSME) under which it commits itself to removing existing restrictions on matters such as access to land and undertakes not to introduce new ones.

In the face of this history, and our immediate and active Treaty obligations, it is not a practical matter to envision the introduction of Alien Landholding Legislation in Barbados.

The matter of access to land and housing at affordable prices is valid.

The increase in the price of land over the past two decades is obviously a cause for concern. For example, in 1987 land in new housing developments in St. Philip and Christ Church was sold for $3-5 per square foot, today that same land averages $15-18 per square foot. There are of course, still lots sold at 10¢ per square foot under the Plantation Tenantries Programme, $2.50 per square foot under the Urban and Rural Tenantries Programme and for $10 and under by the National Housing Corporation. Even in the face of this, there are lots in some private developments fetching $25-30 per square foot.

The main factor driving price is demand. In this environment the price is set based on what the customer can pay rather than on the cost of building out the development.

But what is driving demand? First is the fact that housing demand is a direct by-product of economic growth and confidence in the economy. Robust economic growth over the past decade, a 36% increase in wages, 33,000 more persons employed, enhanced job security and general confidence in the future have all driven high demand and the price paid for land. The story is illustrated by the fact that the value of residential mortgages has grown by over 100% since 1994.

Demand continues to be driven as well by the perception of the shortage of land. The fact that land is a finite resource, in our case 166 square miles or 107,000 acres, fuels the fire of concern about land being scarce. I must remind you that over the past almost 40 years, there have been thousands of sub-divisions approved for the creation of new housing lots. In 1970, there were some 42,000 parcels of land in Barbados. By 2007 that figure has grown to 130,000. Of note however, is that there are some 42,605 vacant lots today in Barbados.

The Government will continue to approve sub-division of land for housing and to create new planning conditions so as to influence the market by providing significant quantities of land at low prices, thereby putting pressure on private developers.

It is against this background that I devoted considerable attention in my Economic Policy Statement (the Budget) on March 14, 2007.

In summary, they are:

1. Amendments to Town & Country Planning Act to impose planning obligations on developers including the allocation of lots for affordable housing;
2. NHC to develop 535 acres of land to yield 4,000 housing solutions;
3. NHC land for Primary Homes to be sold for $2.50 per sq. ft plus land development costs;
4. Provide long term lease of land to Barbadians earning less than $25,000 per annum;
5. Accelerated Land Registration project;
6. Incentives to developers for projects of more than fifteen (15) houses with land to be sold for less than $150,000 to first-time home owners;
7. Introduction of minimum housing standards;
8. Subsidy to low income families similar to that of the IADB funded Housing and Neighbourhood Upgrading Project;
9. Special tax rate of 15% for companies building houses to be sold for less than $150,000;
10. Reduction in land tax; and
11. Increase in the allowance of home improvement.

Whilst my Barbados Labour Party administration has been creative, focused and responsive in dealing with the issues affecting land and housing in Barbados, what has been the position of the Democratic Labour Party? The major proposal which amounts to a major charade of the Dems is the promise to provide interest free mortgages to our 28,000 public officers.

An analysis of this proposal reveals that it is unaffordable and unsustainable. Assuming a modest average mortgage of $150,000 and an annual uptake of only 10% of public officers (i.e. 2,800) the annual funding required is $420 mil. Assuming a repayment period of twenty (20) years at zero interest, the fund will not be able to lend to new public officers from the repayments of the initial borrowers since inflation and the expenses associated with operating the fund will cause its value to be eroded year by year. Its longevity will depend on the ability of the Government to make annual cash injections in the order of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Furthermore, this proposal directly undermines the Credit Unions which have been able to empower their members and strengthen their financial bases through interest charged on loans, including mortgage loans. The Credit Unions already access funds for mortgage lending at reduced cost through the Housing Credit Fund providing 100% mortgages to first-time home owners at below market interest rates. This programme is properly funded and is sustainable, and has already helped thousands of public officers as well as private sector employees, together with self employed individuals.

The notion of providing interest free mortgages to public officers is not a solution to any of the issues facing us in Barbados today in respect of land and housing.

Effectively it will mean that the maids in our hotel industry, the workers on our farms, working people in all categories of private enterprise would have to meet the cost of their own housing solutions while contributing over $450 million per year in subsidies to their counterparts in the public sector.

This is not the first time that on the eve of a general election, the DLP has sought to win public support by the presentation of proposals which it did not intend to honour to the hilt.

Tom Adams in speaking to the circumstances of his day, and as a warning to us for the ages, spoke to the country in these terms in his final Budget Presentation in 1984: “Calls by opposition spokesmen and other figures for impossible levels of tax relief are part of a political game, and can be ignored.

They are made, not because they are feasible, but to give the Opposition an opportunity of criticizing the Government for not doing, what in their hearts they know cannot in wisdom or prudence be done”.

And he ended his final Budget presentation to Parliament, which sums up his life’s work, and which should be an inspiration to this generation and all after us who are called to public office:

"When in due course the economic historians look at this Budget, I want them only to say that it combined vision with humanities - the Government’s vision that held Barbados to its course without chasing after popular but unwise measures in the short term; and Government’s humanity that put the cause of social security for our people at the centre of our considerations and recognised that the case of the old, the sick and the unemployed are the things that, in the final analysis really matter; and that politics and economics are a means to an end, and not the end in themselves".

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