My heart hurts to see the sad and deteriorating state of the Guyana sugar industry. I refrain from comments on the efforts of those who I am sure are now trying their best in running the industry since I have not for a long time walked in those shoes and nothing is more irritating than old men pontificating about how things used to be. But I cannot deny that I find the industry’s current woes immensely distressing.
I worked in the Guyana sugar industry from 1955 to l999 and then continued in the post of Chief Executive of the Sugar Association of the Caribbean until 2007 – 52 years which are ingrained forever in my DNA – so I cannot but be saddened by what seems a never-ending slide into more and more calamity. I can hardly believe 
the terrible figures for cane and sugar yields I read about these days. And it horrifies me that an industry which once contributed massively to the public exchequer now needs huge subsidies to stay alive.
To ease my hurt and dismay – but not presuming to make suggestions in the current situation which I do not know anything like enough about to feel competent to comment on usefully – let me indulge in memories of the industry at a time, long ago, when it was emerging from a shambles much worse than it is in now.
I speak of the industry at the time of the Jock Campbell revolution when, I can attest, in Wordsworth’s famous exclamation about the French Revolution, “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive/But to be young was very heaven!” It will always be one of the great experiences in my life that I was fortunate enough to be part of that revolution.
In the late 1940s the sugar industry was in an almighty and antiquated mess – disorganized and chaotic, unproductive, backward and, above all, lacking in any concern for the human beings who worked in it. When I was employed by Bookers Jock told to me in the most graphic detail of his early days in British Guiana and his shock and disgust at the terrible conditions he saw first-hand on his family plantations and his determination to introduce root and branch reform as soon as he had the authority. He was a man of extraordinary vitality and enthusiasm – the most charismatic man I have ever met – and I can well imagine the whirlwind of activity he must have initiated when first he held the reins of corporate power.
When I joined Bookers in 1955 the Jock Campbell revolution was in full flow. After reading Professor Clem Seecharan’s magisterial historical work – Sweetening Bitter Sugar – Jock Campbell. The Booker Reformer in British Guiana 1934-1966 (Ian Randle Publishers, 2005) _ I wrote the following in an essay:
“I found myself in the middle of a process in which Bookers was being completely recreated. In this process the sugar industry in British Guiana was transformed from a run-down, unprofitable, inhuman, paternalistic and plantocratic expatriate family concern into a rehabilitated, forward-looking, productive and dynamic enterprise basically run by Guyanese for the much improved good of Guyanese and Guyana.
Sugar production grew from 170,000 to 350,000 tonnes. Estates were consolidated and factories modernized. Drainage and irrigation facilities and the whole infrastructure of field works were completely revamped. Agricultural practices and applications were overhauled in line with world-class technology at the time. The first sugar bulk-loading terminal in the Caribbean was established to replace the drudgery of loading sugar in bags.
And the people side of the industry was simply revolutionized: remuneration vastly increased, the old logies eliminated and 15,000 new houses in 75 housing areas built with roads and water supplied, medical services upgraded to cater for all sugar workers and their families and the scourge of malaria eradicated, Community Centres established on all estates and welfare, sporting, cultural and library activities expanded, training and education immensely stepped up, a world-class Apprentice Training Centre established, a cadet scheme and scholarships introduced and all along Guyanisation pressed forward until the time came when the industry was being run almost entirely by Guyanese. It was an era of tremendous growth and change for the better in the sugar industry and indeed throughout all the enterprises making up the Booker Group in Guyana at the time.
I cannot forget that wonderful time. All that was being done was captured in a phrase Jock Campbell as Chairman used in all his key addresses: “People are more important than ships, shops, and sugar estates.” We tried to act in the belief that business could not possibly just be about making money if only because that would be soul-destroyingly boring. Business had to be about making the lives of people better and more fulfilled. People in any case always came first however you considered what you were trying to do in business. Creating profit was vital but not just for its own sake but for good, everyday, ordinarily human, immediately flesh and blood, life-enhancing purposes.
Working in that old Bookers with Jock Campbell was marvelously exhilarating. There was a feeling of fervor and achievement – even in a small way of being involved in making history. Getting things done in a good, progressive cause was the essence of the job, not simply maximizing efficiency and making profits which were to be seen as necessary means and never as ultimate ends. I remember the clear purpose, the hard but satisfying work, the extraordinary leadership, the good humour, the enthusiasm and high spirits, the overall intelligent humanity of the operation, the camaraderie and the sense of fulfillment.
It was Jock who showed me the passage from Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago in which Strelnikov, caught in the huge ebb and flow of the Russian Revolution, amidst the tremendous events taking place all around him, the giant turns and turnabouts of history, suddenly realizes that the small concerns of individual men and women are what count in the end:
“And in order to do good to others he needed, besides the
principles that filled his mind, an unprincipled heart – the kind
of heart that knows of no general causes, but only of
particular ones and knows the greatness of small actions.”
Understanding the importance of small causes, appreciating the greatness of small actions: that is the essence of compassion in the exercise of power and that is what Jock Campbell most certainly and most deeply understood.”
That was a vivid time when one felt intensely alive and invigorated by what was being achieved. I remember still how fresh with promise each day was and how I looked forward to the work being done with such good purpose. I hope and pray for a new era of energy, improvement, imagination, innovation and renewed growth which will recapture the élan and success of that earlier time in an industry I long served and loved.
