Dr Millien’s Party

From Our Archives: A Glimpse into 1960

By Peter Ibbotson

The Meade Report calls for decisions to be made; and some of the decisions will be unpopular: of that there will be no doubt. No one wants to make unpopular decisions just for the fun of it, but the unpopular decisions will be forced upon the Government. At the same time, the very fact of these unpopular decisions will be exploited to the full by the Government’s opponents, who will not hesitate to put mere party advantage above the country’s well-being and welfare.

So, when the Meade Report comes to be discussed and put into operation, let no one be deceived by what will undoubtedly be the facile propaganda of the Destroyers who comprise the opposition to the orderly and planned development of Mauritius. These Destroyers will stop at nothing in order to reap meretricious political advantage regardless of the country’s real needs. So be warned; and beware the honeyed tongues of the glib demagogues of Vallonville and St George’s Streets. Like the Sirens of old, these honeyed tongues are but traps to lure the unwary to destruction.

The latest to join the ranks of the opposition is the erstwhile Labour MLC, Dr Millien. In Le Mauricien he has published a veritable hotchpotch, a veritable farrago, of pseudo-political discourse. And what does it all amount to? To nothing more than dissatisfaction with the Labour Party because it isn’t socialist enough; dissatisfaction also with the Parti Mauricien because it is too capitalist and because, also, Mr Koenig hasn’t in the past wished to talk to Dr Millien; and with the Independent Forward Bloc because it’s a one-man organisation lacking well-defined principles and relying on its leader’s popularity.

So, since none of these three satisfies Dr Millien, he presumably intends to find and lead yet another political party. The principles and policies of this new party are hinted at in Le Mauricien on November 12. It is to be a socialist party, but Dr Millien nowhere tells us what his definition of Socialism is. He has a laissez faire attitude towards the problem of over-population: disons que le taux de notre natalité baissera, sans avoir recours à des artifices plus ou moins heureux. How will the fall in births come about? Apparently because of some psychological and physiological law (no details given) which history is said to show to be true.

The only way in which populations have in the past been affected by natural laws has been by periodic famines and plagues which have in many areas of the world wiped out thousands of people and prevented in a very crude way the overpopulation of those areas. Is this the physiological law to which Dr Millien refers? Is he using the grandiloquent explication psychologique et physiologique as a euphemism for explication naturelle, that is, for famine and plague?

Elsewhere Dr Millien has condemned the Government for advocating family planning instead of promoting planned emigration; whatever one might think of the former (and personally I think that in family planning lies the key to a large part of the answer to the population problem), there is no doubt that emigration cannot, and would not ever, of itself provide the answer to overpopulation in Mauritius.

Nor does Dr Millien like the idea of development of secondary industries. Instead, he wants to see more and more land turned over to growing sugar, tea and tobacco. Not for Dr Millien the advice que nous devons produire ceci ou cela; his question is qui achètera ceci ou cela au prix rémunérateur?

Until I read Dr Millien’s article, I never met or heard of anyone who questioned the need for diversification of the Mauritian economy, who questioned the need for the establishment of secondary industries in order to reduce Mauritius’ reliance for prosperity on monocrop agriculture. Now, it appears, everyone is out of step except Dr Millien; he alone has been given the tablets of stone on which has been written the economic destiny of the future Mauritius. No secondary industries; no new developments; instead, back to sugar, and sugar, and even yet more sugar; with some tea and tobacco thrown in for good measure.

If this is what is written on the tablets which Dr Millien has received (on Pieter Both mountain?), then all I can say is that his mouse is indeed a ridiculous result of mountainous labour. Nothing more original than extension of tea, tobacco and sugar production! I can’t see much enthusiasm for a political party based on such a programme. And perhaps Dr Millien can answer the question qui achètera ce sucre, ce thé ou ce tabac au prix rémunérateur?

The amount of sugar which Mauritius can sell is regulated by the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement; no one is going to grow sugar which he can’t sell; so, the Agreement in effect regulates the amount of sugar which Mauritius can grow. Tobacco? The Board already has stocks in hand which are unsold, presumably because it can’t find a buyer. What would the Board do with even more tobacco? Encourage people to smoke more, at the risk of contracting lung cancer? Tea? This is an estate crop; extension of tea-producing wouldn’t benefit the people in the way that diversification of the agricultural economy would. But where to sell it? Can Mauritian tea be able to compete with teas grown in Ceylon or Assam or even East Africa?

In advocating extension of an existing monocultural economy, Dr Millien is alone in Mauritian political circles. He is alone, too, in colonial political circles. Everywhere the emphasis is on development of the economies of this, that and the other colony. Colonies are indeed producing this and that; and who buys this and that? Those colonies such as Malta and Barbados and Hong-Kong and Seychelles which are promoting schemes of economic development and expansion have set up development boards part of whose activities is the promotion of export sales. They have business representatives abroad who advertise or sell their ceci ou cela; their development boards undertake direct sales of goods abroad; and so on.

No one sits back and waits for the world to come knocking at his door to buy ceci ou cela; they go out into the world and show the world what they have to offer; and they persuade the world to buy ceci ou cela. That is what happens, Dr Millien; and it is what will have to happen in Mauritius when the island starts developing its secondary industries and attracting new industrial development or new agricultural producers. And it provides the answer to the question, referring to the production of new crops or goods, qui achètera ceci ou cela au prix rémunérateur. In English; shortly and pithily, “Whoever can be persuaded that they’re worth buying.”

Concrete examples of development in the colonies? Here are a few of which I’ve not spoken before. St Kitts — A 32-acre site, part refuse dump, part playing-field and part racecourse, is to be cleared and levelled. Roads and a sea-wall will be built (it’s below sea level) and water and electricity will be laid on. The area will then be used for three factories, with workers’ flats and a school.

7th Year – No 327
Friday 16th December, 1960

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 20 February 2026