VOLUME 1
The Fourth Legislative Council
December 1947 – December 1951

PREFACE Dr. Roger Luncheon, Head of the Presidential Secretariat

Dr. Jagan was first elected to the Legislature of British Guiana in 1947 and served until 1992, a span of almost fifty years in elected public office. Dur ing his period as a Legislator/Member of Parliament 1947 – 1953, Dr. Jagan served as an elected member; as a Head of Government 1957 – 1964 in the pre Independence period; and as a Leader of the Opposition Party in Par- liament 1964 – 1992, until the PPP was returned to power in 1992. In 1997, he died in Office as Head of State and Head of the PPP/Civic Government.

Compiled in chronological order, these volumes contain Dr. Jagan’s
speeches made in Legislative Assembly/Parliament
during his long career there. These speeches reflect his consummate attention to events that developed during the important periods in Guyana, the Caribbean region and the world.
Dr. Jagan was elected and entered the Legislative Assembly in the colonial era. The inequities and inhumanity of that period (the post-World War II period) was the arena in which he started his life and career as a politician. With universal suffrage and the political party of his creation, the PPP, he entered the legislature and piloted the PPP that was poised to take British Guiana to Independence.
Betrayed by the Western powers, the PPP was removed from office in 1964, and stayed in Parliament as the Opposition Party for twenty-eight years.
In 1992 his party regained power, removing the PNC after a free and fair election. Dr. Jagan’s speeches illustrate his humanism, his dedication to the working people, the poor and the powerless. He spoke as an Internationalist, joining his and Guyana’s voice in the struggle for national liberation, independence and development. During the Cold War years, he argued for peaceful co-existence and non-alignment. His major contributions dealt with national issues impacting on socio-economic development in Guyana. He proposed initiatives that were well thought-out and carefully crafted, and which enjoyed the support of Guyanese.
He emphasised good governance, economic planning and a tripartite economy. He exposed excesses and wrong-doings during the colonial regime and under the PNC Government and fought tirelessly in Parliament to succour the victims of colonialism and PNC misrule. For him, democratic Government needed to address issues of economic justice, for the sake of global security. The unnecessary and cruel wastage of human talent was his major concern. As he once declared: “Democracy can only prosper in an environment of economic, so- cial and ecological development. Poverty atrophies the vigour and initiative of the individual and deprives the society of incalculable human resources. If left unattended, the expansion of poverty with hunger and the hopelessness it engenders will undermine the fabric of our civilisation and the security of the democratic state, thus threatening world peace.”
He was equally passionate in the cause of environmental protection, recognising an intimate linkage with human economic development but also the human spiritual hunger for beauty. He put it memorably thus : “… the natural resources of our planet must be utilised for the benefit of mankind in such a way that they remain available for future generations, and that in the process of utilisation, fullest measures are taken to prevent environmental degradation. Sustainable development is an all-embracing process which is centred on human development. There are two major needs which have to be satisfied. One is to use natural resources for the material and spiritual upliftment of all people. The other is to maintain the delicate balance in nature reflected in the various eco systems adorning our planet.”
Cheddi Jagan was, and is, the adornment of our country. His record of service is unsurpassable and the history of the party he led is intimately inter-woven into the essence of things Guyanese.