NEW TRENDS AFFECT WEST INDIES IMAGE

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31096, 27 June 1966, Page 11

NEW TRENDS AFFECT WEST INDIES IMAGE

The West Indies should be thought of as developing rather than underdeveloped countries, said the Administrator and Queen's representative at Grenada (Mr I. G. Turbott) in an address to the Canterbury branch of the Royal Commonwealth Society. Mr Turbott questioned the public image of the West Indies. “Do we think of them only in terms of sunshine, calypsos, steel bands, and cricket?” he asked.

He said the political leaders were conscious that they had not created an image of a hard-working nation doing its best to solve its economic problems. “The leaders are also very aware that this type of image is not conducive to attracting overseas capital." Mr Turbott said that although it was life in “splendid isolation” this could not last for ever as the forces of economics must catch up. A federation of the West Indies, as such, came into being but later disintegrated when a referendum in Jamaica showed that the public did not want that island included. Attempts had been made to form lesser federations but these “had not clicked” largely because of the individual strengths of the island leaders. Mr Turbott said he had re-

cently attended a conference in London at which was signed a constitutional agreement for the Leeward and Windward Islands. Its main emphasis was on free association ; and it was patterned on New Zealand’s agreement with the Cook Islands. By the end of the year the territories would all be self-governing I except in defence and foreign i affairs.

The West Indies were the first colonies to be created and they looked like being the last, he said.