Island in the Sun

"It is the fairest land that eyes have beheld," wrote Christopher Columbus when he discovered the Caribbean island of Jamaica in 1494. This winter 100,000 sun-seeking North American tourists are discovering Jamaica and echoing Columbus. The lush British colony, only three hours by air from Miami, is the Temperate Zone dweller's vision of Eden: white sand beaches and an emerald surf, blue mountains and waterfalls in the distance, a green landscape of palms, banana and sugar cane, splashed with gaudy contrasts of scarlet poinciana blooms, yellow and coral bougainvillaea vines and fragrant orchards of mangoes, limes and tangerines.

Unlike most other islands of the impoverished Antilles, Jamaica can boast of more than sunshine and scenery. By the low living standards of the Caribbean, Jamaica's 1,500,000 inhabitants are comparatively well off. Jamaica's soft-spoken natives (80% Negro) look healthy, clean and sleek beside the ragged poor of neighboring islands. Most of them wear shoes, and at least 70% can read and write. Rarely is a beggar seen in the orderly capital of Kingston (pop. 155,000), a city of paved streets, department stores, supermarkets and good restaurants.

Balanced Budget. Jamaica's moderate prosperity is new-found and self-made. Britain, whose absentee landlords drained fat profits from the place with regularity after the British routed the Spaniards* in 1655, did not grant Jamaica limited self-government until 1944. At that time the island was so run-down that a visiting British commissioner called it "a dung heap of physical abomination."

Still under a British-appointed governor, but with an elected local Assembly running most of the island's affairs, Jamaica has come along fast. The government is now headed by Chief Minister Norman Washington Manley, 62, the West Indies' most successful lawyer before he entered politics in 1938. Under his shrewd eye, Jamaica balances its $60 million annual budget. Money that Britain used to spend to bail the island out of debt is now funneled into "extras" like land development schemes and the newly built University College of the West Indies.

Fewer Imports. The once profitable banana business, almost wiped out by disease during the early '40s, was rescued by development of a disease-resistant variety, and exports have doubled in the past eight years. During and after the war, Jamaica expanded its sugar planting and built up a $21 million-a-year British market (and a current surplus that may soon force a compulsory cutback). Rice, a staple food that had always been imported, was grown locally under government direction, and production was boosted to the point where Jamaica is now nearly self-sufficient. In trying to encourage manufacturing, the government granted special inducements to foreign capital to build local factories. Island plants now employ some 20,000 and satisfy much of Jamaica's needs for cement, shoes, clothes, soap, paint, canned goods, furniture.

While Jamaica strove to cut its imports, a rich new export was discovered almost accidentally. In 1942 a Jamaican rancher wondered why he could not grow grass on his estate near Saint Ann's Bay and sent a soil sample to a U.S. laboratory for analysis. The test proved that the soil was rich in bauxite, the source mineral for aluminum. Two U.S. aluminum companies (Kaiser and Reynolds) and one Canadian (Aluminium Ltd., known locally as Aljam) rushed in, staked out one of the world's biggest bauxite reserves, and are now shipping more than 2,000,000 tons a year to the U.S. and Canada.

Evident Virility. More profitable by far than any other industrial development is Jamaica's great tourist boom. Before World War II the island was little more than a cruise-ship stop. But postwar air travel has increased the traffic far beyond the island's capacity to handle it. A burst of hotel building at Montego Bay and Ocho Rios has raised Jamaica's hotel space to 3,000 first-class rooms priced up to $50 a day (double room, American plan) during the winter season. Even so, hotel owners turn down hundreds of applications every winter week (and are beginning to do a brisk summer trade).

Space not only for tourists but for its permanent residents looms as Jamaica's biggest problem in the future. The island's population is growing at the rate of 30,000 yearly, and even in these comparatively good times there are 100,000 people without land holdings or steady jobs. Birth control is ruled out because it goes against all tradition of Afro-Jamaican manhood: native males believe that the only true proof of virility lies in begetting as many children as possible.

Federation's Future. Chief Minister Manley firmly believes that Jamaica's economy can support the growing demand. He has launched an island-wide land reform program, buying land from big holders and distributing it to peasants. With irrigation projects, expert advice and new crops, he hopes eventually to make Jamaica's 2,000,000 tillable acres prosperously support 2,000,000 people. His slogan: "For every man an acre and for every acre a man."

Manley has another aim in making Jamaica a model Caribbean island. A start has already been made toward federation of Britain's Caribbean colonies (TIME, March 5), and Manley, who returned from London last week, envisions the day when all the colonies will be joined in a new British Commonwealth dominion. When that day comes (probably in 1958), Chief Minister Manley wants Jamaica to be the new nation's richest province--and, of course, its logical capital.

* But the Spaniards' Negro slaves, known as Maroons (from the Spanish cimarrones, meaning fugitive slaves), were unconquered, and fled to a remote area called the Cockpit Country, where their descendants still live.

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