1. Local Government Elections (Pre-Election ) - 29th February 2. University of Puerto Rico - 1st March 3. Banning of Goods from South Africa - 2nd " 4 . Loe 1 Government Elec t ions (Results) ·- 3rd " 5. Te cher Training . - 4th " 6. Banning of Dog R ces - 5th ft 7. Birth Control Pills - 7th ti 8. West Indies Feder tion - 8th SII 9. Tv10 Probl~ms: (a) Guns, (b) Conduet on the IERods - 9th 10. Strike: Coloni 1 Shirt Co. of Jam ica R- 10th I"I 11. ]requency Conversion A - 11th 12 . Protest Demonstration - u.c. w.r . R - 12th " 13 . The Sugar Industry: Rmse Hall SugBar Factory- 14th " 14 . Sir G. Adams a tt ck on Dr . WilLliaIms - 15th 15 . "The Happy Warrior" - BooAk o n Collie NSmith by Ken Chapl ·n- 16th 16. Reply by Dr . Williqms to Sir G. dams •• U •wk Att ck 17th " 17. 11 Ne Bills TM bledO i n House of Represent-ative . I - 18th ft 18. The Police and the Rule of Law - 19th II 19 . Rwn De, 1W: Mer ging of J. Wray & Nephew, Capt~in organ and Edwin Ch rley - 21st ti 20 . LaboUur Rel~tions - 22nd It 21. British Guiana Constitutional t lks in London . ~ 23rd " 22 . South Afric a. : Mas s Killings - 24th II 23 . " " ( con td ) - 25th " 24 . II " II - 26th II g5 . " II " - 28th II ~6 . The FRrm Development Scheme - 29th ti '?-7 . Deve lo pmen ts i n the Federa l Scene - 30th " ~a .: Health - 31st ti Peter Abrahams EOMMENTARY Tomorrow is polling day in our Local Government elections. P 1. n.. 1€,~,r,; ,$. r~r i~ Jiist~ Sfh,ooo will be entitled to cast their votes in~ I\ 'ii.Mi ~ electoral divisions to return members to our i.al:&ai: thirteen Local Government authorities all over the island. There are 4 80 candi~~i Most observers think that less than half the people wSho are entitled to vote will go to the polls tomorrow. The caEmpaigns of the two parties have not aroused the heat and excitemIent which was such a strong feature of the General Election Aof aR few months ago. One news comentator expects a poll of 300,0R00 or less. The voters, he says, are tired of all these constaIntB polls and counting of heads. Many voters in the Corporate Area, he goes on, do not even know the names of the candidates in Athe irL voting divisions. I think he is right. Apart from the activOe pNolitical workers for the two parties, and the handful of independent candidates, people do not seem to be very interested inI thMe elections. They seem to feel that they have settled the important issue in the recent general electiom. They feel that votWing in this Local Government election is not really very impoUrtant. I personally think the people who feel and think in this way are dead wrong. Local Government is, I feel strongly, the cornerstone of our · system of popular Government by the will of the people. It is at the Local Government level that the day-to-day business of politics touches our lives directly and immediately. ,- When we elect our M.H.R. to the House of Representatives our division is generally a very small part of a very large constituency, ' especially if we 1,ive in the country areas. The village or community making up our division may have only a few hundred people in a - . .. ...... ·- constituency of many thousands.m~x~•m~i• And, unless our candidate is a very exceptional person, we in our small division may not see him again until the next General Election comes around. This has hap~ened often enough. And where it has happened the voter has not even had a passing say in the running of t he affairs of the island. The const i tuency of the Local Government representat ive, on the other hand, is very much smaller. He representsE feSw people; he gets elected on a s maller number of votes, so Ithat every single vote can make more difference to him or her atR the local level than at the National level. This forces thAe local candidate, if he hopes to win, to pay mmEB attention Rto the needs and demands of t h e smallest number of people in Bhis division. Also, his record on local affairs: whether he trieLs Ito get things done for his voters, what he gets done, and how, will stand our very clearly "' for us to see. It will not Atake us long to find out whether we have ~ected a good man Nor not. Our Local GMovernOment authorities are responsible for services that affect ouIr daily lives directly such as; Public Health and Sanitation, Poor Relief, Water Supplies, our minor roads, markets and ouUr fiWre service. It is not hard to judge whether the man or woman you have vQted is serving you well by looking at the conditions of these services in your area. It is therefore important for all of us to treat these elections seriously. f . 3 _.J. 0 . Peter Abrahams COMMENTARY I was off the island last week so I missed the impressive Convocation ceremony aj the University College of the West Indies. I was sorry about this, and particularly sorry not to have heard the speeches which I understand were of a very high and thoughtful quality. But I was on another West Indian island and at th e time the Convocation was taking place here I was visiting EanoSther West Indian university. The island where I was is PuertoI Rico, and the University I visited on our Bonvocation day Rwas the University of Peurto Rico. What I saw there impressed mAe so much that I have been talking about it to my friends everR since I got back. Now, Peurto Rico is an island ofI Broughly 3,600 square miles. This means it is more than a thou sLand square miles smaller than Jamaica. It has a po"p ulation Aof roughly two and a quarter million people. This means that thNere are almost three quarters of a million more Puerto RicOans than there are Jamaicans. We have more land than they hav eM and a smaller population than they have. And one high Puerto IRican official I spoke to envied us becaus e we have mineraWls like bauxite whereas they have no minerals at all. ButU back to the two universities ( should like to tell you more about the other things I saw there another time). Now, our university, as you know, caters for the ten islands of the Federation as well as for British G~tana and British Honduras. This means that we have a total population of well over three million people fro m whom to draw our student s for the University College. In short, if we put all the people of the Federation and the- two mainland territories together then we come out having at least a million more people than there are in our sister island of Paerto Rico. , 2 As you know, our university which caters for over three million people, has roughly 8QO students studying there at this moment. At the University of Puerto Rico, on the other hand, there are roughly 25,000 students. Now this, by any yardstick you want to apply, is a fantastic difference. It shocked me when I discovered it. It led me to ask many questions. But the m ost important question in my mind was: Why should there be Sthis fantastic difference in the number of students theyI Ehave and the number we pave at our university7 R I do not think there is any simple answAer to this question, or if there is, I could not find it. But Rthere are part answers. For one thing the Puerto Rican IuBniversity is very much older than ours, at least fifty years anLd more, but until twenty years ~ ago or so its student bod waAs as restricted as ours. Another part reason is that their univNersity is modelled on American lines while ours is modelled on BOritish lines. For a third thing, and I think this is very imp oMrtant, their whole approach to education seem to be different froIm ours. They do not regard higher education as being only for the benefit of the better off sections of their people. ThWey do not only believe that higher education should be open to Uall, they make it possible for it to be so. They do this by having compulsory education that is genuinely free up to university level, and having extremely low fees at the university itself. And you do not have to live at the university to be able to get a university education. It was exciting to me to see thousands o~ young men and wemen who came from obviously poor homes on the campus of the University of fuerto Rico. I hope the day comes soon when I can see this at our own university. Peter Abrahams COMMENTARY I am sure mos1t, if not all of you, will remember the big public debate that took place here in Jamaica when the Government, I just before the General Elections, banned the importing of goods from South Africa. You will remember that many people saw this as an electioneering stunt while others welcomed it as San important moral gesture on the part of this country. I myself Ewas among those who welcomed the ban, partly because I was boIrn in South Africa and know intimately the horrible meaningR of Apartheid, but also because I had become a Jamaican by choiAce and this act made me very proud to call myself a Jamaican. R Today, I think all Jamaican, oIf Bwhatever political party and opinion can be jus\ly proud of thLe impact this small island's stand has had on the rest of Athe world. It proves once again that the small countries oNf the world can be more than just passive spectators in the poliOtical power games of the big powers. The small countries c aMn, when they act correctly on moral issue, let loose a wave of Ipopular response which the big powers cannot ignore. ThWis Jamaica has done on the South African issue. This all JamUaica can be proud of. After Jamaica, organisations in West Africa took up the boycott of South Africa. Then it spread to Ea.st and Central Africa. boycott Then to Europe where a formal /of South African products was /\\~--ti '13 la~ ed at a Monster public in London last Sunday. Britain's Labour Leader, Hugh Gaitskell, pledge the full support of his party in the boycott campaign declaring "The boycott is our passionate protest against a repulsive doctrine". But I think that we should also remember Mr. Macmillan, the British Prime Minister's forthright statement in South Africa 2. itself that the British Government did not agree with South Africa's racial policies. As head of the British Government Mr. Macmillan could not speak as freely as could Mr. Gaitskell. And he did say he did not approve of the boycott. But the rulers of South Africa did not miss the point and meaning of his forthright rejecti on of their racial policies. And all this new wave of rejection of racialism inS South Africa was set in motion right in Jamaica. IE I wish I could have been as proud .of JamAaicRa over the refugee issue. As you know, this is still part of Rthe International Refuge e year and last December Mr. Philip SheIrBlock :im:x introduced a motion in Legco inviting our Government, aLs a gesture to show that we care about what happens to the mi llions and millions of homeless people in the world, to admit A"between one and six families" into Jamaica. This, said ¥~. ShNerlock, would show· the rest of the world that we in Jamaica careOd about the misery of others; it would also show our appreciation for the help we have received from the outside world. AnId Mwe have received some help, especially in times of trouble. But the Government rejected UthiWs. And so we failed in making a moral gesture that would have cost us very little and affirmed our common sense of a common humanity. No.4. NEW"S COMM:ENTARY For transmission on Thursday March 3rd at 6.15p.m. Peter Abrahams speaking Good evening: I think iur Local Government elections went off much better than most observers expected. As far as I know there=- only ~~~as~of attempted false voting, and 1ft:t. =- A. A. in the Corporate Area. There were one or two clashes - ag ain in the Corporate Area - but throughout the island the vastS majority of the voters turned out in a quiet, orderly and laIwE-abiding manner which should give us all great satisfactRion. The ugly beast of violence has been kept in check; and thatA is a good thing for our society and for the health of ourB deRmocratic institutions. Another pleasing feature of the e.ections is that although . ., we did not have record poll, vot inLg Iwas not as low as most I'\. observers expected it to be. This was true particularly of the country ■KER areas. Our voteArs, it seems, are more aware of t he importance of local governNment elections than most commentators thought they were.M ItO is no w up to us to see that we get from our newly electeId local authorities the kind of services we are entitled to and have a right to expect. NowU leWt me touch on a burning issue that is very serious for the future of this island. Yesterday morning, up in the h i lls of West Rural St. Andrew, I watched a sheet of flame light up and spread a cross the side of a hill. Soon j about half an acre of hillside land was under fire, burning fiercely. A small cultivator was clearing his land for planting . And this, to him, was the quickest and cheapest way of doing it. I don't suppo s e he saw anything wrong in clearing his land this way. And in any case he is one of many s mall culitvators who clear their land in this way. r 2. The trouble is that when the next heavy rains come all the good topsoil is going to be washed away from that half acre of burnt land. What will remain will be marl and rock. And there will be no cut down bush, no rotting leaves to hold the water and feed the earth so that it can feed us again. So you see , by firing t he land we lose the bush and leaf mould. which should feed the land; we lose the good soil which should feed our folk; and wSe lose the water without which neither man nor beast nor plantI Ecan live. And this is something that is happening all over thiRs island. Too many men clear their land by firing it. And duri ngA the rainy seasons vast quantities of good earth that we canRnot afford to lose is washed down to the sea. B To try and cope with this very sIerious problem the Minister of Agriculture has set up a WaAter sLhed Protection Provisional Commission under the chairmainship of Mr . Harold Bahusac. At the first meeting of the COommNission a few days ago the Minister pledged his Ministry's fulMl support to the Commission. He said t he Commission may fIin d itself having to make unpopular decisions from time to time. I hopeW the Commission does make unpopular decisions, because some of Uthe things we need to do most right now are going to be unpopular. As an example, I believe there is a regulation in existence forbidding the clearing of land by firing. But we all i gnore it so it is not worth the paper on which it is written. I would like to see the Commission bring that regulation up to date and enforce it. I would like to see the J.A.S. educate its members against clearing the land by fire. It has not done half enough on this problem. As well as g iving us our daily bread, the land is ours as a trust for future generations. We have no right to abuse it as so many of us have been going. If we do we will have a poor future. No.5 r NE'W'S COMMENTARY For transmission on Friday March 4th at 6.15p.m. Peter Abrahams s peaking Good evening: In a speech at the opening of a new hostel at the Bethlehem Training College last Saturday, the Minister of Education spoke on an important aspect of our educationaSl p roblem. Mr. Glasspole was talking about :tbl:a the growth of ourE school population over the next seven years and the problemI of finding trained teachers to educate this growing school Rpopulation. Between this year and 1967, the MinisterA said, our Treacher Training Colleges should produce 1,994 traRined teachers. This would bring our total number of teachers Lup ItBo 6,181 by 1967. But it is expected that by 1967 there would be 333,000 children at school and 6,952 teachers would be neAeded to deal adequately with them; so there is likely to be a Nshortage of 771 teachers. Such a shortage wOould be seriou s enough . But, the Minister told his audience, Mthe expected 333,000 school children was based on a calculation Imade in 1957 that the birth rate in 1967 would be 48,000. HWowever, i n 1959 the bttth rate was 62,000. This upset all calculations and could easily mean that the teacher shortage could be Umuch greater. The Minister expressed his Government's determination~ e nsure that there is education for all and said they n would hasten the teacher training programme to try and cope with the problem. Now I agree with the Minister, and I am sure most of you do, when he says that the education of our children i s po s sibly the great est inve stment we can make for the future of this country and its people. Then why is it tha t not more young people take on t eaching as a career? Why do some of the brightes t and mo st gifted (' 2 young men and women go into trade and industry rather than into teaching? I think there are a number of reasons, but three that stand out more sharply than the others. First, I think the bright young man or woman can earn more money iK working in a business firm than teaching in a clas sroom. And all the high minded talk about making a contributionS to the future of your country counts for very little wRhen Iy Eou see people of less ability and less intelligence earning more money than you do, in some cases twice as much as you do. LAike these people, you have to pay for your house, your food BandR light and water. The second reason follows direcItly from the first. All too often our approach is purely mer ceLnary. We judge a man or woman not by what he or she is: the Awork they and how they conduct themselves; what they giveN to the social good. We judge them instead by what they have: how fat the bank roll is and how big and flashy the car. AndO this becomes the standard for our young people. M And finWallyI, the teacher has ceased to be the respected leader of his cUommunity that he once was. We looked up to him once because we knew he was an important person because of the important job he did. Today we give that respect to the petty politician more often and we suffer for it by having a shortage of teachers. We need to pay our teachers better. We need to remember that there are things more important than money and flashy cars. And we nedd to rediscover the respect we once had for the honourable vocation of teaching. Perhaps we won't have a teacher short8!e if we did these things. No.6 NEWS COMMENTARY For transmission on Saturday March 5th at 6.15p.m. Good evening: I cannot help but find myself siding with Mr. E'Wart King in the public debate now taking place on the banning of dog racing in Jamaica. As you know, the Government, thr oue-11 the Ministry of Trade and Industry, first led the promSoters to believe that they would be permitted to introduce gIreEyhound racing into the island. As soon as this news broke a section of our church leaders raised their voices in protesAt. DRog racing, they said in effect, would be bad for Jamaica. RIt would corrupt our morals and turn us into a nation goingB to the dogs. There were letters in the press warning of aLll Ithe evils that would come to us if dog racing were permitteAd. The Government apparently believed this because it went backN on itself and banned dog racing. Now, the Government is entitled to do what it thinks best for the good of the comMnrunOity. We elected it to perform precisely this function. The church leaders are entitled to exert such pressure as they feel necIe ssary to influence Government's decisio?l.on moral issues. TheyW are, when all is said and done, the moral leaders of our peopUle. I think we would all agree to these two propositions. This means that the State, in the form of the elected leaders of our Government , and the Church, in the form of its ordained Ministers, make just about the most powerful combination in our country. And I am sure most men would think t wice before opposing such a combination of legal and moral power. But powerful or not, both the 6hurch and the State have been known to be wrong at times. After all, both the Church and the State are run by men who have all the fallibility of their earthly humanity. And as Mr. King has so rightly pointed out churchmen 2 ... have at times dressed up their own human prejudices as divine authority. For this reason I would find the social argument against dog racing much more forceful than the spiritual one. Let me make it quite clear that I myself have very little time at all for gambling, whether it be gambling on horses, on the football pools or on dog racing. And I find it really difficult to make any distinc tion between these three types of gambling. They are all EformSs of gambling. If our c~urchmen had expressed their oppIosition to gambling as a whole, if they had called for a baRn on football pools, horse-racing, the games of chance Rat AConey Island as well as on dog racing, their position would have seemed very rrruch more reasonable to me.~ it is, I and LmanIyB other people, ask, why dog racing alone? What special evil is there in dog racing that is not found in other forms of gaAmbling? What is the subtle distinction between dog racing and theN other forms of gambling? And how have we missed i-m O Then there is Manother important point to this matter. In a free society sucIh as ours it is the general rule to keep legal restrictionsW and prohibitions down to an absolute ly essential minimum.U The good society is one in which men and women conduct themselves in a proper and decent way, in which they control their passions and impulses because it is the right t h ing to do. Not because there is some law regulating every detail of what they choose to do or not to do. We are trying to create a good society. therefore we must have freedom to choose for ourselves. The good society of England has had dog racing for years, and the English have certainly not gone to the dogs! No.7 NEWS COMMENTARY For transmission on Monday March 7th at 6.lSp.m. ~ ,, ' Good evening: Most of you will have heard over your radios, or read in your papers, last Friday the news of the birth control pill which will be sold for a penny. This pill which was dev eloped. by a firm of British drug houses is expected to come on Sto the market in about fifteen months' time. As I understanId Eit, all a woman will have to do if she does not want to havRe child is to take one pill a day for a few days in the month. TAhis will prevent her p~~ from becoming~ until she and her husbanBd aRre ready and willing to have a child or children. In other woIrds, with the help of this pill a couple will be able to plan Lwhen to have their children and how many children to have. Having or not having children will, in fact, cease to be a thing of chAance or accident and become something which a couple can contOrol. NAnd, of course, it will be up to the couple to decide for themselves whether they want to use the pill or not; the freedom Mof choice will be theirs. Now why Wis tIhis news of the development of the pill so important? I thUink it is important because the problem of the world's rapidly growing population is a serious one. To show you just how serious it is I will give you a few simple facts. DJ.ring every second that I am talking to you three children are being born in the world; that is 180 children born every minute. From the time I started talking to you to the time I finish, roughly 720 children will have been born in the world. In short, every twenty-four hours over 259,000 ch ildren are born all over the world. M the vast majority of them are born in Asia, in Africa, in Latin America and in islands nestling in tropical seas such as our own Jamaica. And as you know, it is in Asia, Africa and the islands of the 2 seas as well as in Latin America t hat we find the greatest economic, social and educational poverty. Today two out of every three human beings in this great wide world of ours do not get enough to eat. And it is mainly to them, the hungry two-thirds of the world's population that over a quarter of a million children are born every twenty-four hours. I don't have to tell you the kind of Sliv es those children are likely to lead unless the world doEes something about it. I We here in Jamaica, in the West Indies, are Ra part of this great world-wide problem. As a small example Aof this, some of you may remember what I said last Friday on ouRr teacher shortage problem where our Government is trying to do evBerything it can to create educational opportunities for all. LBuIt even there the growth of our school age population is much fAaster than our ability to produce teachers. Now please don't imOagiNne that I am saying that the answer to all our problems or Mthe answer to all the world's problems are to be found in birthI control or family planning. I don't think that is all the answWer. I think there are other answers like a much fairer sharing oUf the good things of our world, like better planning and making better use of what we do have. What I do say is that being able to control the world's population by being able to control ~ our own invidual families and keeping them to the size we want, will ' be a most important contribution to all of us living a fuller and better life. That is why I think the news of this pill is so important. No.8 NEWS COMMENTARY For transmission on Tuesday Mrach 8th at 6.15p . m. Peter Abrahams speaking Good evening: The future of the West Indies Federation depends, I f eel, to a large extent on what we here in Jamaica decide and do about Federation. But that is only one way of looking at it. S omeone else could say with equal truth t hat the future of the FEedSeration very largely depends on the reaction of Trlnidad and thIe other islands to Jamaica's proposals as to the type of ConstitutiRon the Federation should have. A In a Ministry Paper ~E■BmlX■mxxm whichR was published in full in the daily press Mr. Manley has set out JaBmaica's position and proposals and said that if these wer eL acIcepted Jamaica would, for her part accept in full all the obligations of her membership in the Federation. Mr. Manley's keyN proAposals are, first, that there must be equality of representation and, second, that Jamaica must have complete control over her Oown blx■EJlrl economic affairs. She is not prepared to transfeIr tMo the federal centre the delicately balanced economic programme sh e has created with so much hard effort. There are other propoWsals but these two are, I think, the crucial ones . Now somUe of you may know this and some of you may not, but l a st September Dr. Eric Williams, the Premier of Trinidad published his own government's proposals in an official document call The Economics of Nationhood KE~■mxBXEmK~iJ in which he argued strongly for a central Federal Government to direct and co-ordinate t he economic affairs of all the units. As you can s ee, this view is t he complete oppos ite of the Jamaican view. And Mr . Manley has made it clear that Jamaica would leave t he Federation rather than submit t he direction of our economi c aff a i rs t o the Feder a l Government. It &s t herefore clear t hat when n ext our Federal leader s meet 2 the great point of conflict is going to be be"t"w een the views of Jamaica, as expressed by Mr. Manley and the views of Trinidad, as expressed by Dr. Eric Williams. If Mr. Manley's views win the day and the Federal Constitution is amended accordly then the crisis will be over. But if the views of Dr. Wliiams gain the day then a completely new situation will be created. Jamaica may then leave the Federation. This, in turn, may mean the collapse of the entire Federation. And then what? The BSritish Government has said that it cannot say in advance what ItEhe other members of the Commonwealth would feel about admittRing Jamaica by itself as an independent member of the CommonwAealth. It has further said that if Jamaica left the Federation it wRould be a severe all disappointment to/those who had hoped thIaBt through Federation the West Indies would take its place as anL independent nation and member of the Commonwealth. The British Gov ernment has also said that in cons idering wehther Jamaica shNoulAd be admitted to Commonwealth membership by herself the Oother members might wonder whether smaller units within the FederMation will not then want to follow Jamaica's example and apply for membership singly. And and WwhenI I spoke to the two visiting British M.P.s, Mr. Fisher and Ylr. Hannan , the made · c l ear that both political parties in Britain wUould t h i nk i t a gr eat tragedy if we left the Federation. One of them said part of our troubles are because we have not sent men of the calibre of Mr. Illfa.nley and Sir Alexander Bu stamante to t h e Federal centre. I think there is a lot in t h is view. No.9 NEWS COMMENTARY For transmission on Wednesday March 9th at 6.15p.m. Peter Abrahams speaking Good evening: There are two items which are always in the news and to which I should like to draw your attention this evening. I think both of these are very serious matters and I think it is up to us, the ordinary citizens of Jamaica tSo d o something about them. The law can help but basicallyE these are problems involving our conduct as citizens tryinRg toI build a decent and aix law-abiding society. The first problem has to do with guns. ALast week, and the week before that, and the week before thaRt , most of you will have heard or read of someone firing off aI Bgun at someone else. All we have to do is stop and think a li ttLle to realise how common the firing of guns has become. It Ais almost as though we are developing a state of gun-happiness. NA young husband accidentally shoots his wife, mistaking her forO a burglar; a group of young thieves are surprised and imm eMdiately they fire off a gun; two men quarrel and one draws a Igun and shoots; and, of course, the young hooligans in our socieWty seem to h ave no difficulty in getting hold of · guns. I think tUhis is a very bad state of affairs. I think what makes it worse is the fact that most of us seem to accept it as normal. It was a normal news item when a Minister of Government drew his gun on someone who was abusing him and chased the fellow down the street. Now the people who own these guns, the people who are so quick to whip them out, will tell you they need these for self-protection. I think in some cases t h ey do. A man having to take care of large sums of money for his employers is a natural target for thieves. People guarding places where valuables are kept could reasonably be armed. But in t he hundreds and hundreds of other cases I think 2 ,-- it is utterly unnecessary and positively dangerous. We are not living in a jungle where it is every man for himself. We live under the rule of law, under a code of rules which we, as part of our society, have helped to fashion. The reckless popping off of guns undermines that code of rules and helps to break down that rule of law. Most of the young hooligans who go around holding up people with guns would not get licences to get those guns. In most cases they would not have guns with whicSh to hold up innocent people if the innocent people did not hIaEve those guns for them to steal. In England, where the posseRssion of a gun is a very rare thing indeed, you do not haveR thAis crazy spate of shootings. Guns invite violence. So pBlease think about this. The second problem has to d o LwiIth our conduct on the roads. News about road accidents is so common that we do not seem to notice the news any more. NWe Aseem to take it for granted that almost every day on ouOr roads someone is going to be damaged, maimed or killed. Yet 1 il l i l just a little thought for our fellow citizens can oftIe nM make all the difference between having an accident or not. If the person walking by the side of the road would give Wway to the car approaching on his side while another approachUes from the opposite direction an accident would be avoided. I have seen someone step into the road forcing one car to swerve into anothero I have seen cyclists do the same,and I have seen motorists who will not slow down but try to bull their way through. I have seen trucks come shooting around blind corners. We are all to blame: motorists, cyclists, people on foot and truck drivers. And yet a little thought, a little courtesy, a little good manners on all our parts would make a world of difference to our accident rates. No.10 NEWS COMMENTARY For transmission on Thursday March 10th at 6.15p.m. Peter Abrahams speaking Good evening: You will remember that a wildcat strike broke last Friday out/at the shirt factory known as Colonial Shirts of Jamai ca. The reason for the strike was the laying off of one man by the manage- ment. About 25q;Jt'workers were involved in the strike. S On Mo. nday morning the workers reported back foIrE work. 230 were taken on and 24 were told that they were nRot needed just now. But, the management told them, plans for expAansion were in hand and by October of this year the factory sRhould be in a position to give work to 500 workers. But thisB apparently did not satisfy the workers. An ugly atmosphere dLevIeloped. The workers stayed on the premises of the factory b ut did no work. The management summoned the police but the wAorkers defied and ridiculed the police. In the end anO N.WN.U. organiser led the workers off the plant, telling them that they were embarrassing the union. On Tuesday It hMe union sent a letter to the President of Colonial Shirts of Jamaica telling him that his firm must reinstate the 24 workers whoW had been dismissed by March 14th; March 14th was also sen as tUhe deadline for the factory management to fix a date to. discuss bargaining rights with the union. Now, just to get the background completely filled out, you should know that the factory came into existence five months ago. It enjoys the incentive concessions which the Government gives to attract foreign capital into Jamaica for the building and expansion of our industrialisation programme. You should further know that up to the present the factory does not recognise any union as pepresenting the workers. That is the background. Now, the reaction of the factory management to the strike 2 and the union's letter, according to news reports, was to contact its principals abroad telling them to hold up the materials the factory had ordered. A reasonable inference from this is that the factory representatives here have decided to wait and see what happens and may mBXIDIXExta:bl:bl~xfi•x~m••tmtittJ even be thinking of pulling out. From their point of view thete ca se would look something like this: all they have done so fSar has been to put money into the enterprise. It has been a Esteady five months of paying out. This they expected to do. WhaIt they probably this did not expect was that during .apperiod of laRying out money they should run into labour trouble as weRll. AThey might well be asking themselves: is it worthwhile tIoB risk any more of our money? The problem we, the people hLere, and the unions have to face is whether our industrialisation programme is so far advanced and so well established that we caAn afford to drive away even one factory by the irresponsibNle action of a section of our workers. And it certainly will nOot do us any good in the eyes of investors abroad if one rep uMtable company were to say they pulled out because they found our lIabour unreasohable and irresponsible. Of course our workers must be organised, and of course they are entiUtledW to use their power of collective bargaining. There is no question about this. They are as entitled to want a decent living as any other section of the community. The question is whether our unionists always use their power as re{onsibly as they should. Would it benefit imx any worker if this factory which could g ive work to 500 went out of business? And could not our union leaders have handled the question of bargaining rights without making it seem that they are holding a pistol to the factory magagement's head? No.11 NEWS COMMENTARY For transmission on Friday March 11th at 6.15p.m. Good evening: The Government's legislative programme as outlined for this session of the House of Representatives is bold and ambitious. It is yet another part of the unfolding of that grand design - the Teh year Development Plan - to change th is island from an econmmically weak and backward area intoS a strong and healthy one. Over 5 million pounds will be spIeEnt on education. A Central Bank is going to be set up so that we Rcan have a more direct control over the country's finances anAd a greater influence on other financial institutions. Our agriRcultural development institutions and going to be pulled tIoBgether and modernised. Soil conservation is going to receive mLuch more serious attention. These are only a few of a veryA la rge number of activities Government will undertake this sessioNn. One of the most imOportant of these activities was touched on by the Minister ofM Trade and Industry, Mr. Wills Isaacs, in his speech in the HoIu se on Wednesday . M:r. Isaacs, you will remember, told the House that our electricity will be converted xm :from the presen"t 40 Wcycles to 5u cycles· by the end of 1962. The three independUent electricity services on the island - that of the Jamaica Public Service Company, that of the company in Mandeville and the Government-owned utility at Sav-la-Mar - will all be integrated as part of the Jamaica Public Service Company. Now why does t he Frequency have to be converted from 40 to 50 cycles, you might ask, especially as it is going to cost so much to do this. The reason is that industries cannot operate effectively on 40 cycles; So, if we are to have factori es all over the island, as the Minis ter said we should have, then having 50 cycles is very important. 2 aspect But the most important/of this electricity business from the point of view of the majority of the peop le of J amaica was Mr Isaacs' statement that electricity will be made available to practically all the people of Jamaica. Thi s is no less than a revolution of light. Government, said Mr. Isaacs, h ad put it to tne Public Service Company t.hat. every village in every corner of Jamai ca thSat naa 50v p eople 0 1' mo.1.·e, should have electricity. Ana. toI Et h is the Public Service Company has agreed.. I wonder how many of us can, today, unaeArstRand the vast importance of this apparent.ly simple deciRsion. Just think about it f or a little. B At. present more than half JamaicIa lives in darknes s t hat is more than just physical. There a rLe large numbers of our people who cannot read and. because thAey have no elect.ricity they are and have been completely cut oNff f rom the outside world. Now t h is will come to an end. Al~ a Oman or woman wi~~ nave t.o cto, even though they may not be Iab lMe to r ead, will be just to switch on the radio and the news of the whole wide world will be right in their little home. They Wwill be able to near what their Gov ernmen"t is or 1.s not doing, anUd they will no longer be cut of r f rom tne broad stream of progress in this country. For myself, I have not t.he slightest doubt that this is one of the most important and far-reaching decisions which will bring light~ to our minds as well as our homes. No.l~ NEWS COMMENTARY For transmission on Saltm:day March l~h at 6ll5p.m. Peter Abrahams s peaking. Good evening: The University College is very much in the news this week and I must confess that the protest demonstration staged by the young ladies of Mary Seacole Hall made me feel wickedly good and happy. I felt happy about it for two rea sons. The first reason has to do with the spirit of the pIlaceS. Many visitors coming here from other universities havRe fro Em time to time remarked on the quiet orderliness of the student body as compared with student bodies at other universities. HAere, they said, they found none of the heated debating of majoRr issues; no big engagements on political and philosophic issues IsBuch as are constantly taking place un European universities; noLne of the cultural and social activities, or very little of Athe m, of the American universities. From this some of our visiNtors concluded that our student body was a ocile and earnesOt group of young men and women, bent only on passing examinaMtions, afraid of holding or expressing views at all, let alonIe unpopular views. This was a harsh judgement, perhaps, buWt it was one to which I subscribed on the whole. NowU I am hopefully ready to revise this view. There is more than just a spirit of genteel respectability in the place. The young women have shown clearly and dramatically that they resented the off-handed attitude which denied them a dining hall for years - and then the dining hall was suddenly rushed up in record time be cause it was needed for the Convocation banquet. And the dramatised this protest, I think, without in any way being rude to their very distinguished visitor. The second, and in the long run very much more i mportant, item of university news was a brief report of s tatement Dr. Arthur 2 Lewis made at the United Nations in New York. Dr. Lewis JUti:li spoke about his plans for the University College when he arrives to take up the Principalship. He plans, he said, to extend the professional schools. There will be a faculty of Engineering; the Medical Faculty will be increased by 50% and so will facilities at the hospital. Th en he went on to his most important point. He hoped, he said, Sthat the number of students at the University College could beE increased from the present 700 to 2,000 within the next four yIears. You will remember that it was only last weeRk that I told you about the small number of students at our uniAversity as compared with those at the university of Puerto RiRco. I expressed the hope then that this would soon change. It IloBoks very much as though that is precisely what Professor ALrthur Lewis proposes to do. A young teacher from PeppAer sent me a letter after what I said about the teacher shortOageNJ last Friday. He tells me that he has been teaching at thMe same school for the past two years and nine months. He was taIk en on as a probationer two years and nine months ago; he is sWtill a probationer, still getting a probationer's pay. So, at thUe end of this term he plans to leave teaching and go into the electronics industry where he'll get a little more money and respect. We are not going to solve our teacher shortage if we allow people to get as frustrated as this. This young man says he knows many others who are in the same position he is. No.13 NEWS CO MMENTARY For transmission on Monday March 14 at 6.15p .m. Peter Abrahams speaking Good evening: The decision of the owners of Rose Hall to shut down t heir factory at the end of this year's sugar crop season means, I think, that we can expect some difficult da ys ahead for both workers and management in the sugar industryE. ISt will be necessary for both workers and employers to face up to some very hard decisions in t h e months to come: and what they Idecide, and what they do is likely to have a very strong AbeaRring on the general economy of the country. The sugar industry, as you know, is Rstill the l ar gest single of labour B employer/in the whole country. An d LitI is not located in one single area. It is spread throughout the country, from the pla ins of ft¥xfimm St. Catherine, through Vere anAd right up to the North Coast: in f act, in terms of its physicaOl loNcation the sugar industry and its offshoots are just about the most 'national' of all our undertakings. The result is that thIe Mwages paid by sugar are spread, throughout the country, and largely among workers who are either semi-skilled or unskilled. WNow these two facts - that sugar is the largest employer, of labouUr and that it is found all over the island - means that in can fairly be mEBB~±mem said that the wages paid by sugar is the basis of the economic life of a very large majority of our people. In other words, sugar is most important to our daily living. Therefore the problems faced by sugar should be most important to us. Now t he problems faced by sugar are two kinds. The first is international, relating to world prices and quotas. Now here we have not done badly so far because we have sold our sugar at a guaranteed price under the Co mmonwealth Sugar Agreement. But in the 2 v open market prices have dropped and export quotas under the International Sugar Agreement can be cut, as we saw last March when therw was a cut of 17½ per cent. We did not have to seal in the open market then because we did a deal with Australia. But that was a piece of luck for us. The point is the international position is not as fixed and unchangeable as some of us think. Our quo tas could be cut; we could be forced to sell in the open market at Slower prices. The second kind of problem faced by the industryE is internal. The Goldenberg Commission has recommendedt that the Isugar industry pay its workers a 12½ per cent bonus on 1959 AwaRges and a wage increase of 12½% from the start of the 1960 crop. This means that for 1959 and 1960 the sugar industry wIBill Rpay out a combined wages bill of about £10 million. There will be more money in circulation, spread throughout the country. We llL, what is wrong with that? Nothing at all. It is all to thAe good. But the Rose Hall factNory is closing; and Barnet Estate may follow. This will meanO men out of work; more unemployedo And to keep on operating, tMhe bigger estates will have to use more efficient methods. The bigI estates may find it quicker and cheaper to use machines to do the work now done by men. This has happened elsewhere in the woUrldW: it has happened in agriculture in England and the United States and it has happened on the sugar estates of our neighbour island of Puerto Rico. I think it will happen here too. I think the unions and. the workers in the sugar industry would be very wise indeed to address themselves to this problem. Tomorrow I will talk about Sir Grantley Adams's attack on Dro Eric Williams; so, till then, Goodnight. No.l4 NEWS UOI'-'IMENTARY For transmission on Tuesday ~arch l5 at 6.15p.m. Peter Abrahams ~peaking. Good evening: The news of Sir Grantley Adams' powerful attack on Dr. Eric Williams was no surprise to those of us who try to keep in touch with Federal affairs. It has been brewing for a long time. What we have been wondering about was when and h ow Sir Grantley Adams would deal with Dr. Williams. Now we know S• Th 1::r- 1:: is a.not.her thing which this blow-up or Sir Grantley IAEdams brings out which I should .like you not. t.o rorget. wia neRre in Jamaica some- times i:.a.ik as though there 1s a sort of unitedA f'ront of all the other islands of the Federation against usR. 'i'nis, o:l:' course, is no"t true. There is no ganging-up against uIsB, ana. we are not the only people creating problems for the FeLderation. uver the past few weeks thAe G overnment of Triniaact has been deporting people from the sNmal.i is.lands from Trinidad.. Tnis has caused quite storm 01· pOrotest from the small islands. unly last week Dr. Lincoln Radix, tMne Deputy Speaker of "tne Federal House 01· Representatives cIo mplained bitterly about the aeporting or Gren~ct i ans rrom Trinidad.. How, he asked, could we expect Canada ana. the Uni tea. S"tat.e~ to opeWn their a.oors to our people when right here 1n the West Inct.Uies we imposed restrictions of movement on people of the f'ederated territories. How, he went on, could we expect the re~pect 01· tne rest ol' the world when we showed such disunity among ourselves • .tio w could we protest wnen the Governments 01· Venezuela, Aruba and Curacao deport our people when we are aoing the same thing ourselves? Al~ ~his, coupled with Sir Grantley Actams bitter complaints against the Triniua.u Governmen~ aisproves completely the idea 1·0 any ganging-up against us. Now Sir Grantley's s~atement was one of the strongest ever made in peacetime by one government against another. He accuses Dr. Williams 2 • s of belng untruthrul, of revealing information which should be regardea as confidential between one government and another, and he accuses Dr. Williams of presenting Federal matters in such ,a way as to narm the Federal Government and do damage to the very concwpt of Federation. Now all this, mark you, was not said in a wild outburst of anger. It was done in a carefully prep area. statement which, we must assume , was approved by the whSole Federal Cabinet. There is one o"ther thing to be no"ted. i1I· Eyou examine these charges of Sir Grantley Adams carefully yRou will f ina. that they are all founded on f act. A Now what does all this mean? l t meaRns that the Trinia.ad Government, and more particularly DrI. BWilliams, seems to be operating on a double standard 1nL its approach to Federation. in tne debate with Jamaica Dr. W i lliams is all for a strong Federal Government witn vast Apowers for the centre. But, in nis dealings with the Federal NGovernment his attitude is one of comt.epmt. CallingM theO Federal Government. a stooge or tne Colonial Office can hardIly be described as a sign of respect. Or 1s it that Dr. WiWlliams only wants a strong central government provided ne can Ucontrol it? l f not., then what does he want? . Certainly, the attitude and actions o!' tne remier o:t· Trinidad have J.ateJ.y no t been those 01· someone dedicated to the building up and strengthening o:t· tne Federation. •J:n ey nave seemed mor the actions oi" someone recklessly playing at power politics, and that, at ~his stage, is uo1ng no service to the idea of Federation ••••••• Goudnight. No. 15 ., NEWS COMMENTARY For transmission on Wednesday March 16 at 6.15 p.m. Good evening: This evening I want to tell you about a little book, which, if it is not in the news, should be. The book is called The Happy Warrior, and it is written by one of our younger journalists, Mr. Ken Chaplin who ls on the staff of the wee kly newspaper Jamaica Times. The book tells the story of O~SNeil all over the world Gordon Smith - whom millions of people/knew so muchI bEetter as Collie Smith - from the day he was born on May 5Rth. 1934 to that day on September 21st of last year when he wAas buried. The book costs two shillings and six pence and youR should be able to get it Jl I ?ill H tH 2 ' l ::J 11 g I f 11L9 wI Bfrom any bookstore. I would recommend this little book strong ly to everybody, but especially to those young men in our socAiety who feel that life has nothing to offer them, that there Nis no future for them because they were born into poor nomes. O Collie Smith wMas born into a poor home. "He be long," writes Ken Chaplin, "toI the under-privileged class in the West End of Kingston, wWhere little boys roamed the streets half-naked anu played cUricket f~E with limes for balls and with bats carved out of the boughs of coconut trees; where fathers and mothers, eking out an existence, hardly had time to take proper care of their children. 1' Now there are many people who believe that a boy with such a background has very little future at all, and many of these people are to be found among the poor themselves. But there are o~h er people - a s mall number still, it is 'true - who do not see things in this way. Among t h is s mall body of people was the Rev. Hugh Sherlock, a man who lmves his f e llow men and has a grea t fai t h in 2 their will to "goodness if they are g iven half a chance. T'o prove his faith and help get the poor boys of Western Kingston off t he streets, Mr. Sher.Lock· founded Boys Town. Co.L.Lie Smlth went to Boy~ 1·0 1vn, met Mr . Sn er.Lock and was inspired, and from there on his steady climb to succes s began. At the time of h is deat.n Co l 1.ie Smith v;as possibly the best loved and most respected young sportsman throughout the world. wherever cricket is played. S How all this came about is set down simply and clEearly by Ken Chap .Lin in this booR. It . e~l s Uo the kinu of p er sonI Coll ie Smit.h was: a warm-heart.ed, h appy generous young man whoR never forgot n i s mo~her ana n i s family when success came t.o Rn imA. He was cteeply r elig ious and tried to live out his rel i gion insIt.Bead or talKlng about it. ln nis l a st letter to his mother he teLlls n er tnat ne ha s sent her some money; t ells n er of h is pl ans to c ome home; asks her f or t he shoe~ si zes or a l l the children so t hAa t. he can bring them shoes; r emembers hi s mother's b irthday ana prNomis es her t nat ne w1ll n ot get into any trouble for her sakeO. Now no t every yMoung man f rom a poor home can become a ijollie Smit.h; out every Iyoung man can t ry to become t ne kind of person Collie Smith Wwas. And sur ely the life of Collie Smith proves tnat 1 1· you have tUhe ability and. the Will it 1s po s sible, even 1 1· you came from the poorest nome, t.o make something of yourself in the field you choose for yourself. The lif e of Collie Smith, the happy warrior, is an insp i ring story I would like everybody to read ••••• Goodnight. Nv .l6. N~'W l:> Ov¥J.N~ .·.i,. AftY For ~ransmission on Thursday March 17th at 6.~5v.m. ~et. er Abrahams speaking Good evening: Tr i nidaa 1 s Dr. Eric Williams ha s now replied to ,:,he slashing atta ck made against him earlier this week by the Federal Prime Minister, :::l i r Grant.ley Aa ams. Tnree interesting things come out of Dr. Williams I reply. 'l'ne first j n ing - anu 1. t 1.s oot.h interesting and surprising - wa s t he very mildS manner in which Dr. Wi l.11am.:; replied to what was po s sibly thIeE bitterest personal attack on him since he became PremierR of Tr1n1aad. l t n i nk part 01· the reason for this is that DAr. W1l.l.lams - like a large number of other people - under-esRtimated Sir Grantley Adams ana aid not expect such a vigorous cBome-bacK. I alco tninK t.hat Dr. Williams, who 1s nobody's foLol,I realised that he had over- reached himself in some or h i s words and deeds. 'l'ne second interesting Athing l s that Dr. Williams did not even try t o der end hiOmseNlr against Sir Grantley's char ges that he had told untruMth~, that he haa unsur upulously made public documents whicIh were of a con!' i detial nature , and t hat. h e nad presented Federal matters in such a way as to harm the Federal GovernmenWt and ao damage to t ne concept or Federation. On t h is Dr. WilUliams was co mp letely silent.. You will remember It.old you on Tuesday that these charges by S1r Grantley Adams were rounded on 1·act. Dr. Williams 1 silence on thes e point s is, I t hink, an aumiss ion of t h is fact. Tne t h ird interesting t h ing is Dr. illiams· reason s f or his own personal attitude and the attitude of the Government of Trinidaa to the Federal Government. This, in fact, ma~e s up the essence of Dr. Will iams' reply to Sir Gr a otley Adams. 'I'ne ·rr i nidad Governmen't, s a i d .Dr. Williams, has slowly been forced into feeling tna't t ne Federal Government 1s hos t1 le t o Dr . wi .l.~iams' party 2 ana nis Government; or, 1f not hostile, then tne Federal Government 1s completely out of sympathy wtth them. He listed a number of di1't·erences which had aeveloped between the Federal Government and the Government or Trinidad. There was the issue 01· tne Federal Government• s Lanu Acquisition Bill. The Government or Trinidad had revealed i t s obJections b-,l. tne Federal Government had proceeaed With the Bill. S •rnen, went on Dr. Williams, tnere was the issuIeE or Jamaica's attitude to tne Cons ti tut ion. ·r·ne Federal GoverRnment nad ta.l:Cen no stand on this, and as a result what should hAave been an issue between Jamaica and tne rest 01· tne Fed er ation has become, in the public mina, a conflict between Jamaica and BTrinR1daa. Dr. W1ll1ams resented the fact that the Federal GovernmentI had not sided witn Triniuad over this matter. 1 wonder if D r. LWil.L1ams realises tnat this state- ment of his can be interpNret.eAa to mean: You must either be on my side or you are no good. AOnd ,, of course, it snows a clear at.tempi:, at ganging-up - wnich failed, as none of the other unites wanted to gang-up. Now I Ip tM:rsonal.ly nave a .lot 01' sympthy for Dr. w1ll1ams 1 1aea of a strong central government, but I think we are going to need a lot Wof time to get t here - and a lot of give and 1:,ake. Tnat is wherUe I disagree with Dr. Williams. Anotner point lti Cnaguaramas where he fe els the Federal Government should have made a clear declaration backing Trinidad. Now I'm not 1:.ry1ng to suggest that every thing is right with S1r Grantley and everything is wrong with Dr. Williams. What I do feel is that if Dr. Williams used some of Mr. Manley's restraint he would make a greatJcontribution to the healthy growth of the Federation. Tomorrow I want to talk about some of the new Bills tabled in the House of Representatives this week ••• Till then, Goodnight. No. 17 ~ .. NEWS COMMENTARY For transmission on Friday March 18th at 6 . 15p . m. eter Abrahams speaking Good evening : Eleven new Bills were tabl ed in the House of Representat i ves this week . They cover a wide range of subjects and most of them were to amend laws already on the Statut e Book . Now, in a short commentary such as this I can only touch on on e Sor two of these Bills and, possibly, deal with one in some detaEil . Let me deal with the brief ones first . I You know that as a result of the gr owing crRisis that gripped t he Banana industry throughout last year GovernmeAnt had set up a Co mmission of Enquiry to go into the workiRng s of t h e industry . Between the end of last year and the beginn ingI Bof t h is year t he Commi ss i on made its r eport . None of thoseA co ncLerned with th industry came out of t.ne &1qu1ry wit h. a clean s~ t h e Commission b lamed the growers for t h e poor qua i ty of t heN f ruit; i t b l amed the Banana Board f or the poor state of t h e oOrganisation; and i t r e co mmended that Government create a strong ce nMtral body to take over t he running of t h e indu s try . Now the inister Iof Agriculture has i ntroduc\ ~ n~x Bill to amend the Banana Board Law for this pur po s e. The MinWister of Trade and Industry has introduced a Bill to amend the LoansU to Small Buainesses Law so that in future ..irM Co - operative ~ Societ i es come under it instead of only Credit Unions as at present. t\ The Amendment al so makes it poss i ble for peop l e in t h e r et ai l trade to borr ow money to get equipment to start in bus ines s or to improve their existing businnesses . Then t here i s a Bill by the Mini s ter of Home Af fair s to make sure t hat your favourite rumshop and min e have decent toil et facilities for us . Now let me tell about my main Bill for t h i s evening . 2. This is a new one, and a very important one . It is called the Clean Air Law and it 1s a law that is likely to grow in importance as our industrialisation programme develops. Where you have factories you are bound to have smoke; industries use f uel and 1'uel l ets off smoKe and gasses. Minlng l ets loose dust particle,in the air; and not only mining, as the people n ear Kingston's cement company know. And now, as well as bauxite mining there 1s the possibSility of copper mining coming to the isaand. And then, addedE to all this, there ls the oil refinery. And, as you know, when FIrequency Conversion is completed and electricity spread Rall over the island factories are likely to spread all over the Aisland. In short, as Government's far-reIaBchiRng plans to transf orm this land develop, mines and f actories Lare likely to belch out their black smoke, their 1·1ne dust par ticles and their lung-a.estroying gasses - that is, unless someAthing is done about it. Now 1n countries whNere nothing has been done about it t he problem has gotten outO of hand. There are t imes when the citizens of the great city Mof London cannot raise their heads and look at the sky because of tIhe f og and the smog . All they see is a t hick blanket of JI dirty Wgrey smoke. And tha t is not good for man ' s health. And the probUlem is out of hand. our Clean Air Law is to make sure that we deal with t he problem before it starts properly. Under thi s Law i t wi ll be possible to compel f actories to use clean rather than dirty fuel; it will be possible to control t he gasses t hat are let out 1n~o the air for us to breathe. Some factories~ have to put in filters to purify the stuff they release into the air. And the fine cloud of cement dust t hat is sometimes over Kings ton will 1 I hope, become a memory which warned us of what could happen. This is a most important law in terms of our h ealth ••• ~ Tomorrow I will talk about the police and the rule of law ••• Goodnight, No.18. l NE~ CO M~TArlY For transmission on Saturday March 19th at 6.15p.m. Good evening: Two newspaper columnists writing in our two daily newspapers, and doing so on the same day, were extremely angry this week. Both of them wrote about the rule of law in thi s country, Both f elt that the rule of law was in a very poor stateS in Jamaica. The one columnist wrote of two cases where the Epolice were have alleged to/mishandledprisoners. The first wasR theI case of a bearded young man of the professional classeAs who was arrested and whose beard was forcibly shaved off befoRre he was taken into court. The second case was that of a salesman who also happened to have been bearded and whose beard was alsIoB cut off. Both these incidents were reported as taking pla ce in LSpanish Town. The police explanation for the first incident, whichA the columnist published, yas that the man was tidied-up befoNre being taken in front of the magistrate. by My columnist colleagueO wants to know/what right the police shaved off the beards o f Mthese two men. He then becomes extremely angry and says that thIe state of civil liberty in Jamaica is sick ( and he uses theW word sick three times). ThUe second columnist writes about the man who was sent to prison for six months and ordered to receive six strokes for commting an indecent assault in a young woman in daylight. He approved of this, but he was angry because the l aw did not do t h is more often. He wanted a law rushed through by the Cabinet to make flogging compulsory for any person found guilty of any kind of as sault and wounding char ge. He wanted the Minister of Trade and Industry to put the sale of kitchen knives and daggers under special licence and forbid their importation into Jamaica. From t his you will see t hat the rule of law is quite a talking 2 L point in certain circles, including the press. In one case we get the picture of the police as a bunch of arrogant men out to humiliate the private citizen at every opportunity; and in the other case we have the picture of the private citizen as a sort of wild savage determined to cut up everybody he meets and who can only be dealt}'.{ with by severe floggings. The trouble is that when people ride an obsession tShey ride it so hard that they defeat their own purposes. The oIneE columnist wants the police to be more thoughtful of those peopleR who are temporarily in their charge. This is reasonable and humaAne. But when he screams that their is no civil liberty in Jamal-caR then he overstates his . case so badly that nobody wants to takBe him seriously. The same goes for the other columnist. He wLanIts an end to violence, and that too is reasonable. But when hAe s ays we are fast becoming a law-less and sem'=-barbarous nation, Nhe too overstates his case so badly that few people would take him seriously. I certainly have nOot found this wild lawlessness all over the country and I doIu bMt if you have. And on the whole I have found our police a reaWsonably good body of men. I would much rather deal with them thaUn with the police of many other countries I know. There is one thing though which I think our police ought to watch carefully and it is this: under the rule of law every citizen has exactly the same rights in law. There should be no difference in the rule of law when applied to either the rich or the poor, the powerful or the weak, the high or the low. That must be a cornerstone of our law and its enforcement. On this point I think our police have been at fault at times. We are all equal in the eyes of the law. Goodnight. No.19 NEWS COM:MENTARY For transmission on Monday March 21st at 6.15p.m. Peter Abrahams speaking Good evening: I know that many of you asked many questions, either to yourselves or to your friends, when you read and heard of the big rum deal at the end of last week. You remember that it was last Thursday morning that we got the news that the rum companies of Wray and Nephew, Captain Morgan and Edwin Charley had decideEd tSo merge and to se~ up a new £5 million company to be known as theI Consolidated International Corporation. R Now what is behind this? Why did the merAger take place? And who will now be running Jamaica's rum industry?R Well, to begin with, mergers and ItBake-overs on such a scale are an interesting sign of the times. ILn countries where the economy 1s simple and backward the buying up of one company by another is a very simple matter. But this was a veAry sophisticated operation with an interesting history of cOompNetition behind it. As some of you will remember, the Canadian firm of Seagrams ·came into Jamaica some time ago by buying up Ca pMtain Morgan. ficBJXJmQ Seagrams is a very big firm with worad-wiIde distribution outlets. They pumped a lot of money into CaptaUin WMorgan and for a time it looked as though they might beat their main rival, \tray and Nephew, at the tough business of selling rum. But Wray and Nephew fought back in great style and with great skill and imag ination and outstripped Seagrams" Morgan. The result was a fall in Seagra~sales. Stocks of rum piled up. Now in this kind of competition there is an aceppted rule in the international business world that goes something like this: If you ~ can't beat, buy them; if you can't buy them amalgamate with them. A. Another thing which added to Seagrams' problems is that the man heading their operations in Jamaica will soon be leaving for England to head the Banana Board's selling office in England. So the best way out was 2 ee¥il d.:J to merge. And of cours e, it suits Wray and Nephew who will now have the xaE~••x facilities of the largest distillers in the world ~k-<- behind them. And ~of cca1se a~ the IDiwin Charley interests werid:-, '-~ ~ ~;::._~~ ~ .:._ . .n.. ..~. ""'",.......,.,.,,r'tTl'ln--t't':-+h1:'S-PswsAt-4;p l mpasei'bJ.&'to compete against and so rt ettite them to Join n ,ag. And there you have the background. The new company will be r un and controlled by local inte re sts, and the first directors of the company - five of them - are aSl l Jamai cans • .And there is one more thing to note. Wray and Nephew, ECaptain Morgan and Charleys will still operate as separate companiesI, offering their own brands of rum 1n competition with each othAer. RBut, you will a sk, how r eal will this compet~ e? After all, '1;he truth of trre matter ;i;,;:: thab we will now have a rum monopolyI Bin RJ amai ca. And when a J 1~ I\. ..eeid u1ti aon9, went.tier you buy your Lbo·c.1,le of' Applet.on or your bo tt.le will be or 1V1organ or your bot."l,J.e 0 1' unarAJ.ey s , you/llie oasica .1.J.y buying 1·rom the same firm. And of IA t&e, :xa2xk:e;y::xNllP[:ex~Xt.111 :t·or all o · us , tne Jonn Citizens who liKe our slug o:t~ rumO at the end ot tne a.ay, t.he K.ey question is : M coming what is this going to d.o to prices? Will the man/ ol'f the job, or the man coming out of' Ith e bush still be able to stop at hi s rumshop, put ctown his sixpence, tos s uuw-n nis a.r ink or wh1 te and then continue on his way hoUme ? WI n otner worct.s, is t he price or rum going to go up, or will it remain the same? •rhis , f or the ordinary cit izen , 1.s t.ne mos--c. important question. The head of Seagrams, ~ . Bronfman nas said --c.hat this merger is a very good thing for Jamaica. l tnink we will only be able to agree with him when we are sure that our r avourit e drink i s no t going to cost us a penny more •••• 'l'omorrow I hope t o --c, alk about labour relations; so t1ll then •••• Goodnight. No 20 ,.. NEWS UOMJ! Er TARY For transm1ss1on on Tuesday March 22na at b.i~ p.m Peter Abrahams speaKing ~ Good evening: rou w1li remember that I nave, in tne past, talked I labour relations mn speciric issues as tney came up • .tou remember in one commentary I talk~ bout the strike at the Colonial Shirt ractory. In another .r t.alkeu about the problems facingS the sugar industry and the worKers in t.hat industry. 1'on1ghEt l would like to talk about the i-d-e-a of labour relations bttcausIe it seems 00 .me most. important t.na.t. we should try to get our iRdeas as clear as possible on t.his question. I think that toA a large ext.ent the future wel.i-belng 01· our country dependRs on th1s. And I thinK 1 t 1s most important that. in our thinkIinBg we try to think w1th tne good ur tne whole country 1n ou rL minds. 'l'o t.hinK u!' tne interests of only a group or only a seAction of the country, is not good enough. 'l'o an extent we Nhave to thin!{ sectionally 1n our day-t.o"" day uealings wi~n proOblems. But. I am sure t.hat lf, as the oacKgrouna to even the most Msectional or our problems, we always remembenea the good 01· thIe whole country, our t.nln.klng will be so much more construutiWve and ureat1.ve. 'i'his, l 1'eel, should apply to all or us, whetheUr we are workers or employers, tikilled or unskilled,; civil servants or any o~ner cat.egory. But When we taik about. labour relat.ions we are generally t.alking about tne relations between t.ne employer and his workers ana we are generally thinking of a 1actory or an est.ate. lt is labour relations at this level that n a s been 1n the news or lat.e. r ow tne first fact we have to face quite clearly is tna t the worker in Jamaica is nownere nearly as well-paia as is nis upposite number 1n the United St.ates or Britain. 'fnere are clear reasons for t h is. Generally speaKing , t.ne awer1.ca.~ nd Brit ish worKer has 2 '-- nad a longer history or industrialisation and this has resulted in a number or things. First, ne has developed his skills over a long period 01· time ana. hangea. them a.ovm 1·rom generation to generation. :second, he nas built up a very strong labour movement which is an integrated part of tne very structure of nls country and wnicn i l::l a most power1ul f orce in t ne soc1a~, economic and political affairs of nis count ry. Ana, ~n1rd , nobuuy uisputes his right Sto organise himself into ana. to oe a rnemoer of a trtta.e union. in raci:., union1slll is accepted oy almost everybody 1n those t wo greaIt Ecountries as r1gnt proper and respectable. R ow, once you have a situation ~ikRe thAat your worker becomes a responsible ana. resp~ctea member oBr his society. He knows that he 1s s t rong 1n hls organisation anLa rIespected in n is society. He Knows that tne relations between himselr and n1s employer are generally regulatJ. by agreemAent and tnat nis employer has a basic respect ror his union. ttNis union leaa.er does not nave to fight y( make a snow of strengOth before the union is recognisea.. ru1a. so ~abour relations in th&se countries are on t h e whole very good. but we nIav eM to a.o in a very short per1ou wha t Britain and Ameri ca a.id over a long stretch of time. we nave to inaustrlalise r·ast, Uwe hWave to build up an indust.r1al working clas s 1'as t . Y e have to maKe a great leap in time and such great ~eaps ar never easy. Tney are m~ue more aifficult by employers wno do not want to recognise unions; oy workers wnu uo not listen to thelr l eaders; c1.na. oy union leaders wno are af'ra1d t o a.o the right t.hing because it 1s unpopular; and of course by t h e society Which tena.s ~o be hostile t.o unioni sm. -.i:.u.e unions can and will, I believe, become our great.est l'orce for good labour rela tions in tne uays tth1::,c::1.u. No 21. '- .B;W i::> OOivllVl.i!J:~ J;AH..t ~vr transmi ssion on Wecmesaay March 23ru at o .l~p . ill . ~~,:,er AbraJ.~ams speaking Gooa evening: News on tne British Guiana consti ,:,ut ional talks now going on in London is very sketchy 1ndeeu, but 1t does seem that ,:,ne deaulock Which threatened the talks earlier has now largely b een overcome. 'l '!lis does not, mean tna,:, eveErytSn ing is going to be plain sailing from here on, but I do think we can no w look forward t o an agr eement wn ich will give B.~. a gIreater degree on internal seli--e5overnment within tne nexAt yRear or so. I r,n.1nK that under this agreement Rwe can expect B.G-. to gee, c;1. J.arge measure or tne Aind 01· 1n,:,eBrnaJ. se11·- government enjoyed by Barbados, Jamaica and Trini dad.I Th ere ~s likely to be an upper and lower House such as we AhaveL and responsl bility ror running the country w1ll be 1n tNhe hana s of the majority party. 1 am very glad about this because it means that tne Colonial Office nas ac cepted Othe central i'act ot tne B."7. situation, and tha1 is that .JJr. OIne dMdi Jagan and nis party are ,:,nere to stay. I nave nad the :t'eel1ng for a long time that there were sorno::: people at i:.he Colonial WOffice wno thought ,:,nat i f they could a el ay self- ~overn- ment Ur o r a sur1·1cient .1.y long t. ime tne people oi' B."7. ll.light become aisa~poi nted wi,:,h Jagan ana turn from nim. 1 uo not t nink this would nave happened and I think Mr . MaLleou, t ne Colonial B~ur etary nas shown great good. sense 1n accepting tne fa ct Lhat J agan and. nis party are no pusnover in B.G. ow , t urning to 1rr1n1aad we 1'ind that Dr'. u .i..c w~.1.1.lams 1s stl.Ll ma.King star ·tl1ng and di s,:,urbi ng news. We have just h eard n 1. s Government ,:,nat ~, has refused to make a con~ribut.1on towards the en-c.ertainin1 o:r the .Pr i ncess rtoya.L and tha t tney are .1.ikeJ.y to boycott ner ~arlier visit . Ana ltlXSlll, ,:,oward.s the end or' .last wee.K we nact. -c.ne news l... t.hat. t.he American autnori t.ies a:.o Ci1aguaramal::! w :a.d t u bury 4v, vvu aullars wort..t1 01 citr us oecause .Dr· . ,Hlliame reruseu t.o give the Americans permission t o h ana overt.he rruit. t.o ;_rr111.1.a.a uJ.an chari"ties. Nuw t.nes e ar very ct.rast1c actions and I . know many peop.J..e would be inclined to a.1smiss Dr. Williams ou-r. or nana 1·or tnem. own Some or n1s/fellow 'i'rinidadians nave chargea. De . v 1.llSiam s wi tn showing a gross i nnuman1 ty over· t.ni s citrus busineEss. 'l'n ey say ne aoes not. care what happens to the poor and tneI needy. And, of course, h i s actions tend to lend support to thRis juagemefft. But I t h inK it. would be super!'1cial toA Just dismiss 1.Jr. vJ J.l.1.1ams as so me or' U::l t ena to do. IBI iR:.hlnk that beh1nu most O.L h ~s actions there 1s a burning desire t o orlng ~o n1s country and t.o his countrymen a sense or i gLnit.y and a sense or se.J..r-respect, a sense of nationalist pridAe. To Dr'. Wi lliams t h e Amer1cans,against whom he is now f ighting Nover the i ssue of Chaguaramas, ar e the enemy. Well then, ifO you are a proud, self-respecting man you do not accept char iMty from your enemies. Now this is, I t h ink, an understandableI position, whether we agree with it or not. I t was Kwame NkrWumah of Ghana, I think, who r aised t he cry in the early days oUf Ghana> struggle for independence: It is better to be hungry and free than well-fed and unfree. And to Dr. Wi lliams an important part of freedom i s for Trinidadians to control all their land. I think it i s i mportant for us try and understand Dr. Williams ' reasons even when his actions seem most unreasonable to us He is, wbbther we like it or not, a most important West Indian. Goodnight. No 22 .. NE'WS COMMENTARY For transmission on Thursday March 24 at 6.15p.m Peter Abrahams speaking. Good evening: South Africa has forced itself into the forefront of world news with dramatic violence. The facts of what ha s happened there are painfully simple and tragically clear. The black men and women of South Africa cho s e Monday of this week as th e day on which they would launch a protest movement againstS the ~arrying of Passes. They had decided that thi s would be a IpEeaceful protest, that they would leave their homes without theRir passes and invite the police to arrest them. Thousands of thAem, all over the country did just that. And remember, there are Rmore than ten million black folk and less than three milIliBon white folk in that country. Well , when the white folk saw huLndreds of thousands of black f'ol.lt: making t hi s great demonstration, they were af raid and t here was an outburst of violence thaAt was savage and brutal. Before this week is out I am sure t.hNat the ~1st of the dead wi ll be more than one hundred. I t Mis cOlose to t hat now. And so far all the dead are b~a ck f" olKI. i~ e d o no t. have n ews of a single white person being killed. Tho sWe are the sad :t·acts. But t h e reasons behind these !'acts, t h e reUason why so many Africans had to be killea., i s a very HiUCh more complicated story wh ich has a lot t.o ao with what is happening all over A:t'r i ca, and wh ich we can only understand !'ully by looking at the whole of Africa and by looking at t he pro·blems of' race and colour in t he world today. But t h is I cannot att empt to do i n a single commentary; so I have decided to devot e this, as well as my . the next two commentaries to explaining/reasons behind the brutal killings in South Africa. Let me begin with the ~as s Laws wh ich set off the killings. 2 The newspapers have described these Passes as identity cards. But it is not as simple as that . here are a host of these Passes. I can remember ten, but I know there are more, and every black person, from the age of about fourteen has to carry one or more of these Jfasses . '.l.'he main one is called the Monthly .Pass . This one identifies you, shows where you live, how old you are, your f inger prints and who your parents are. If you are ever caught w ithout it you are sent to jail as a criminal . If a black man goeSs from one town or village to another he has ~o get a iravelIliEng Pass. When he looks for work he must have a Six Day SpecRial Pass . When he gets work he must have an Identification Pass asA well . On his day off ge must get a Special Day Pass. If he wRants to visit a friend in one of' the ghettoes reserved for blIaBck people he must get a Vistor ' s Pass . To be out at night he must have a Night Special Pass . To live anywhere, since he can Ano loLnger own land in his own country, he must get a Lodger's Pass. And there is even a Pass for schoolboys, These are only a few of Nthe long list, and the black man has to produce one or alMl ofO them on demand by any policeman or else go to jail . I Will But what is the point of all this, you/ask . First, it means that the rWu lers of South Africa know at any time, night or day, where Uany black person in the country can be found by simply looking at the Pass records . This turns South Africa into a vast prison camp for all its black citizens . There is not a move anyone can make without the rulers knowing about it . The second reason is ~o convince the black man that he is inferior to the white. It is because they have failed to convince the black man and because of what is happening elsewhere that they had to kill s o many Africans last Monday ••• But I will tell you more about tha t tomorrow . Goodnight. No. 23 NEWS COMMENTARY For transmission on Friday March 25 at 6.15p.m Peter Abrahams speaking Good evening: You will remember I told you last night about the Pass Laws which set off the killings in South Africa on Monday of this week. You will also remember that I ended by saying folk that it was because the white/ had failed to convince the bla ck folk that they were inferior and because of what was hSappening elsewhere that the rulers of South Africa had to IkEill so many Africans. Well now, what does this mean? It mReans, I am sure, that we are seeing the first signs of desperatioAn and the beginnings of panic among the white rulers of South ARfrica. The pressures are beginning to tell on t h em because, IiBnstead of f acing only one enemy, as t hey formerly did, th eLy now face three enemies. The first enemy they faAced were the black people in South Africa. Ever sinc e the bNeginning of the Union of South Africa in 1910 the white SouthO Africans have, with rare exceptions, looked on the black SouMth Africans as their enemies. That is why they had to build up the elaborate colour bar system with its co mpl i cated and ruthleWss PIass Laws. It is becau se they have always looked on the blUa ck man inside the country a s the ir enemy that they have built up the l ar gest police force on the whole continent, and tha t is why and air force / t hey have the b es t and most modern army/with t h e most modern guns and tanks and p lanes on the whole African continent. They knew t hat t h ey would have to deal with thes e people sooner or l ater, so t hey armed t h ems el ves and f elt secure. After the Second World War and in f a ct, right up to 1Y50 Africa, which is as large as t h e Unit ed States, Wes tern Ellrope , Ind i a and China put together, was still controlled and domi nated by Ellropean powers. The more than 2UU million peoples of Africa were still the colonia l subjects of Britain, France, Belg ium, Portugal and Spain. There were then only f'our independent countries on the whole vast Continent: these were South Arrica itself, the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia, F.gypt and the tiny Republic of Liberia. All the rest were colonies. As long as that was the situation and she was well armed to deal with her own black people the rulers of South Africa had very little to fear. S But the world changed very suddenly between 19E50 and 1960, and no part of the world changed as much as Af rica. In 1951 Libya became independent; in 1~56 Morocco, Tunisia aRnd Sudan became independent; in 1957 Ghana became independAent; in 1958 Guinea became independent; and this year Nigeria,I BtheR Belgian Congo, Somalia and Cameroon will all become indepenLdent. And t hose that are not yet independent, such as Kenya TAang anyika and Uganaa nav e just received or xxxi: are now working Nout new constitutions which will lead to independence. 'i 'oday there are only two bits o · Arrica which are still old-style coloOnies; and in one of them, Algeria, t.ne French are losing a bIi ttMer war against the independence movement. What a change in ten snor~ years! It isW this change that nas st.ruck fear into t h e white Suutn AfricaUns. 'l'ney Know t hey do not have a sing.le f riena among t hese newly inctepenaent blacK states. They know the black people 1n their own country xiii: looK on tnese stat es as examples to r el.Low anct s o they try to clamp down more rir mly and make a show of s trength by by massive killings. But there is another wind of t ear t ouching t nem about wh ich I will tell you tomorrow ••••• Gooanight. .No . 24- I • l'-lEWS 1.iOH.lVlN 1rAR.i or transmission on Saturday March 26 at 6 . 15p . m Peter Abrahams speaking Good evening: Last night and the night before I gave you two or the three reasons b1:;,h ind t.he mass killings that took place in Sout.n Arr1ca this wee.k. 'i'ne first., you will remember, was the f ear n the hearts and minds of' the two and a quarter millioSn white , South At'r i cans t.hat the more than t.en million black ESou1.h Afr icans will one day revolt against their oppression; so thIey had to ma.ke a brutal show of strengtn t.o t.ry and intimidateR them. The second reason, you will remember, was to be f ound iAn the cnanging f a ce of A!'rica, wnere ln les s than ten yeIaBro Rb.1.a ck men have taken power into their own hands in nearly the wnole continent: and all these new independent states are hoAsti lLe to the race anu colour rule of Sout.h Africa. ·ronlght I want. to g ive you t ne third. reason, and. Lhis has to do with the cNnanged and changing attitud e of the world at large to the questiOon of race and colour. 'l'oa ay all theM independent governments of the world, exc ept that of South AfricaI, have re jecteu t he iuea or l egal segregation and discriminaWtion . Wnere you do still have u iscrimination , as in parts 01· the UUnited St.ates, 1.he national government is act1 ve.iy working against. it. . ·.rne.i:·e .1. s a great. battle going on in the Legislature of the United S1,ates right now 1,0 r·emove such l egal nandicaps as t h e American egroes still sut'fer under. ·.1.·.ue i mportant point. 1s t hat t ne Government 0 1· the Uni tea Stat.es .1.s .!. tself fighting against racial discrimination within the unit ed Sta t es; and the nigner courts or the United Si:.ates have been a mong the great. est champions of racial equality. vnly in Sou h A r1ca is racia l discrimination a policy or tne Government; only t here is it uphela by t he courts .. of l aw . Ana wnen tinere were t he race riots 1n England, the English arliament ana. t ne English courts were f irmly against t ne racialists among t heir own people . Su yuu see, South Africa is alone inner stand of legaliseu uis cr1m1nati1on . An the rest ot" the wor.Ld , or reasons or po.iltica.L interest. as we.L1. as for moral reasons has r ound it increas ingly a.1ffl cult to turn a b1.1nd eye to wnat i s nappen1ng in South Af'rica . And so t he heavy p essure of world opinio n was slowly turnea. against boutn Africa until she i s , toaE.ayS, the most condemned and t ne mo t criti cised country 1n the wIhole world f or her racia l policies. But criticism and condemnRation by tnemselves could do very little. And it was here that JAamaica snowed the world wha t could be done and became t ne Rleader or tne wur la. on a most important moral i s sue: Jamaica IsBtar ted tne boycott movement , and I promise you we nave not heaLr d the last of them yet. And now even Bri ta1n ana. tne Unl tea SA-c. a - c,es can no lunger remain s1.Lent . 00 t.nere you are: t he white rulers of Soui:.h Arr1ca are now under pr essur e f rom t ne bNlack people inside outh Afri ca; they are under pr essureM r roOm t ne lna.epenctent African state ana. tney ar e under pressure f rom the rest of t ne wor la. Arld .Like a col'nereu. beas t tney are Ilashing out violently. I think we can expect more violence fWrom t h em, more killings as they grow more desper ate . They have haUd these killings in t h e past but the worlu t ook very lit~.Le notice then. lt is different today. And I a m convinced that under these pressur es we Wil.L, w1tn1.n tne next a.ecade, see ~ne end of the world's last gr eat racia.L ~yranny. ooua speeu i:.he ~ay . Goodrnght . l\J WS (.;U l)I Nil ·.1.·.llliY For t ransmission on Monday arch 28 at .15p. m ~eter Abr anams s peaking Good evening: The racial klllings in South Airiua so uomlnat.ea worlu n ~ws last weeK tna t I n ave rather neglected local art'alrs in my commentaries. Su .1et me try and put. t.n ls rlgn t nuw. une o the most important events on the nome front laSst w eek was Mr . Arnett's announcement on Wednesday tnat tnere would be an increase in our property tax. You wil.l remember tIhEat the 1n1s ter of" Finance said tnat as from April the first oRf thi s year property t.ax will go up from Sight Pence in the a-.;1u Ato One Sh.L.J.J.J.ng and Four Pence in the £.1u. rte a.1so said thaRt this would apply to all the Parishes of the island except St.B Catherine ana St. ann, as ~n ese two arlshes started payin gL taIx un the unimproved value J.ast year and March 1st, the uate Afor making aajustments in them, nas a.lready passea. ~ow the fir ~t and moNst obvious thing this means is that on April 1st, Whicn Mis oOn F'riday or tn1 s weeK, ct.lJ. those of us who own property are goIi ng to pay more tax. But now much more? 'I'ne Min.1st.er explaineu Win the House tne n ext uay, ·.i.:nurday, i.,nat the new increase would pUut t ne to t a.1 .1anct t axes and arish council rates we pay up by 7'fo, anu no t. by · SU'fo as some people nave made ou 1.,. ·i·n e tiecond. oovious tning is tha t t n ls is not a general or indirect tax which all of" us a .c e going to have to pay. .Lr you do not own JaE111.ext1 propert.y 1.nen thi s Lax a.oes not a1'1'ect you. Ana 1 · you own a very increase small p r operty then you will hardly nut,ice t n e t ax/at aJ.l. lt is r,ne people w1 tn l arge properties who feel this most because they are going to have to pay mor e. Anti ti1ey are the p eop l e who are wost bitt,er against, t.h l s tax i n crease. ow, t e b it,t,erness or l ar ge 2 poop,rty owners against this 1.ax increase is unaerst.andaole: we ooe ur us l~Ke t.o pay taxes; l uon 1 t., and l' m sure you don 't; t.axes are a necessary evi l w1-r.h wnicn we nc::1.ve to put up, but, we cer1.a1nly do not like them. And we like even less t.o h a...,-e o·ur taxes ~ncreasea. oo, tne big property owners nave my sympat.ny. But I do see the point of this t.ax inurease, anal weJ.com e 11. f or two main reasons a mong others . S Now, aJ.J. you have to do is ,:.ravel across JamaEica r rom north 1,0 South or east to Wej!.st t o see the remar kabRle Iimprovements am uur r oads compared witn tlve years ago . And yer., many o!' us,a especially people with cars, Hose wno a r e Alikely t.o own big properties, are not satis.r'ied. We reel Ri:.ne roads can do w1tn more i mproving. And no t all these r o aLas Ia Bre paiu for by central governmen the local author11,ies pay f oAr some. Tne actctitionaJ. money from thls tax incr ease will go intNo some of our roaas . Tne same t hing will apply with water where we have more and better piped water than five years ago; and Osome of this money will go into playing f ields for our childrenM and cl i nics for our s ick. My seconId main reason for welcoming t h i s tax increase is that it is likeWly to bring down the price of land and reduce speculation in lanUd. Land prices have become unreasonably high, so high that it is practically impossible f or any person earning l ess than £1,000 decent a year to buy a/piece of l and and build a home on it. And I t h ink it i s wrong for the pri ce of land to be so high that only a small section of our society can a f ford it. This tax increase will, I hope : help to change that •••• To morrow I want touch on aspects of agriculture . So, till then, goodnight. No 2b NEWS COMNENTARY For transmiss ion on Tuesday March 29 a t 6 .15p.m Peter Abrahams speaking Good evening : There is a big debate going on currently in agricultural circles about the faults and good points of the Farm Development Scheme which comes to an end this week. As you know, the Ministry of Agriculture/ has told f ar mers that the old Scheme with its emphasis on assistance will come tEo aSn end on Thursday. But farmers will have until t he end of ISeptember of th is year to complete such projects as they s t ill Rhave in hand , and then a revised Scheme will come into operAat ion. Under the new Scheme farmers are not likely to get thRe kind of grants and assistance t hey got under the old SBcheme. They are go i ng to have to stand more firmly on their own Ifeet, t hough t h ey will be able to borrow money for approved p roLjects. Now that t he old Farm ADevelopment Scheme is coming to and end there are many voices raNised against it and many people, some of them quite powerMful Oin agricultural circles , seem to want to t hrow out tne baby Iw i~ tne ba~h water . Thee ~no s e who say that the Scheme has done very little good, that agricultural output has not increWased under it and that t h e far mers have learnt har dly anythUing from the ~oil- Scheme . Then there are stories of J.A. S . Journals being piled away in cupboards without t he parcels being even opened. I daresay all of t h is is probably true. Output nas not been as high as most of us want it to be. And some rar mers have used the Scheme and the funds from the Scheme for purposes for which it was not intended . There are always people who t hink it is clever to cheat but I do not think they are any more numerous in our arming community than i n any other walk of life. And, you know, sometimes t he J . A.S. J our nal makes such dull reading 2 that o e just opens it and tnen puts it aside: I have certainly done so often enough . or myself, I t h ink I am inclined to agree with the judgement passed on the Scheme by Captain Art r ur The~welJ., the ~hairman of the Chr istiana Area Land Authority . These were Captain Th elwelJ.'s wo r ds: ··tne effects of the l::lcheme cannot be Judgded only in terms of crop r eturns . Out there on the land, it is creating a revolution in people's thinking and in the methods byS which they do things, and the revolution is leading to higheIrE living standards, better housing ideas and altogether an improvRed outlook on life. I think if you take all these things togetAher you will find that the Scheme has been well worthwhile." RThose are Captain Thelwell's words and, as I said, I am inclined Bto agree with him. In order to change your world, you must firsLt Ichange your outlook and this, I think, the old Farm Developmen t Scheme has to a great extent succeeded in doing. A What I hope will beN very closely watched under the new Scheme, is the si ze and MqaulOity of our Extension Services . I hope we will not see, as has so often been the case in the past, three , 'xtension Service oWff iveIrs in three very big cars converging on one little spot tUo give intruction to between six and a dozen people . This is a sheer waste of the tax payers' time and money. I also hope tha t we will have less of the superior instructor who feels that he knows everything and that no small f a rmer can teach him anything. To sum up then, I t hink the old Scheme has served the very useful purpose of helping to create this change in the farmer's outlook . But the time is now ripe for the Revised Scheme; t he time is ripe for better and more int ell igent farming , and the old Scheme has helped to make t hat time ripe for the new Scheme. ~xa3 loXKe Tomorrow I will look a t the Federal scene • ••••• Goodnight . -•- • - I NEWS COMMENTARY For transmission on Wednesday March 30 at 6.15p.m Peter Abrahams speaking Good evening: There were three interesting developments on the Federal scene last week, but the news from South Africa meant I had to po pone comment on them till now. First there was the grant of 2½ million dollars Smad e last Tuesday to the Federal Government by the United States Government through its International Co-operation AdministrIaEtion. This money will go into axhRm the DevloRpment loan and Guarantee J'und recently set up by the FedAeral Government. The United Kingdom Government has already Rcontributed l½ million dollars to this fund and the FedeIraBl Government has itself provided one million dollars: Lwhich brings the total in the Fund at present up to 5 million dollars. Now, the purpose Nof tAhis fund is to help establish develop-ment programmes in tOhe nrious Unit territories and I think it is reasonable toM assume that the Units who will benefit most from this Fund are the small islands of the Wind.wards and Leewards. And that is aWs itI should be. It is important to note that this money will Unot be used as handouts in any shape or form but rather to build up and. a.i versi!·y t he economy of the area. The political aspect of this grant is that it has given more stature and dignity to our Federal Government than many of the recent speeches of some of our own politicians. It is almost as though the U.S., Canada and Britain are more genuinely interested in the Federation than we are. The second intere sting item on the Federal scene was Dr. Williams' declaration on Tuesday of last week that Trinidad will 2 leave the Federation if his Government's demand for an independent Federation with a strong central government is not accepted. This, I fear, brings the dismal Federal picture into full circle. We now have the picture where Jamaica says that unless she has her way she will leave the Federation, and Trinidad says that unless she has her way, she will leave the Federatio n. In other words, the two most important Units of the FedeSration are now indulging in what can only be called politicsI-Eat-pistol point. Each of these two powerful Units now say: It Ris either going to be a Federation along my lines or I quit. ANow look at this any way you like, or, to use Dr. Williams' own Rwords 'Jump high, jump low, like it or not', this is politics aBt a very poor level of statesman- ship. For myself, I should like LtoI see Mr. Manley and Dr. Williams meeting privately and without any advisers and try to work out their differences at a personaNl lAevel. The future of a great dream is involved. The third iMnterOesting item is a very much happier piece of news. IntroduIc ing his fourth Budget to the Trinidad House on Wednesday of l as t week, Dr. Williams announced that free secondary educationW will progressively be introduced into Trinidad. In the first Uinstance secondary education will bedome free in three government schools as well as in two more to be built this year. The same will apply to nine other schools to be built or now buildin Then the Government will work out with the churches ways and means for their secondary schools also to become free. This i s wonderful news because the importance of education to the future development of the West Indies as a whole can never be over-emphasised. Th is is, I think, one of the most valuable contributions Dr. Williams and his government are making to Trinidad and t he West Indies as a whole. Goodnight. .1.-.v. c:o. NEWS COiv MEN~Y For tr.ansmission on Thursday March 31 at 6.15p.m Peter Abrahams speaking Good evening: I should like to talk about your health this evening because tomorrow, April the first, something that is very important t.o axx the health of all of us will come within the reach of practically everybody in Jamaica. I am, of cou rse, re:rerring to the Jamaica Blue Cross Plan; about whichS I am sure many of you already Know. Up to now this ,1an hasE only applied to groups of ten people or more; but from tomorroIw any single person or any f amily will be able to join theR Plan. Now what i s t h is Plan? Wel.i, to answAer 1t properly I must first remind you of mf things whicIh BhavRe happened to most, if not all, of us. I am sure that a mong all 01· you listening there must have been a large number of pe oLple who have been xxx sick at one time or another and who NhavAe not been able to arford to go to a doctor. I am sure that among you there are parents wno at o e ~ime 01· anotn e nave mad.eO themselves il..L w 1.1.,n m1 ::;ery a.nu unna.y_µ iness oecaus e tney Ico uMJ.a. noi:. a rrora. to take their chi.la. to see a spe c iali s ne ea.ea. . AWna I am sure tner e are yet ot ners who got t nems eJ.ves aeep iUnto aeot in or der that a loved one should get t n e proper medica l treatment at a time of sicknes s • .ana I am sure there are many saa. p eople a mong you wno h ave lost there loved ones becaus e t ney could not a f'ford an expensive treatment t.hat might have made all t n e d11· ·erence be ween life ana. death. I a m sure of all thi s because every year one out ot· every thr ee .L" ainili e in J amaica na s a need to u s e a hospital. We none of us have any security agains t ::;icKness or accident, it cto es not matter whether we are rich or poor, big f a mili es or s ma l l; s i cKness can strike anywhere . 2 does • l"i.w::1.t we can do ls to make sure that when sic1eness; strike,t we will be able -r,o get the best doctors, the best meal cines and the best hospital. treatment possible. And this we can ao by joining 1.nu1v1uua .J. the Blue Cross Plan. 1f you join Blue Cross as an/x:u:xoc~a± or as a ramily, you, your wife and each 01· your children wno ar e not yet ~ighteen, will each be entitled to ninety a.ays or f ree care ana treatment each year in a hospital should the need arise. Your ambulance, your X-Rays, your operationo, your' medicineSs, your uoctors v isits will all be free; 1n t ne event ot" pIrEegnancy your wife will be able to have her baby ln home or Rhospital and all treatment will be free - provided you haRve Abeen enrolled i n the Plan for ten mon hs before the birth of t ne child • .J.n snort, t e Blue Cross PlanI Bf rees you of' the worry as to wh ere the money f or treatment isL to come from when there is sickness in the house. And you a.J.l knAuw now great that worry can be. Now how ct.o you joinN Blu e Cross ':' Ai:; r rom tomorrow t here will be two ways: there isO the Group plan whi ch nas been gong in J amaica r or two years now. 1n this t here must be ten or more people. 1r you earn ..L t;SB "unc:1.nI ~ 5M6v a y i::;ar· you pay 6;- c1. munt.h .L r you ar e single, or .l.8/- a Wmonth to cover your whole ramily. lr you earn more than ~~vu a Uyear you pay 12/- a month single or ~KM~2 a month f or your family. 1r you are joining not. as a group c.hen you pay 7;- s ingle or c:.c:./- per ramily per month i r you i::arn ~:,vv)t) or less; 11· you earn more then you pay 15/- single or £c • • u per r·a rnily per month . Ana ro r t nio j'OU will get rull. ana. free care in your time o · need. . i r you are int.eres ed. 1.n this wonderful plan write to Blue Cross, care ol" the Univers ity Hosplta.L, 1ona , Kingston ·, •••• 'I'omurrow .J. will talk about the russ in the House be ween Busta and Father Coomos on 1uesday. 111 then, goodnight.