Caribbean Meeting

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30339, 15 January 1964, Page 15

Caribbean Meeting

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) KINGSTON (Jamaica).

January 13. Jamaica’s Prime Minister, Sir Alexander Bustamante, opened a four-nation Caribbean conference in Kingston. Also attending were Dr. Eric Williams, Mr Errol Barrow, and Dr. Cheddi Jagan. Premiers of Trinidad, Barbados, and British Guiana.

It is the second such conference in six months and is due to last a week.

It will discuss agricultural trade, a development plan, and mutual aid in time of disaster, such as hurricanes. It will also review foreign policies, West Indians in Britain, and the political and constitutional development of the four countries. Two of them—Jamaica and Trinidad are independent. British Guiana is seeking independence. Barbados is an internally self - governing colony. Trinidad, Jamaica, and Barbados were members of the West Indies Federation, which broke up in May, 1962. The federation provided a framework within which problems of the West Indies and the Caribbean could be discussed, and decisions taken.

The conference, like the one last July, is a tacit recognition that, in a world of bigger economic and political groupings, there is a danger of isolation of small Caribbean countries seeking a bigger share of the world's i markets.