In an election fueled by emotion and fought to singsong calypsos, the newborn West Indies Federation last week came apart at its most important seam. Given their first chance to vote on the question of federation, 251,935 Jamaicans voted no, 216,400 said yes. The decision was a bitter surprise both for Britain, which saw federation as the best way to cut its colonies loose, and for the political leaders of the islands,* who had spent years negotiating a delicate balance of power between populous (1,700,000) Jamaica and its small, faraway neighbors.
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