"It is the fairest land that eyes have beheld," wrote Christopher Columbus when he discovered the Caribbean island of Jamaica in 1494. This winter 100,000 sun-seeking North American tourists are discovering Jamaica and echoing Columbus. The lush British colony, only three hours by air from Miami, is the Temperate Zone dweller's vision of Eden: white sand beaches and an emerald surf, blue mountains and waterfalls in the distance, a green landscape of palms, banana and sugar cane, splashed with gaudy contrasts of scarlet poinciana blooms, yellow and coral bougainvillaea vines and fragrant orchards of mangoes, limes and tangerines.
Unlike most other islands of the impoverished Antilles, Jamaica can boast of more than sunshine and scenery. By the low living standards of the Caribbean, Jamaica's 1,500,000 inhabitants are comparatively well off. Jamaica's soft-spoken natives (80% Negro) look healthy, clean and sleek beside the ragged poor of neighboring islands. Most of them wear shoes, and at least 70% can read and write. Rarely is a beggar seen in the orderly capital of Kingston (pop. 155,000), a city of paved streets, department stores, supermarkets and good restaurants.
Balanced Budget. Jamaica's moderate prosperity is new-found and self-made. Britain, whose absentee landlords drained fat profits from the place with regularity after the British routed the Spaniards* in 1655, did not grant Jamaica limited self-government until 1944. At that time the island was so run-down that a visiting British commissioner called it "a dung heap of physical abomination."
Still under a British-appointed governor, but with an elected local Assembly running most of the island's affairs, Jamaica has come along fast. The government is now headed by Chief Minister Norman Washington Manley, 62, the West Indies' most successful lawyer before he entered politics in 1938. Under his shrewd eye, Jamaica balances its $60 million annual budget. Money that Britain used to spend to bail the island out of debt is now funneled into "extras" like land development schemes and the newly built University College of the West Indies.
Fewer Imports. The once profitable banana business, almost wiped out by disease during the early '40s, was rescued by development of a disease-resistant variety, and exports have doubled in the past eight years. During and after the war, Jamaica expanded its sugar planting and built up a $21 million-a-year British market (and a current surplus that may soon force a compulsory cutback). Rice, a staple food that had always been imported, was grown locally under government direction, and production was boosted to the point where Jamaica is now nearly self-sufficient. In trying to encourage manufacturing, the government granted special inducements to foreign capital to build local factories. Island plants now employ some 20,000 and satisfy much of Jamaica's needs for cement, shoes, clothes, soap, paint, canned goods, furniture.