New Nation

So solemn was the occasion last week that even in the birthplace of the steel bands their sonorous sounds were banned from the streets for a night and rollick some calypso singers were allowed to perform only indoors. A new red, white and black flag went up, the Union Jack came down, and Trinidad-Tobago became the eleventh British possession granted independence since World War II. The islands' 825,000 Africans, East Indians, Arabs, Chinese and British began a nine-day independence party designed to top the birth-of-a-nation celebration in nearby Jamaica 26 days earlier.

Trinidad has more to celebrate. A 1,863-sq.-mi. chunk of green hills slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island, lying below the southernmost end of the Windward Islands, it is separated from the Venezuelan coast by ten miles of water and oil derricks. Rich with sugar as well as with oil, Trinidad has the highest per capita income ($480) in the British West Indies. It exports the second largest barrelage of crude oil in the Commonwealth (after Canada), earns a national income of $438 million, compared with the $570 million earned in Jamaica, which has twice the population. Along with exports of asphalt, rum, and ladies' underwear, the small island supplies every drop of Angostura bitters for the world's old-fashioned and rum swizzles.

All the same, going it alone presents problems to Trinidad-Tobago and its Oxford-educated mulatto Premier, Eric Williams, 51. Britain's entrance into the European Common Market could cost Trinidad its preferential trade status (32% of its exports) with the mother country. Trinidad's high per capita income notwithstanding, 20% of its people are unemployed. To attract industry, Trinidad, like Puerto Rico, offers an income-tax-free holiday of up to ten years.

Despite the ceremonial presence of Queen Elizabeth's 65-year-old Aunt Mary, the Princess Royal, Trinidadians had a sort of abandoned-by-Britain feeling. Cuba's Castro and Soviet Premier Khrushchev sent well-wishers. The U.S. substituted AID Director Fowler Hamilton for busy Arthur Goldberg, hoping to interest Trinidad in joining the Organization of American States and so becoming eligible for Alianza para el Progreso assistance. Already receiving $1,100,000 a year from AID, Premier Williams had no hesitation in pronouncing Trinidad "unequivocally west of the Iron Curtain."

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