The Commonwealth

Conference diary

Molly Mortimer

If Ottawa found informality, Jamaica was plain relaxed. It was hard to be anything else at a steady 85°F and total humidity. Kingston, curled in her island cradle, has grown used to her favoured status as a desirable conference centre. Beyond the gloss and glare of three huge hotels, life goes on from church breakfasts to night weddings singing across time. A puzzled cow ruminates among conference cars and the odd goat and donkey streaking off the the lowering Blue Mountains reminds one nature is just round the corner.

The Queen of Jamaica's arrival brought the end of the worst drought for years. It would be nice to feel superstitious, but the ruling People's National Party has republican rumblings, and King George VI Park is now National Heroes Park. But 'Queen's weather' blazed out briefly on the scarlet uniforms of the First Battalion and shone on the Queen's gold dress; on the brilliant pinks, greens and sharp lemons of the Kingston crowd, out to enjoy her. They came in masses, from Rastafarians in flowing locks to conventional flag-wavers, and shouted with delight through the walkabout. Shelepin should have been here.

Comforting

Somehow Mr Wilson's bonny presence, and he was looking very relaxed, was more comforting in current circumstances than the more abrasive integrity of Mr Heath; though so far the only Rhodesian ploy has been the suggestion of yet another envoy to Salisbury, his gift for skating between fools will doubtless emerge. At the Prime Minister's party, he was kind enough to tell me how much he liked The Spectator: a bit idolatrous, but none the worse for that, he said.

Ginger and ganja

Up in the Cambridge mountains (past Stonehenge, Balaclava and Ipswich — Jamaica place names are a constant delight) lies greenginger settler country. A few hardworking European farmers, reminiscent of the last whites in Kenya, cling to their beloved acres. At Mountain Springs and Chester Castle the head of the family at ninety, remembers his grandfather whose life was saved by female slaves in the 1832 rebellion. The house is cool, stoneflagged and has no air conditioner or electricity. Six peacocks seen through pimento liqueur provide a lingering pomp. The conference seemed far away but there is mutual interest in the protection of perishable primary product: banana, sugar, ginger, coffee and guava. Mr Wilson's Six Points are approved. From here he looks almost conservative compared with local socialist experiments in food farms and large scale land squatting.

Without grandiloquence about New World Orders and Declarations of Interdependence the British have promoted an economic turning point as important as their pioneering for the abolition of slavery. Even so, equitable prices and stable supplies in an evolving world are not a simple matter of waving a general indexing wand and the smaller unsung Commonwealth bodies have much to do, especially the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation, which has received the practical accolade of increased contributions (New Zealand up to half a million dollars) by pleased members. Even more valuable at the conference have been the new bilateral trade links. Jamaica's Development Co-opera

tion Agreement signed by Trudeau for Canada, is well worth the $2 million outlay to play host at Kingston. These is also the little matter of ganja (marihuana) for guns, Jamaica's most lucrative if unadvertised trade with the US. A great deal of ingenuity goes into this. One of the bolder ploys is to stop up a stretch of tarmac road with 'official' notices, just long enough for a small plane to land and leave. James Bond was perfectly at home in Jamaica.

After Saigon

Lee Kuan Yew warned again and again that Saigon is only the precursor of the consolidation of Communist power in South-East Asia and the further creation of "indigenous insurgency". Time won through Russo-Chinese animosity can only be used to build national will and ease internal tensions, while adapting to a world where all the old terms of reference have gone. To point his views, both he and the Malaysian Prime Minister left the conference early — from palm and pine back to the battle line — to an ASEAN meeting with Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia, equally exposed now, to externally aided insurgency. The deep foundations of iniquity seemed very close to Lee and he got little comfort from the Commonwealth, only the rustle of small statesmen turning their coats.

Over to Sonny

The Secretary of the Commonwealth designate is Sonny Ramphal, Foreign Minister of Guyana, with a distinguished legal career behind him. He is at least taking over a going concern, though where it is going is as doubtful as ever. The Commonwealth is not, despite Arnold Smith, an instrument for change, any more than it is a relic of the past. It may be that Mr Ramphal struck the correct note when he saw it as a unique body of pragmatic balance and dialogue — or as Lee put it the politically possible and economically practical. It always surprises, and the many prophets who foresaw Kingston as a dull low key functional affair were confounded by political effervescence. It may be that London 1977 will better reflect a more sober diversity than Kingston's sunny hysteria. By then the shadows of Saigon will have darkened, and New Zealand's suggested theme of individual liberty become urgent. Kingston was a colourful but not a creative conference. Only Noel Coward, who died here two years ago, could have done justice to this Caribbean cavalcade.

Consenting party

(In a recent case the Law Lords have ruled that, even if a woman resists intercourse, a man is not guilty of rape if he thought that she didn't really object.) My Lord, I am not guilty of this crime!

Though naturally I think all sex sublime, It would, I think, be wrong to have by force, With an unwilling woman, intercourse.

Unwilling! That's the rub! How can one tell Whether she's really making a hard sell.

You'll understand how hard it is to know What women really mean when they say "No."

It's true she shouted till she was quite hoarse: "With you I want no bloody intercourse!"

And hit me very hard with her clenched fists, So that I had to tie her by the wrists.

But this, I thought, was just her playful way, I'd no idea she didn't want to play.

And when she shuddered as her clothes I tore, I thought her eyes were asking me for more.

To you, My Lord, I may talk man to man; You will appreciate how women can Say firmly "No!", when really they mean "Yes!"

And what they want is very hard to guess.

So when she fought and shouted I should go, I didn't really think that she meant "No!"

My arts to please her I did then employ, swear she gave a swift frisson of joy.

To take advantage would be underhand, As you, My Lord, will surely understand. Basil Charles