Leaders of the political parties were very frank with their New Year's messages. Minister Manley welcomed all things associated with Jamaica becoming a federation while Opposition Leader Alexander Bustamante was against the move and shared that he would not be a hypocrite,

Published Friday, January 3, 1958

Federation – The Day Has Come 

Messages to The Gleaner salute the new West Indies 

Hon N. W. Manley, chief minister 

"The year ended greatly for Jamaica and for the West Indies. The plans for the Federation brought, after much labour, to a successful close, now 1938 dawns and it will witness the consummation of half a century of dreams and a decade of hard and patient work.

We open a new book in our history. Some reluctantly, some with hesitant hands, most with pride and hope and confidence. But the book opens. History will have her inevitable way. Federation is history.

It is here. It is here to enlarge our horizons, to set us new goals for the march to nationhood. It is a great and arduous challenge. 

We will win. Who sounds the trumpet? Who salutes the dawn?" 

Hon Sir Alexander Bustamante, opposition leader 

"You have kindly asked me to send you a message for publication in your press saluting “the coming into being of West Indies Federation”. If my heart and my conscience would permit me to be a hypocrite, I would do so, but hypocrisy and deception are not assets of mine. I could salute the coming into being of West Indies Federation if I did not think it will be a calamity, particularly for Jamaica, without the necessary financial foundation.

One cannot federate misery and poverty with any hope of success without a large loan and a large grant from wherever it may come, except Russia. "

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