The Sun. — 1866-01-12 (London, England)

JAMAICA.  The following is an extract from Lee and Nightingale's correspondent at Kingston, dated December 16 :  " The House of Assembly has reached the close of the sixth week of its present session, and has been occupied in the consideration of measures suggested by, arising out of, or rendered imperative, by the rising at Morant Bay. The acts which have passed both Houses of the Legislature, and received the assent of Governor Eye, up to this time are 11 in number. The 11th is the Act to Alter and Amend the Political Constitution of the Island,' which was adopted by the Assembly on the sth inst., by the Legislative Council on the 7th, and received the governor's assent on, the same day ; and that act, which was sent home to the Colonial Office by the last Royal Mail steamer, may be published in England before this express arrives. The previous ten were steps leading perceptibly to the issue which, when the packet left, was supposed to have been reached in the Constitution Amendment Act ; and it now appears that that act itself was but a shadowing forth of a final measure, which is to hand over the control of the colony to the home government entirely. This bill, suggested by the British Government, and supported by the Colonial Ministry, passed its first reading in the Assembly ou Thursday night, and will in all probability be advanced another stage on Tuesday next. That it will be adopted, if not in its entirety, at all events in substance, is not doubted on any side of the house. The point upon which some warm discussion may possibly arise is the ambiguity of the passage relating to the executive committee. It is felt by an influential party in the house that any change, to be efficacious, must comprehend the abolition of that committee ; inasmuch as its character—not that of any individual member or members, but of the committee itself, as a paid Cabinet supplies a perpetual source of strife. If it can be made evident that it is not in contemplation to retain that body, while the other sections of the Government are abolished, the bill will pass with very little difficulty. • It may be necessary to substitute a clause to place this matter altogether beyond question, but this is likely to be an easy process. Once through the Assembly, the bill will go at once through the Council, and the governor's assent being a foregone conclusion, you will most likely receive by the next mail the act which represents the self-immolation of the governing body of Jamaica—their assertion that the island does not contain the materials out of which a responsible Government can be from time to time constructed.  " Pending this event, it will be interesting to the public in England to know precisely what has been the course of legislation here since the island was dismayed by the murderous outbreak at Morant Bay. Murderous—nay, worse than murderous— for neither the local newspapers nor the correspondents of English journals can bring themselves to put upon paper an explicit account of atrocities which were then committed, as much by the black women as by the men (if men or women such fiends can be called) upon the unfortunate victims of that outbreak. We speak in whispers, even now, of the deeds that were done to living and dead alike before the terribly necessary retribution which was extorted from the whites had commenced ; but we dare not write them, for humanity's—for decency's sake. The wording of some of these measures is sufficiently strong to show, far more clearly than any ex parte statements can, how solemnly the rulers of the country went about the work of self-preservation, when the lapse of three weeks had allowed them to recover from the fever which attended their first awakening."