The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, APRIL 9, 1866.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume I, Issue 30, 9 April 1866, Page 2

The Nelson Evening Mail. MONDAY, APRIL 9, 1866.

The last mail brought us further particulars of the late outrages which have lately been perpetrated in the name of justice at Jamaica. It is almost impossible to believe that such scenes can have been enacted in the nineteenth century, under the protection of the British flag, and with The sanction of the British name; yet the records of that unfortunate and misgoverned island, since the abolition of slavery, tell a tale of long continued oppression of the colored race. From the first the planters never cordially accepted emancipation, although they received £] ,000,000as compensation for the loss of their slaves. Notwithstanding that labor was abundant, the daily wage ior a man being from 9d. to Is., they introduced at the cost of £30,000 a-year emigrants from China and other countries. To support the increased expenditure of Government the Customs' duties were enormously increased, and care was taken that the chief increase should be upon those articles which were used principally by the colored population. To prevent the settlement of the labouring classes among the mountainous districts, and to compel them to labor on the plantations, oppressive laws were passed, among which the Vagrancy Act (since copied by the state of Mississippi) was long considered a disgrace to civilization. The electoral franchise was so regulated that out of a population of over 400,000 less than 9,000 were entiled to a vote. The administration of justice was entirely in the hands of the planters, aud the records of the courts abounded in iustauces of petty persecution, while provision for educating the people was completely neglected. This was the case before tne days o^ Governor Eyre. Under his administration things went from bad to worse. The spirit of oppression became stronger ; 'aws of the most tyrannical character were

passed, and were most oppressively administered, until dissatisfaction led to riot, collision with the military, and bloodshed. Yet in the accounts which have reached us, there is not the slightest evidence to sustain the charge that there was a conspiracy among the negroes to massacre the whites ; on the contrary the Governor in his despatches distinctly states that he would not find among the bla,ck population the slightest traces of any organization. Sixteen people were killed by the blacks at the massacre of Moraut Buy. The Jamaica papers state that the number of the iusurgents that have been killed by the troops or hanged by the military authorities, were between 2,000 and 3,000. These have been shot because they rau away, or because they looked suspicious, or hauged by the order of a court marshal composed of boys, upon evidence most incomplete and unreliable; hundreds have also been flogged because the authorities did not know what to do with them. The property of the peaceful inhabitants has been plundered or destroyed; the laws of the country have been violated. Can we wonder that the people of England, when these facts became known, became indignant that the fair fame of their country should be sullied by acts like these committed in her name; and that they have demanded in a voice that cannot be resisted by the Government, that those who have thus violated all equity, and disgraced humanity, shall be brought to justice. Rather, we may rejoice, that although a small section of the press and some timeserving politicians may he induced to palliate any enormity, the heart of the nation is sound, and will not permit any of the agents of the Government to act unjustly — ■ even when the people who have been oppressed and ill-treated are the poorest and most helpless among the nations of the earth.