Aid to Jamaica

Hugh Fraser, colonial under-secretary, made a statement today in the House of Commons on the visit to London of a Jamaican delegation led by Prime Minister Sir Alexander Bustamante.

He said: "Discussions with the Jamaican delegation led by Sir Alexander Bustamante, on financial, economic and defence matters, ended last Friday.

"In the course of the talks, I told the delegation we would make assistance available totalling £4.75m . The sum includes war office lands and buildings in Jamaica which we value at £2.5m, also an exchequer loan of £1.25m towards the current year's capital budget, and various unexpected portions of Commonwealth development and welfare allocations amounting to about £1m.

Bustamante reports to Cabinet soon

The Hon Sir Alexander Bustamante, premier, said yesterday he will report shortly to the Cabinet and the House of Representatives on the economic and financial mission which visited London, New York and Washington.

The report to the Cabinet will be made when all the ministers are assembled, Sir Alexander added.

At present, three of the ministers, including the Hon Donald Sangster, minister of finance, and the Hon Robert Lightbourne, minister of trade and industry, who were members of the mission, are in Port-of-Spain attending the West Indies Common Services Conference.

Sir Stephen charges delegates to look to future

Delegates attending the West Indies Common Services Conference in Port-of-Spain were this morning charged by the interim commissioner, Sir Stephen Luke, "not to allow the ghosts of the past to bedevil the work of the conference whose purpose is to concern itself with the present and the future of a new group of nations, and not the past."

Sir Stephen, in his 10-minute welcoming speech to the conferences meeting in the conference room on the sixth floor of Federal House, told delegates that the greatest irony of his life, after being devoted to so many years in the West Indies, "is to be called upon to dismantle the structure we had so laboriously worked to create in the past".

Church services on Independence eve

The Independence Celebration Committee stated yesterday that Sunday, August 5, the eve of Jamaica's Independence, will be marked with church services throughout the country.

The main service will be at the Cathedral, Spanish Town, at nine in the morning, with Princess Margaret, the Earl of Swindon and the governor general, Sir Kenneth Blackburne, in attendance.

Other churches will have their services at varying hours during the day, and it has been left to the churches and congregations to organise worship for the day.

Man's head chopped off, taken to police station in basket

A man's head was chopped off with a machete at Belfield, St Mary, yesterday, and taken to the police station in a basket after two men had quarrelled over straying pigs.

The police were told that Ronald Campbell, 34-year-old labourer of Belfield, and Walter Hamil, 55, of the same district, quarrelled when some pigs belonging to Campbell had strayed on to Hamil's property. Hamil's neck was severed.

The police said the head was taken to the police station at Belfield by Campbell, who was detained by District Constable Selvin Stewart.

Pilot's permit suspended

The permit of Pilot Herbert Hayden, who was in pilotage charge of the Italian tanker Ferdinando Fassio when she ran aground on July 2 off the Customs Wharf at Port Royal, has been suspended by the Marine Board for six months.

The decision was taken by the board yesterday, following a formal investigation. The board found that Pilot Hayden was "negligent in manoeuvring the vessel".