PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.882
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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for transmission to the Right Honorable the Secretary of State for India, the accompanying Minute, in original, recorded by his Excellency the Governor-General, regarding the transfer of the administration of the Straits' Settlements from the Government of India to that of the Colonial Office. 2. The original papers on this subject, brought up by his Excellency, are returned.
I have, &c.
C. W. AITCHESON.
(Signed)
Enclosure 13.
Minute by his Excellency the Right Honorable the Governor-General, dated November 7, 1959, concurred in by the Members of Government.
1. In a despatch from the Secretary of State, received last April, the Government of India was informed that Her Majesty's Government having had under its consideration the position and cir- cumstances of the Straits' Settlements, was de- sirous to receive the opinion of the Governor- General in Council, "whether any good and suffi- cient reasons now exist for continuing the adminis- tration of these Dependencies of the Crown on their present footing, or whether it might not be advantageous to the public interests and to the Settlements themselves to withdraw them from the control of the Indian Government, and transfer them to the Colonial Office."
2. I have carefully considered this question. The only object for which I can conceive that it govern- may be thought desirable to maintain the ment of the Straits' Settlements on its present footing, is the object of having the whole of our Possessions in the East subject to the control of one chief resident authority. This consideration, however, is quite as applicable to Ceylon, which has never been subordinate to the Government of India, as it is to the Straits' Settlements. Indeed, much better reasons, political as well geographical, might be shown for connecting Ceylon with the Government of India than for connecting the Straits' Settlements with the Government of India.
3. But any arguments which, in past years, might have been put forward in favour of giving
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to the chief authority in India some power of control over our Eastern Possessions beyond the limits of India, are now weakened by the rapid progress which is being made in establishing com- munication by electric telegraph between those possessions and England, and, as a general rule, it appears to me that where there is so broad a line of separation between the people of two settlements, that disturbance in the one will not necessarily, or even probably, be followed by disturbance in the other, and where the community of interests and the affinity between them are not close, there can be no real necessity why they should be subject to the same local authority. The reasons which make it really necessary that the whole of the British Pon- sessions in the Continent of India should be in a great degree subordinate to one head are not more than very partially applicable to the case of India and. Ceylon, and they are altogether inapplicable to the case of India and the Straits' Settlements.
4. These Settlements, it will be recollected, have not always been subject to the control of the Government of India. They were for many years constituted as a separate Government, and the change which was decided on in 1829, whereby the separate government was abolished, and the Bettlements placed under the Government of Bengal, seems to have been dictated by a desire of economy far more than by any other influence. And an opinion then appears to have prevailed that, in abolishing the expensive establishment of Go- vernor and Council, which existed previously to 1829, it must naturally follow that the single Officer, to whom the chief authority was in future to be intrusted, should be controlled by the nearer Government of Bengal, instaad of continuing to be in direct subordination to the more distant Government in England. This is not a considera- tion to which much weight will be attached at the present time. Singapore will shortly be sennestad with England by electric telegraph, snduit may, I presume, be senticinated that the establishnisat of the Strait Bettlements, as a Gozartament directly with subordinate to the Crown, would be aft
the construction of some mitable machinery for conducting the legislative duciana of the menje. I luliese jijat meh maskingy mads far mins
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5. I am of