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for thirty-four days in taking evidence, and for three days in hearing the pleadings of Mr. Vaudagne and of the defendant.
Immediately after pronouncing this judgment, Mr. Renouf applied to his Excellency the Governor for leave of absence, on the ground that the anxiety of mind occasioned by his connection with the case had caused severe indisposition. This application was supported by a medical certificate, and was granted.
In these circumstances his Excellency thought proper, having regard to the exceptional nature of the case, and to the fact of an application for the appointment of a Petty Sessions having been addressed to him by the defendant, while the case was depending before Mr. Renouf,-which of course could not at the time be entertained,— to appoint a Court of Petty Sessions to inquire into and adjudicate upon the complaint. The gentlemen selected to constitute this Court, were:-Messrs. J. A. Robertson, Senior District Magistrate of the Island; O. D'Emmerez de Charmoy, District and Stipendiary Magistrate, Black River; and E. S. Messiter, Stipendiary Magistrate, Grand Port.
On the 10th October, the Court met and took up the complaint in an amended form, a copy of which is appended hereto (Appendix No. 3).
In opening the case before the Petty Sessions, I took occasion to submit to that Court a legal objection to the validity of the contract between thirty-six of the com- plainants and the defendant.
By Royal Order in Council, dated 7th September, 1838, it is provided (Chapter 2, Section 2) that "no contract of service shall be in force within any of the said Colonies (including Mauritius) for more than four weeks from the date thereof, unless the same shall be reduced into writing, with all the formalities subsequently mentioned." The formalities referred to are detailed in the following Section, which, inter alia, provides that "no written contract of service shall be in force unless such Stipendiary Magistrate shall subscribe the written contract, in attestation of the fact that it was entered into by the parties voluntarily, and with a clear understanding of its meaning and effect. In the course of the hearing of the case of the five complainants, it had come to my knowledge that the contract, by which thirty-six of the complainants were bound to Mr. Poulin, was not signed by the Magistrate, and was not, therefore, in conformity with the provisions of the Order in Council above quoted. It was not deemed advisable to take this objection before Mr. Renouf; but I was instructed to insist After hearing me upon this objection, and upou it before the Court of Petty Sessions. the defendant in reply, the Court were divided upon the effect of the informality in question. The Senior Magistrate present, Mr. Robertson, held that the written contract, not being in conformity with the prescribed formalities, was not binding upon the parties, and that the complainants whose names appeared on it were entitled to have it cancelled; but that they could still insist in their complaint, on the ground that a verbal contract-from time to time renewed by tacit consent-must be held to exist between Mr. Poulin and these complainants, and to form the basis of the relations which had subsisted between them, and which could no longer be ascribed to written contract. The other two members of the Court differed from this opinion, and held that the informality must be regarded as cured by the work done and wages received by the complainants, ostensibly under the defective contract, and the motion to have the contract declared null was accordingly refused by the Court.
As, in such a question, appeal is not competent under the Ordinance regulating procedure in Stipendiary Courts, a writ of certiorari was applied for, and the judgment thereby removed into the Supreme Court. There the Judges quashed the judgment of the Petty Sessions; holding the contract in question to be null, as not being in conformity with the requirements of the Law, and remitted the case to the inferior Court to be proceded with on that footing.
The hearing of the case was accordingly continued before the Petty Sessions. The investigation there proceeded with much greater expedition. The number of the counts had been reduced to four, corresponding to the 1st, 6th, 7th, and 9th counts of the original complaint; but what chiefly tended to accelerate procedure was the fact that this Court was not disposed to allow the defendant such excessive liberty in cross- examination, but confined him to the matter at issue.
The complainants closed their case on 7th November, after occupying the Court for nine days. The case of the defendant terminated on 15th November, and on the 29th (without hearing either party upon the evidence) the Court pronounced judgment. This judgment is to be found appended hereto (Appendix No. 4), and was to the following effect: The 1st and 4th counts were found proved. In respect of the former, a fine of 101. was inflicted, and under the latter, the defendant was ordered to
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pay to the complainants the various amounts shown by his wages' book to have been deducted from their respective wages for "Malade-Travail." The 2nd count was found proved, so far as concerned those complainants who did not belong to the band of a Sirdar named Lutchman, and the defendant was ordered to repay to each of these men the sum of 8.-illegally deducted from their wages for tool-money. The 3rd count was held "not to fall within the jurisdiction of the Court." Costs were given in favour of the complainants, and those of them who did not fall under the contract which had been set aside by the Supreme Court were ordered to return to the defendant's estate.
From this judgment the Chairman of the Court, Mr. Robertson, dissented. The reasons upon which this dissent is based will be found at length in the Appendix hereto (No. 5).
The result of this judgment was that out of sixty-five labourers, who insisted in the amended complaint, the contracts between thirty-five labourers and the defendant were declared null, and an order made for restitution to them of sums held by the Court to have been illegally deducted from their wages, as "tool-money" and on account of "malade-travail." The remaining thirty complainants were ordered to return to the defendant's estate, and a similar order for payment of illegal deductions was pronounced in their favour. The defendant was condemned to pay a fine of 101. sterling, and to bear the costs of suit. From the preceding account of the progress of the complaint, it will be seen that the hearing of the case lasted during fifty-two sittings. Of these, thirty-nine sittings were occupied in dealing with the case of the five complainants before the Stipendiary Magistrate. The extraordinary time spent in disposing of this part of the complaint I ascribe, chiefly, to the manner in which the defendant conducted his case; his object throughout being apparently to protract the hearing to the utmost. This policy he was enabled to carry out to its utmost extent by the great considerateness of the Magistrate, who allowed him almost unbounded liberty of cross-examination. That such a comparatively simple matter as the issue involved in the complaint should, at the caprice of the defendant, have been capable of being spun out to such a length, plainly shows a defect in the procedure in this case before the Stipendiary Court. These Courts were instituted to furnish masters and servants with summary mode of enforcing the contract between them. In this and, as I am inclined to think might be the case, in any similar complaint, the Tribunal evidently failed to attend the very end for which it was instituted, dispatch. I may add that had it not been for the interference of the Protector of Immigrants, who provided for the complainants at the Depot, it is morally certain that the Indians, compelled to return day by day to their master's estate, would have been induced or coerced to with- draw their complaint long before it was allowed by the defendant to ripen for judgment.
II.-Summary of Evidence.
Before going into the evidence with reference to each of the counts, it is necessary to make a few general remarks upon the nature of the evidence of the complainants.
There are two or three peculiarities which rendered the investigation of the com- plaint extremely difficult, and which threw great obstacles in the way of those who conducted the case. In every complaint it is of the utmost importance to fix with precision the time at which alleged grievances occurred. In this case one of the most serious grounds of complaint was that of over-work, and it was indispensably necessary to fix the duration of the working hours on the estate. In the same way with reference to all the other counts, it was necessary to establish specific violations of the contract of the kind alleged. In this very point the complainants' case was attended with an almost insu- perable difficulty. It may be laid down as an universal rule that the notions of immigrant labourers as to our measures of time, such as weeks or months, are extremely vague, and that they have no idea whatever of hours. This is bad enough, but what is worse is that they cannot be made to understand their ignorance, or to speak guardedly about such matters. Hearing numbers used to indicate time, they are led to imitate this practice, and to employ numbers in the same way, without, however, having any but the vaguest idea of the meaning conveyed by the words they use. In this way the complainants, in stating the first count of the complaint, must have fixed on the number "Two" (a very small number) to denote the very early hour at which they are aroused, and the large number "Eight" to denote, in the same way, the late hour at which they return from work. This ignorance of the relation between our mode of indicating time and actual time, threw a great impediment in the way of the com-
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