PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference -
NEPLIC.O. 882
דתין
2
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
My Lord,
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No. 37.
Mr. Fraser to Colonial Office.
9, Idol Lane, London, June 24, 1872. I TAKE the liberty of inclosing for your Lordship's information, copies of a letter addressed by me to his Excellency Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon, &c., Governor of Mauritius, &c.; and my reasons of dissent from the Report of the local Commission appointed by his Excellency on the 29th November last.
I am reluctantly induced to trouble your Lordship in this matter, principally because the covering letter of the Chairman is, I think, calculated to convey the impression that absence from the Colony alone prevented my adopting and signing the Report, while no notice whatever is taken of a separate Report which I had drawn out, and sent in, the terms of which sufficiently showed that I could not have approved of, nor signed the Report of the majority.
As that Report has been presented to the Royal Commissioners and the Legislative Council in Mauritius, I trust that your Lordship will permit my explana- tions and reasons of dissent also to be laid before them.
I have, &c.
Sir,
(Signed)
J. FRASER,
One of the Local Commissioners appointed by the Governor of Mauritius.
Inclosure 1 in No. 37.
London, June 22, 1872.
I HAVE the honour to represent to your Excellency that, having been absent from England for some time, I received only on the 10th instant the Report adopted by the majority of the Commissioners appointed by your Excellency in the month of November last; for the purpose of inquiring into the working of the Police Department in certain matters, and also for the purpose of investigating the statements contained in a Petition of old immigrants presented to your Excellency in the month of June last year.
I also received at the same time several documents in connection with the Report, and I take the earliest opportunity afforded me to protest against the manner in which my separate Report has been considered, and to respectfully express my regret that your Excellency was not pleased to allow a copy of the Report which had been printed and signed, to be forwarded to me by the April mail-packet.
As the Chairman of the Commission, General Selby Smith, has unfortunately left Mauritius, I have no other course left me, but to appeal to your Excellency on the subject of his covering letter of the Report, dated 9th April, and the correspondence which passed between him, in consequence, and my representatives Messrs. Stein and Currie.
It is implied distinctly in that covering letter, that absence from the Colony, alone prevented my signing the Report, whereas the tenor of my own Report showed sufficiently, even had my opinions been concealed from my colleagues, that I could not have signed it.
In his letter of 17th April to Messrs. Stein and Currie, the Chairman writes as follows:-"At the conclusion of the examination of witnesses it was agreed upon unanimously that each Member of the Commission should furnish me, confidentially, with his views upon the evidence in the form of a Draft Report from which the Draft of the general one should be framed for discussion by the Commissioners."
I beg respectfully to demur to the correctness of this statement, in so far as I am concerned. I was never summoned, or invited formally or otherwise, to attend any meeting at which any such agreement was come to, neither, as far as my knowledge goes, was any meeting ever called for the purpose of talking over and discussing the opinions we had each of us formed, and the conclusions we had come to, with the view of endeavouring to combine and harmonise them in such fashion that the basis of a general Report might be agreed upon.
I was told, privately, that a separate Report (not a Draft one) was expected from each Member of the Commission, but the first official information which reached me was a circular request, received a few days before the time fixed for my leaving the Colony, from the Chairman, that my Report might be sent in by, if I recollect rightly, the 12th March.
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My separate Report was in no way considered by me as a "confidential statement' to the Chairman, but for the information of your Excellency, and I should have so addressed it if there had been any doubt on the subject in my mind. I understood that if a Report should be drawn up by the Chairman, General Selby Smith, embodying or in harmony with, the conclusions I came to, a separate Report from me would be unnecessary, but the Report signed by the majority was evidently not drawn up by the Chairman, but by his honour Mr. Justice Gorrie, as is clearly proved by the fact that every one of his fellow Commissioners dissented from it in part or wholly,
Having carefully read over the Report which, with the exception paragraphs 245 and 248, was adopted and signed by four Commissioners out of six, the exceptions being the Honourable Mr. Antelme and myself, I feel it my duty to protest against, and dissent from it and I have the honour to transmit my reasons of such dissent herewith.
As the Report has been home now for some time, I have thought it only proper to forward copies of my reasons of dissent, and of this letter, to his Lordship the Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.
I have, &c. (Signed) J. FRASER.
His Excellency the Hon. Sir A. H. Gordon, K.C.M.G., Governor of Mauritius, &c., &c., &c.
Inclosure 2 in No. 37.
Reasons of Dissent by the Undersigned from the Report of the Commission of Inquiry appointed by his Excellency Sir A. H. Gordon, K.C.M.G., Governor of Mauritius and its Dependencies, dated November 29, 1871, adopted and signed by four out of six of the Commissioners.
1st. `BECAUSE three documents alluded to in the report are not forthcoming, and the proceedings as published are thereby incomplete. These are:-
(1.) The letter of "one of the Judges of the Supreme Court" Mr. Justice Gorrie, incriminating the police.
(2.) Proceedings of the investigation into the action of the police, &c., both of which documents are referred to in the Governor's Letter of Instructions, dated 29th November, 1871, and again in the Minutes of the Commission, page 4, as laid table.
upon the (3.) The special inquiry ordered by the Governor, and referred to in page 8 of the Report, as to be found in the Appendix.
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The production of this document is important, as the only means of establishing
or disproving the assertion contained in the Report, that "a woman was kept for nine days in the house of a police sergeant, exposed to threats and promises to induce her to accuse her paramour of murder."
2nd. Because two articles have been allowed to remain in the Report, although the terms in which they are couched were disapproved of by all the Commissioners, with the sole exception of Mr. Justice Gorrie.
3rd. Because the Report appears to me to contain much inaccuracy. Insinuations are made, and conclusions arrived at, which I consider at variance with the evidence produced, while matters of importance are omitted.
As instances in support of what I have advanced, I may cite the following Articles, Nos. 18, 47, 51, 57, in commenting on 3rd, 7th, 8th, bis 9th, 12th, and 15th, paragraphs of the old Immigrants' Petition, also Nos. 74, 76, 108, 114, 118, 153, 157, 165, 167, 184, 243, 251.
I further dissent for other reasons from the following Articles:-Nos. 57, 58, 65, 110, 111, 135, 154, 160, 171, 188, 199, 200, 202, 201, 203, 208, 210, 211, 234, 286, 240, 248, 252, 255, 271.
To point out in detail how all the various articles cited above are partially or inaccurately drawn, and to give my reasons of dissent from all the others, is I think needless, the more especially as the appointment of the Royal Commission has rendered the report itself of comparatively small importance. I shall, therefore, select a few of them only, viz.:
Article 57 comments on 8th. It is here mentioned that "it is provod that men have been arrested in such circumstances," but under cover of "referring to the subject more particularly when treating of the special cases," the most serious part of the complaint, that in addition to arrest, they were committed to hard labour, is eluded, a complaint which there is not the shadow of proof to justify.
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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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