PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
LTC.O 882
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. LONDON
178.
should be laid before them, equally with those referred to in my despatch No, 147 of
the 6th June.
No. 54.
I have, &c. (For the Earl of Kimberley),
(Signed) R. H. MEADE.
Governor the Hon. Sir A. H. Gordon, K.C.M.G., to the Earl of Kimberley.—(Received
(No. 288. Civil.) My Lord.
October 18.)
Mauritius, September 19, 1872.
IN my despatch No. 200 of the 23rd ultimo, I inclosed a copy of the reply which I had returned to the letter of Mr. Fraser, referred to in your Lordship's despatch No. 177 of the 3rd July.
2. The "reasons of dissent" which accompanied that letter were communicated by me to the members of the Police Commission now in the Colony, and I have the honour to inclose copies of the observations upon this document with which they have furnished me.
3. Mr. Fraser dissents from the Report of his colleagues on three grounds :- lat. That certain documents referred to in it are "not forthcoming." 2ndly. That two Articles were allowed to remain in it, the terms of which were disapproved of by a majority of the members of the Commission.
3rdly. That it " contains much inaccuracy."
4. The first of these grounds of dissent is not, it appears to me, tenable.
5. By the term "not forthcoming" Mr. Fraser simply means "not printed in the Appendix."
The documents referred to, or at all events the two first, were on the table of the Commission during its whole sitting, and must frequently have been in Mr. Fraser's hands. The question whether they should or should not be printed was one of expediency. On the whole, I think the Commission did right in not overloading the pages of their Report with matter to which their inquiry had no direct reference, although I can conceive a reader of the Report desiring to see the papers alluded to in the letter of instructions to the Commission, and considering the publication of the evidence imperfect without them. I can, moreover, conceive a member of the Com- mission objecting to join in the Report on the ground of their non-production had they not been produced, but I cannot understand his objecting to its conclusions merely on the ground of their subsequent non-publication.
The third paper referred to had not, of course, been so long before the Commis- sion. It was not printed partly, I believe, on account of its bulk, but chiefly because when the Report of the Police Commission was signed it was still the subject of correspondence with the parties implicated.
paper afforded
That
Mr. Fraser is, however, altogether in error when he states that this ⚫ the only means of establishing or disproving a statement made in the 22nd paragraph
of the Report with respect to the improper detention of an Indian woman. statement was made in accordance with the positive testimony on oath of the magistrate of the district. Questions 2263 to 2209, pages 895 and 896.
6. Mr. Fraser's second reason for dissent is also it appears to me little better founded.
7. I am led to form this opinion from a consideration of the annexed statements of the different members of the Commission, and the verbal communications I had on the subject with General Smyth before his departure from the island. From these I collect, what indeed is explicitly expressed in the covering letter of General Smyth, that there was no intention on the part of the Commissioners to express dissent from the conclusions of the paragraphs referred to, but that they desired to modify the form in which at a previous meeting they had agreed to give expression to their opinion, whilst the absence of one of the Commissioners, and the fact that the Report was already signed, precluded them from introducing any modification into the body of the Report itself. The mode to which they resorted to give effect to their wishes was I think a clumsy one, and not unfairly open to the interpretation given to it by Mr. Fraser; but such an interpretation is not on that account the less erroneDOUS,
8 Mr. Fraser's third reason is one of greater gravity, and one which, if it be well sunded, amply justifies his dissent.
9. His colleagues on the Commission must, however, I think perceive with gradi.
179
fication that whilst his objections are very numerous, and he is evidently desirous to give them all possible strength, his criticisms are for the most part confined to minor points, and that so far as can be judged from the absence of dissent on his part, ha apparently concurs in almost all their more important recommendations, and admits the soundness of the greater part of their conclusions.
10. Only three really serious charges of inaccuracy are brought by Mr. Fraser against the Report of the Commission.
11. Of these, the first is that Article 57 contains, or rather does not contradict, a statement, "which there is not the shadow of proof to justify," that Indians convicted of vagrancy are sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour.
12. If Mr. Fraser did not know, his colleagues did, that in the warrants of commitment in these cases the words "with hard labour" found. Had he remained in the Colony and taken part in the discussion of the are almost invariably to be Report, his brother Commissioners would have speedily convinced him that dissent on this ground was altogether untenable, and that in point of fact he was himself ignorand of the prevailing custom.
18. The next serious charge of inaccuracy is that contained in the observations on the 74th and 76th Articles of the Report, where Mr. Fraser says, "the fact is not here stated as it ought to be that, by Section 55 of Ordinance No. 81 of 1867, no officer on constable of the police can lawfully enter houses inhabited by immigrants without a warrant from the Stipendiary and District Magistrate."
14. The words between inverted commas which Mr. Fraser professes to quote from Article 55 of Ordinance No. 81 of 1867 are not to be found in that or any other section of that or any other Ordinance, whilst the real words of Article 55 of Ordinance No. 31 of 1867 are not only very different, but in direct opposition to those used by Mr. Fraser. Instead of enacting that "no officer or constable of the police can lawfully enter into houses inhabited by immigrants without a warrant, the clause provides that any officer or constable of police, or any other person authorized by the Governor, may at any time of the day, or at any time of the night, under warrant," enter any premises wherein any immigrant is employed or resides, and in case of such person not being satisfied with regard to the status of such immigrant, may apprekend him, and take him before the Stipendiary Magistrate of the district.
15. The sentence is clumsily worded and its meaning somewhat obscure, but I need not tell your Lordship that similar phraseology is to be found in other Ordinances, here and elsewhere, and that it is usually understood to signify that entrance without warrant is legal during the day, but that a warrant is required to authorise entrance at night. At all events, there is neither doubt nor ambiguity about the 48th Article of the same Ordinance No. 81 of 1867, which is as follows:-"Any immigrant found in a district where he has no residence or in any house or premises, and being unable to give a satisfactory reason for his being in such a district, house, or premises as the case
be, may May
be arrested by any offloer or constable of police without warrant.” under this clause that most of the arrests in question have been made.
It in
16. Mr. Fraser also considers as inaccurate the statement that the absence of a return passage was a matter of general complaint among the Indians examined by the Commission, Whether it was so or not among the Indians examined by the Com- mission is a question which Mr. Fraser and the other Members of the Commission are equally able to appreciate, and on which I pronounoo no opinion. That it is general among the Indian population, I have no doubt whatever.
17. Most of the remaining charges of inaccuracy on points of fact are trivial, depending as in the case of 157 on a misprint or on a careless reading of the Report, as in the remarks on paragraphs 74, 76, and 118. In the latter case this carelemmesa is very remarkable, extending to an assumption that an allegation was made in that Article with respect to one man (Mooblah) which is in fact made with respect to another (Dookeet), and failing to notice that the police offloer referred to is distinctly stated in the evidence (A 2,181, p. 877) to have been not a "constable" but a corporal," a fact which conclusively disposes of the "probability" assumed by Mr. Fraser that the policeman himself was an Indian, as there is but one Indian corporal in the force, and he was not then in the district în question.
18. As regards matters of opinion, Mr. Fraser's dissent stands on different ground. He is equally competent with the other Members of the Commission to form a judg ment upon the matters submitted to it, and the only reason which would incline me to attach foss weight to his opinion than to that of his colleagues is, that he did not share their discussions, and had not the advantage of knowing what arguments induced them to form the decisions at which they arrived.