PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
LTLC.O.882
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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arrangement had gone to make a raid upon the people of a settlement where the boundaries were undefined, had got drunk and were fighting together, as a preliminary to making the arrests which they effected. Whether they were Englishmen or not, drunken and brawling constables are not likely to have acted with much consideration. The exclamation of the Inspector, and the child-like confidence of Mr. Fraser in its sincerity, are all the more remarkable since there will be found at p. 23 of the Report an Order signed by the Inspector-General of Police (O'Brien), directing that the police should endeavour to insist on the production of the "actes de naissance" of boys born in the Colony-s production which no law authorizes the police to require; moreover, in which the police were told to prevent a man fathering his own child unless it could be shown to the satisfaction of the police that the boy was brought up in habits of industry, and intimating to the police the advantages of the Government Reformatory for such children, although by law they could not be condemned to the Reformatory except as an addition to, or in lieu of, a sentence of imprisonment for an offence against the laws. In the face of facts like these there might have been expected from Mr. Fraser something else than the quibbles in regard to the evidence such as are brought forward by the honourable gentleman in this Article. He even endeavours to apologize for the raid by stating that only ten or eleven persons were arrested, forgetting that the evidence of Inspector O'Connor only applied to the number of prisoners brought to Pamplemousses, and not to those taken to Moka on the same occasion.
Arts. 74, 76.—The word “if” is said to be used in these Articles in a way which, to Mr. Fraser, seems uncalled for and unwarranted. It is very odd, however, that in paragraph 74, quoted by one who dissents on the general ground of inaccuracy, the word "if" does not occur at all! In that paragraph the word ** unless" occurs, and if it be that which has given offence to Mr. Fraser, it must nevertheless remain, as it is essential to the sense. In paragraph 76 the word "if" does occur in a clause inserted for the sake of accuracy. Budha," it is said, "with the others arrested with him, if there on the same footing with himself, were subjected to unnecessary vexation and annoyance by the police." The reason for such a saving Clause was that the Commis- sioners, for very sufficient reasons, had not examined into the individual cases of all the men who were then arrested, but simply into those mentioned in the "special cases annexed to the Petition. In order, however, not to assume anything against the police, it is stated that the remark which was applied to the case of Budha would only apply to the others if they stood on the same footing.
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Mr. Fraser adds that the fact is not stated in these Articles as it ought to have been, that "by Section 55 of Ordinance 81 of 1807, no officer or constable of the police can lawfully enter houses inhabited by immigrants without a warrant from the Stipendary or District Magistrate. Certainly no casual reader of the Report would know this to be the case if he merely read Article 259, and the rubric of Article 44 of the Report."
Had the Commissioners said what Mr. Fraser desires, they would only have been misleading his Excellency and the Secretary of State. The honourable gentleman ought to have taken more care to be accurate and complete in his reference to the law and to the Report. There are two sections of the Ordinance 31 of 1867 dealing with this subject (Sections 48 and 55), and these are referred in two Articles of the Report (42 and 41). Mr. Fraser, in his haste to impeach his colleagues of inaceuracy, has looked only at Section 55 and Article 44. By Section 48 of the Ordinance, any immigrant found in a district where he has no residence, or in any house or premises, and his being unable to give a satisfactory reason for his being there, may be arrested without warrant, and brought before the Stipendary Magistrate. Under Section 55 it in lawful for any officer or constable of police, or any other person authorised by the Governor to enter, at any time of the day or at any time of the night, under warrant of a Stipendary Magistrate, any premises where an immigrant is employed or resides, to ascertain whether the immigrant is under contract of service, or has his ticket and police pass. The view which the Conimissioners took of the raid upon the inhabitants of the boundary line between Pamplemousses and Moka was, that as there were two bodies of police present, the one to arrest those inhabitants whose passes were for Moka, on the ground that they ought to have been for Pamplemousses, and the other to arrest those who had passes for Pamplemousses, on the ground that they ought to have been for Moka, the Section of the Ordinance which was supposed to cover the transaction was Section 48, under which houses or premises may be entered without warrant. But when dealing with special cases in Articles 73 to 77 inclusive of the Report, the Commissioners pointed out that, under this Section, men could only be
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arrested without warrant when unable to give a satisfactory reason for being in such district, house, or premises. As these men could give a satisfactory reason for being there, the bad faith of the police in arresting them was apparent.
It is necessary, when dealing with these Articles, to point out another of those typographical errors which occur in some of the copies of the Report. It can easily be detected by the unprejudiced reader, but it is as weli to point it out, leat Mr. Fraser should hereafter base upon it a new reason of dissent. In Article 76, the last Clause of the sentence should read," as they could give a satisfactory reason for being where they were found." The word "not," although frequently struck out of the proofs, and out of the principal copy, has crept into the printed copies after all.
Arts. 135, 252. The recommendation to pay the fees by stamps at the Treasury does not meet with the approbation of Mr. Fraser. It was inserted because of the distrust felt in the working of the Immigration Department in this particular. Mr. Fraser had indicated very decided opinions as to the style of book-keeping, found to be in use, and this remedy occurred to the Commissioners among others. Had the honourable dissentient remained at his post, and suggested something better, his colleagues would most willingly have adopted it.
Art. 160. Mr. Fraser in making a quotation upon which to frame his objection in this case, has made an imperfect quotation, or rather to use his own phrase, an inaccurate and incomplete quotation. The Article from which he dissents states "that where such extensive powers were confided to a force necessarily composed of many nationalities, there must be numberless cases of oppression which the framera of the law never contemplated, but which are the necessary consequences of their policy."-In quoting this sentence he omits the first member of it, viz., "where such extensive powers were confided to a force necessarily composed of many nationalities,' which is the key to the opinion which follows.-But of course it is quite open to Mr. Fraser to hold a different opinion. He or any other person is free to believe that a river does not flow from its source. from the proper quarters. "It is clear to me," he says,
He adds that it is an attempt to shift the blame referred to were principally the consequences of the inaction of the Executive Council "that all such cases as those and Executive Officers, especially the Procureur-General's Department." If it was clear to Mr. Fraser where the blame lay, he has not managed to make it very clear to others—what does he mean by the Executive Council P forces to be saddled with the responsibility ? Again, as the Procureur-General was Is the Commander of the then as now a Member of the Executive Council, who does he mean to include by adding "especially the Procureur-General's Department.”
When one dissents from a Report in the manner Mr. Fraser has done, he ought to have the courage of his opinions, and to say openly and fairly what here he only insinuates. Who, again, are the Executive Officers P Inspector-General of Police, and the Protector of Immigrants, because if so, his Does he mean the opinions after all may not be very different from those which his colleagues have embodied in their Report. It is evident from the tenor of his objection, that Mr. Fraser cannot deny that instances of oppression have occurred, and this being so, he is doubtless prepared to support remedial measures, although in his theoretical desire for completeness he has omitted to say what they are.
Art. 184. There is here again an inaccurate and incomplete statement of the opinions of the Commissioners upon which an objection is founded. The objection is, "because it is here ignored that the death-rate in 1887 of 4:08 spoken of by the Protector as extremely low refers to a time of epidemic fever. The Report takes care to mention that "even as it stood, the proportion of 4:08 per cont. was not an extremely low average, if by this was meant an average of death-rates in general,” showing precisely that the fact of the epidemic had not been ignored, but showing also that the then Governor, whose despatch was referred to, following information given him by Mr. Beyts, had not rendered his meaning clear in this particular.-The next objection is thus stated: "Because the statement is not correct, according to my knowledge, that the districts of the Island where the largest sugar estates are situated were almost, if not entirely free from fever." It is quite clear, however, that the fever if it existed in the districts where the majority of the immigrants were employed had not been so pernicious as in town, because the statistics of Mr. Beyts, in which Mr. Fraser apparently believes, showed that 136 had died of the Indians' who were their own masters, who had chiefly collected in town, to 4.08 per cent. of those who were employed on the sugar estates. The very essence of the contrast drawn by Mr. Beyts presupposes that the fever, if it existed at all on the sugar estates, was not
This objection is, therefore, simply hypercritical.
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