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Art. 193. Again the honourable gentleman deals very inaccurately with the words of the Commissioners.
They state: "As the agricultural interest of the island. has been very prosperous since 1868," to which Mr. Fraser replies "that the reverse has been the fact, unless the hurricane of 1868, which reduced the crop of 1868-69 by quite one-third and the succeeding droughts which also reduced the crops heavily, can be termed prosperous." There are of course agriculturists, like Mr. Fraser, who can never admit that their calling is prosperous, but there was no necessity for firstly attempting to include the hurricane of 1868 in the period "since 1868" which the Commissioners had specially condescended on for the purpose of excluding the hurricane year, and, secondly, abstaining from any reference to the fact that although the crop of 1870-71 was not as large as compared with others, the prices made up for the deficiency.
An additional objection to this Article is "because there is no evidence to justify the assertion that immigrants are settling down now into habits of order and industry, any more than formerly."-The Commissioners had been dealing with the decline of immigration since 1867, the decrease of the population by the epidemic, and the prosperous condition of agriculture since 1888, and they then added, "and time has been gained for the settling down of the immigrants into habits of order and industry.” -If Mr. Fraser believes that even with the advantage of the time thus gained, the immigrants have not settled down into habits of order and industry-of what use is the pass system and all its inconveniences?
The honourable gentleman afterwards contrasts the concluding sentence of the Article" In ordinary cases, apart from any special law, we should have expected crime to show a diminution in such circumstances" (that is after a partial stoppage of immigration, and the decrease in the population by an epidemic) and the sentence contained in Article 197-dealing with the Statistics of crimes and contraventions- "It is notorious in the Colony that crime has not decreased." In the former article the particular crime in the view of the Commissioners was that of gang robbery (s08 beginning of Article 192), and in the latter the general offences against persons and property. Mr. Fraser, by a skilful separation of the two sentences from their context, thus manufactures what at first sight, but at first sight only, seems a contradiction.
Art. 202. Here again the honourable gentleman gives way to a delusion, which he shares with some of his brother agriculturists, that they can go on introducing very cheap labour into the Island, without interfering with or displacing labourers already in the Island, who wish higher wages. It is impossible to enter upon a discussion of such a question here, and quite unnecessary; as, when gentlemen believe that the laws of political economy come no further than the Bell Buoy, arguments are useless.
Art. 210.—Mr. Fraser objects to this Article, because "it assumes that vagranta are kept in the Colony against their will," and he adds, "upon what evidence?" The evidence was the reports of Mr. Martenson, of the Vagrant Depot, which showed the numbers of men condemned,-two, three, four, five, and even six times; and the remark of Mr. Beyta, that sending them back to India was a "remedy" for this. A confirmed vagrant means a man who is determined not to work in the Colony of Mauritius, for reasons which he may not be always disposed to communicate, but which, when given, will generally be found to be a sense of wrong, whether justly or unjustly entertained. Had Mr. Fraser been present at the discussion of the Commie- sioners in the adjustment of the Report, and asked for additional evidence, the following extract from a report by Dr. Wheldon, of the Immigration Depot, of 25th April, 1870, attached to the report of the Protector of Immigrants for that year, before these subjects had become matter of heated controversy, would, no doubt, have been also placed before his eyes:-"I have noticed amongst the Indians that, when one makes up his mind to return home as an invalid, he works very determinedly for that purpose, and it frequently costs him his life before the object is obtained; he will starve, vagabondize, till he is taken up and punished as a vagrant, and then tamper with his eyes by irritating them with lime, or some other irritants, till he frequently loses them, or irritating any little scratch on his body till it becomes a large sloughing ulcer, frequently ending in death, or requiring amputation. If he lives to return to the Depot, he is generally in a pitiable state, and much needs invaliding."
Art. 248.-Mr. Fraser here makes, by the transposition of the words, a strange mistake as to the meaning of the Commissioners, and has put himself, very unnecessarily, to a considerable amount of trouble and indignation. The Commis sioners, in Articles 241 and 242 of the Summary of Conclusions, had spoken of the special cases annexed to the petition of the old immigrants, and then, in Article 243,
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they proceed to say:-" We found that the general complaints of the Indians examined before us, other than those whose cases were annexed to the petition, was of the day labourers' license, of the operation of the pass, and as to return passages to India; and those complaints we found were well-founded." The sentence, as quoted by Mr. Fraser, is thus transformed:-"The general complaint made by the Indians, examined before us, as to return passages to India, and this (amongst others) we found well-founded." He has assumed the meaning of the Article to be that the general complaint of the Indians, who appeared before the Commission, was as to return passages, and has quoted the sentence so as to support his views; whereas what the Commissioners did say was, that the matter of return passages was one of the com- plaints, amongst others, of the general witnesses who were heard, in addition to those whose special cases were inquired into; but not that it was the general complaint, either of these witnesses or of all the witnesses examined. The mode of proceeding, as Mr. Fraser will remember, was, that in place of attempting to get at the evidence of the 9,000 petitioners, or even 1,000, the Commissioners agreed to take 80 or 100 witnesses at random, and to assume their evidence to indicate the general nature of the complaints. It is, therefore, quite absurd to take the individual witnesses heard before the Commissioners as being the sole immigrants in this Colony who had complaints of that nature to make. They were taken to be representatives of a class of complaints, and were dealt with accordingly.
Art. 271.-Mr. Fraser dissents from this Article, which recommends that return passages be given after a residence of five years in addition to the industrial residence, on the ground that the question of return passages did not come within the scope of the Commission. He will find, however, that what the Commissioners considered was the question of vagrancy, and they recommended return passages as one of the remedies as likely to be efficacious. This clearly came within the scope of the Com- mission, and Mr. Fraser would, no doubt, have come to the same determination had he attended the meetings of the Commissioners when the Report was being prepared, and been in possession of the reasons of his colleagues for including the recommendation among the remedial measures.
With this exception, Mr. Fraser does not object to any of the recommendations made for changes in the Law, and, as he has entered very minutely indeed into his reasons of dissent, it is satisfactory to find that those reasons relate to the form more than to the substance, to the trivial rather than to the important, and that, wherever he has condescended upon particular objections, he has been shown to be inaccurate, and the Report exact. In particular, it is satisfactory to find that none of the recom- mendations of the Commissioners, as to the amendment of the pass system, have been objected to by their absent colleague, who has endeavoured to oriticise so severely the work which he himself left undone.
JOHN GORRIE.
September 6, 1872.
(Signed)
Observations on the Reasons of Dissent of the Hon. J. Fraser to the Report of the Police Enquiry Commission.
The Honourable Mr. Fraser dissents from the Report of the Police Inquiry Com- mission, on account of certain documents not being appended thereto, viz., the letter of Mr. Justice Gorrie; 2nd, the investigation by the police into the proceedings reported against by Mr. Gorrie; Srdly, the special inquiry into the case of the woman detained at the police station at Rivière du Rempart.
When the Report was signed by the Commissioners the Appendix was not ready, and General Smyth's departure taking place shortly after, he may not have had time to look after it. Certainly a stranger to the proceedings of the Cummission, and who had no cognizance of the documents above referred to, might demur to signing & Report concerning matters founded on papers and facts he was unacquainted with; but for a person who had them repeatedly in his hand, and who, with the exception of the report as to the detention of the woman at the police station at Rivière du Rempart, which was never, I believe, produced to the Commission, was well acquainted with the subject matter of the other documents, and had them constantly before him during the inquiry, I am unable to understand or appreciate a refusal to sign the Report based on such reasoning.
As regards the opinion come to by, the Commission on the case of the Indian woman detained at Rivière du Rempart, they did so on the statement by the Distriot