MAURITIUS.
CORRESPONDENCE
RESPECTING
SIR HERCULES ROBINSON'S INQUIRY
INTO THE
CONDITION OF AFFAIRS IN MAURITIUS.
No. 1.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TTIC.O. 882
5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
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GOVERNOR SIR J. POPE HENNESSY, K.C.M.G., to COLONEL THE RIGHT HON. F. A. STANLEY, M.P. (Received December 17, 1885.)
Government House, Mauritius, November 24, 1885.
SIB,
(Confidential.)
THERE are some difficulties in the way of carrying into effect the instructions you give me in your despatch of the 19th September, respecting the provisional appointments I am to make of nominated members under the new Letters Patent.
The
2. In the first place you instruct me to appoint only six nominated members. Procureur General, Mr. Pellereau, on the other hand, advises me that under the Letters Patent, I must appoint nine, and that if I appointed a smaller number, the Council would not be lawfully constituted.
3. As it is a matter of some importance, I have confidentially consulted other eminent legal authorities, and they all concur with the Procureur General. My own opinion is also to the same effect.
4. Furthermore, though your public despatch and the Letters Patent give to me the power and responsibility of making those appointments, your confidential instructions take away that responsibility from me, and you furnish me with the names of those public officers whom you direct me to appoint.
5. Writing in this unreserved form, must express my regret that you should have thus shown some lack of confidence in the Governor of the Colony. If there be any division of responsibility and work as between the Secretary of State and the Governor, it would seem to be on a point of this kind, in which the local experience of the latter may come to the aid of the controlling authority of the former, and in which the know- ledge of the local men and local feelings may prevent a mistake.
6. In this particular instance, it would certainly be a mistake to appoint the three public officers, and only those, that you have named. Personally there are objections to two of them. They are hostile to the community, and are very unpopular. In other respects they are of inferior calibre. The third, however, is undoubtedly an able man, courteous to the Mauritius, and much liked by all classes.
7. For other reasons, your choice would be in direct opposition to local feelings. Some days after my arrival in Mauritius, the late Roman Catholic Vicar-General mentioned to me that a memorial to the Queen had been contemplated, complaining that pending my appointment and assumption of Government, two Roman Catholic members of the Council had died and been replaced by two Protestants, leaving the Council largely composed of Protestants. Writing in an unreserved form to Lord Derby on the 21st June 1883, I mentioned this, and was able to add that nothing official would be said about it. This week, a leading Catholic gentleman pointed out to me, what had been often spoken of, the unfair constitution, from a religious point of view, of the Council of Government, that is, that in what is practically a Roman Catholic Colony, the Council should consist of ten Protestants and six Roman Catholics. 8. Your proposal of selecting the whole of the new batch of nominated public officers from the Protestant officials, would intensify the feeling of injustice that extensively prevails on this subject.
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• No. 7 in [C.---4754] May 1886. A