PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TEC.O. 882
חוןווווווווד
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
*
24
24
To give one of many instances to show the faultiness of that which I found in use, it may be mentioned that your Lordship has lately called into question a pension locally awarded on medical certificate to a public servant now in Australia, but, on referring to papers, the medical certificate, on the terms of which so much depends, is not forth- coming, it having been lost from among numerous documents loosely put together in a jacket (an ordinary sheet of paper) according to the rules I found in force on my
the
arrival.
10. Since the 15th April, the date on which his Excellency addressed me regarding matters referred to in my letter to your Lordship dated 8th instant, in reference to Mr. Cockburn Stewart, the Governor, I very much regret to state, has adopted towards me a course of conduct against which I am left no choice but to appeal to your Lordship.
11. Upon the 21st April I addressed a Minute to the Governor, of which a copy will be found in Enclosure A. The papers explain themselves. regards the conduct of the administration in the Governor's name, I ain prepared to I can only add that as carry out both the spirit and letter of his Excellency's wishes and instructions, if I am acquainted with them, but the Governor, as your Lordship will observe, contents himself in referring me to a local code of rules contradictory in their terms, applicable to a different office organisation and to a system of government different to that now existing, as shown by the figures I have given. All rules are totally dependent for their working upon the goodwill of those interpreting and applying them. If your Lordship will refer to the contradictory terims of the first three lines of Rule 62 and the last three of Rule 64, it will be seen at once to what I alludo.
12. Enclosure B. refers entirely to petty details of my office work, and as to which the Governor has given me peremptory instructions and against which I confidently appeal to your Lordship.
13. Enclosure C. relates to the Governor's conduct towards Mr. Escott, my subordinate, wherein it is shown that his Excellency, instead of by kindness and consideration assisting a young officer new to his work and striving to serve him, having already spoken to Mr. Escott in a very unbecoming manner regarding me, charges him with "having and pursuing a policy" of his own, and calling upon him to record his reasons for acting according to what the Governor well knew were my directions.
14. Enclosure D. has reference to matters connected with the omission to enclose copies of further charges against Mr. Cockburn Stewart in a Despatch sent last month to your Lordship by the Governor. The error arose entirely from the fact that on the 12th April (see the Governor's Minute of 21st April 1886) the papers, copies of which ought to have been enclosed, were with me. I had received no intimation whatever from the Governor regarding the enclosures required, and when the clerk received the Despatch, late in the evening of the departure of the mail, from the Governor, it contained no enclosures, and the Despatch went without them, the clerk intending, he informs me, to subsequently forward them. On the 13th the papers were returned into my office with certain instructions upon them. accordance with a telegram received by one of my clerks.
On the 15th the papers were again sent to Réduit in leaving for Bombay, the Despatch clerk asked for the papers to copy them, but found they As on the 15th a steamer was had been sent by special carriage to Réduit earlier in the day, and the steamer left without them. Had the various orders come through the head of the office, no mistake could have arisen. I was unaware of the Governor's instructions until the 20th, when learning that they had not been complied with, I at once informed him.
•
15. I ask your Lordship's particular attention to his Excellency's Minute of 7th May 1886, which has for its effect the complete subversion of my office organisation, and a state of confusion in every department most serious to contemplate. now in force, the work connected with the various public departments is divided between Under the system the two assistant secretaries (see Enclosure E.), who consult with me from time to time as necessary. The Colonial Secretary since September 1884 has solely exercised control over the department of my office concerned with your Lordship's correspondence and known as the Despatch branch. (Rule 77) the Assistant Colonial Secretary was formerly charged specially with this duty. According to the code of rules quoted by the Governor 16. Enclosure F. is a memorandum dated September 1884, and submitted by the then Acting Colonial Secretary, Mr. Beyts, to the present Governor, wherein Mr. Beyta points out the anomalous position of the Colonial and Assistant Secretaries as regards the Despatch branch and cancelled, with Sir J. Pope Hennessy's approval, the very rules his Excellency now directs me to follow.
17. I respectfully submit to your Lordship that no local rule to which I am no party, even if it had not been cancelled, could without your Lordship's sanction deprive me of
25
the complete control of my own office, staff and internal administration, conferred upon me by Her Majesty's Commission.
18. The Acting Assistant Secretary, Mr. Ackroyd, informs me that in consequence of the Governor's orders he cannot perform the duties I have allotted to him(see Enclosure E.), and consequently my office organisation falls to pieces.
19. Every statement made by his Excellency in his Minute of the 7th May (Enclosure D.) is erroneous and to me unaccountable. Mr. Ackroyd informs me, and three days ago informed the Governor, that he has never filled the position now for the first time assigned to him by the Governor. Except during my few weeks absence from office owing to illness, when Mr. Ackroyd kindly worked on my account, I have invariably conducted all the duties of my office, including those of the Despatch branch, with the full knowledge and in daily communication with the Governor. His Excellency cannot be ignorant of those facts, as every Despatch to your Lordship, not written at Réduit, is submitted to him under my signature.
20. The unwarranted censure conveyed to me in Enclosure G., to which I beg your Lordship's special attention, and the tone of his Excellency's Minutes personally addressed to me therein, regarding proceedings connected with a Despatch received from your Lordship, makes the Governor's statement the more unaccountable, and places before your Lordship proofs in his Excellency's handwriting of the spirit and tone displayed in his dealings with English officers of high position in this Colony.
I hope your Lordship will see no other course lies open to me but to appeal to your Lordship against the proceedings which, with much regret, I feel myself forced to lay before you.
The Right Hon. the Earl Granville, K.G,
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR,
nature.
Enclosure A.
I have, &c. (Signed) CLIFFORD LLord.
ACTING upon the verbal understanding arrived at with your Excellency when I first arrived, I am disposing in your Excellency's name of all matters of an unimportant All matters of an important nature, or involving the expenditure of money (except when of a trifling amount), and promotions, appointments, and dismissals, as well as matters to be dealt with by you under law or regulation, are submitted for orders.
your
I should like you to kindly record your instructions as to whether the work is so to proceed, or whether you desire any other procedure to be adopted.
CLIFFORD LLOYD. 21/4/86.
(Signed)
Your system does not seem to work in a satisfactory manner, possibly owing to your taking a different view from heads of departments or from me as to the meaning to be attached to the phrase "matters of an unimportant nature," and possibly to your having been unavoidably prevented from going to your office regularly where former cases and precedents might have been at once consulted by you.
You had better therefore follow your predecessor's example and adhere to the Rule 62 for the conduct of public business. That rule runs as follows-
"The Colonial Secretary shall be responsible that all papers reaching his office, and intended for the perusal of the Governor, are laid before his Excellency without delay, and that his Excellency's orders thereon are carried out with accuracy and despatch. When necessary to save time in matters of ordinary routine, and in cases in which he is well assured that he is carrying out the wishes of his Excellency, the Colonial Secretary may take action without the Governor's detailed orders. But such action must ran in the Governor's name in the usual form, and the Colonial Secretary shall be held respon- sible that it is such as the Governor shall approve."
(Signed) J. POPE HENNESSY,
Received 27/4/86, 4 p.m.
R 34314.
(Intd.) C. LI.
23rd April 1886.