PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
EPEC.O. 882
5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR,
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I REGRET that you should see cause to express your disapproval, which is now intimated to me for the first time, though I have been in frequent personal communi- cation with you, and have on many occasions expressed the hope that you were satisfied with the conduct of official affairs. I have worked on no system of my own, but in important cases in which I have not taken verbally or in writing your instructions, have merely recorded formal Minutes in your name as is done by the officer in my position in every administration under our Government. I must add that those heads of depart. ments whom I have consulted on the subject have expressed to me their sense of the relief experienced by them in the work of their departments during the last two months. It is true, as your Excellency reminds me, that I have been ill, but I am quite unaware of any shortcomings on my part of the nature stated by you.
CLIFFORD LLOYD.
1st May 1886.
(Signed)
I am sure you acted from the very best motives, but there is no use now in discussing whether delays and difficulties arose or not from your deviation from the revised regulations for the conduct of official business.
篇
All that need be done is to adhere to those regulations in future. Rule 62 is only one of the code of regulations, all of which must be followed.
For nearly three years they have all been worked to my satisfaction; but, of course, if, after some experience, say six months, you would like to propose amendments, they can be fully considered.
But until any such amendments are put before me, considered and approved, we must nll adhere to the regulations in full.
6th May 1886.
(Signed) J. POPE HENNESSY.
Please let me have to-day a fair copy of these Minutes. 6th May 1886.
HIS EXCELLENcy the Governor,
to.
I HAVE addressed your Excellency fully on the subject of the office rules you refer I know of no delays which cannot be properly accounted for.
I hope your Excellency will give full consideration to the report I submitted to you, dated yesterday, on the subject of the regulations to which you refer.
6/5/86.
(Signed)
Office.
Make out a fair copy of these Minutes for the Governor.
6/5/86.
HIS EXCELLENCY the Governor,
Enclosure B.
CLIFFORD LLOYD.
(Intd.)
C. LI.
Your Excellency has made several objections to the manner in which papers are placed before you, and as to the particular position of my Minutes (or those of the assistant secretaries), and you have given me several directions to follow certain office rules drawn up by a previous Colonial Secretary on the subject.
I found on assuming charge of my office that the method of putting papers together was one open to the most serious objection, and was frequently attended with very grave results.
All papers, reports, and annexures were put loosely and without any regularity into a sheet of paper called a jacket, and were unbound and untied in any form.
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It was with the greatest difficulty and waste of valuable time, that, if the file was of any size, the facts could be gathered from the confused mass, and it has occurred on more than one occasion that papers of very great importance have fallen out and entirely disappeared as might have been expected. Notwithstanding any local regulation framed by a previous Colonial Secretary, even with the approval of a previous Governor, I con- sider iny self responsible for the proper administration of my office, and above all for taking such measures as appear to me to be appropriate for lightening the immense and unnecessary labour entailed upon those working under me, for the proper security of documents, and for putting before you in the clearest form matters to be brought to your notice or referred for your decision.
In accordance with instructions from the Secretary of State, I prepared a report ou the reorganisation of the office, and made certain proposals, of which you approved. Pending instructions from the Secretary of State, you agreed to the new organisation being put into motion. would not under any circumstances look upon myself as restricted in the management of my office by any local regulations drawn up by a previous secretary, though should consider any such regulations framed by Sir 1. N. Broome with the respect his distinguished name deserves and commands.
In this particular matter, however, the approved reorganisation of my office rendered, ipso facto, many of the regulations quite inoperative and inapplicable.
As to the prevailing manner in which papers are minuted and of which you disapprove, in my endeavour to insure papers being properly guarded, their contents promptly mas- tered, and to enable me to put the facts relating to them clearly before you, I directed that every original document coming into the office should be registered and form the foundation of a file. Every report or Minute on the subject should be added and bound thereto in consecutive order, as to date, the last order or Minute always being found at the end, where my summary and your decision would also find place. Under this system all the papers relating to the subject could be read as the pages of a book, in order and without any difficulty. I may state that the method I have adopted as to putting papers together is one in force in the Chief Secretary's office in Ireland, and is, in my opinion, perfect. Setting all other considerations aside, the matter, I submit to you, is one as to which as head of my office, and responsible for its administration, I should be allowed some little liberty of action.
The rules you refer me to have never been acted on by me, and it would be impossible to act upon them now, without reverting to an organisation already abolished.
(Signed) CLIFFORD LLOYD.
5/5/86.
MR. CLIFFORD LLOYD,
I HAVE read and fully considered your objections to complying with the directions I have several times given that the revised regulations for the conduct of official business and correspondence be adhered to.
One of the Minute papers on which directions to that effect were recorded happens to be now before me, in which I said :-
"For three years I have worked those regulations with Mr. Bruce and Mr. Beyts, and "have found the regulations very good.
"Of course you may be able and are in every way entitled to suggest alterations, but "until the alterations are adopted, we must work according to the existing code." Having now read and considered, with the care and respect due to your high position, your objections to the regulations, and to the wishes I have several times conveyed to you, I am of opinion that the printed regulations must be adhered to.
I have no doubt you will forthwith loyally carry out my instructions.
As it is not desirable that the discussion on the subject should be prolonged, I simply confine myself to adding that I think you underrate the scope and practical character of the regulations for the conduct of official business and correspondence in Mauritius; that what may suit the Chief Secretary's office in Ireland may not suit the local requirements of the departments in Mauritius, and that I cannot at ali admit that the reprgantsation scheme of the Colonial Secretary's office (which is not yet approved) sets aside the regulations.
J. POPE HENNERØY.
7th May 1886.
(Signed)
D 2