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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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C.O. 882
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
that
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Treasury work of the island. The honourable gentleman has other means of ascer- taining the exact state of the facts to which he refers; whether he is mistaken in thinking authorised any communication to be made to anybody, that he can easily ascertain in another way. I am the person then to be addressed. But there is another person concerned. only recently heard that this question points to Mr. Ferguson, and I should like to know whether Mr. Ferguson has given his sanction or authority for asking this question ?
Mr. DE CORIOLIS :-I think the attempt was made-
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR :-All the honourable member has to do now is to answer my inquiry.
Mr. DE CORIOLIS:--I only ask the question for information.
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR :
Then my inquiry is not answered. I assume, then, that the question has been asked without the sanction of Mr. Ferguson.
Mr. DE CORIOLIS: -Your Excellency has no right to make the assumption.
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR :-I assume it because my inquiry has not been answered. I am fully justified in assuming it, and for this very simple reason: I do not know what may be the relations of the honourable member towards Mr. Ferguson. Suppose that the honourable member was an enemy of some person, and he chose to put a question to an ex-officio member not connected with his official work, but which possibly reflected very gravely on another gentleman, not a member of the Council, such a thing would never be permitted in any other assembly. There are many questions which the honourable member may address to the executive, there are many questions which he may address to me personally, and which I might answer, but which ought not to be put at this Council table. By the very last mail we have got an instance of this kind. In the House of Commons Mr. Childers, the Home Secretary, was asked a question by a member of the House about Mr. Broadhurst, who is the Under Secretary for the Home Department, and his answer was in effect, "The question put to me refers to an anonymous paragraph in a newspaper making some charge against Mr. Broadhurst. "Such a question is never permitted in the House of Commons." I find that Mr. Childers declined to answer it, and the House applauded. Though I am the sole judge of order in this Council, if the decision I give on this or any other point of order does not meet with your approval you have the constitutional mode of setting me right. I believe that my decision will meet with your approbation; it is in accordance with the precedents of the House of Commons. I think the question cannot be put to the Receiver General. That is my decision on the point of order.
Mr. C. ANTELME:-May I be allowed to make one remark ?——
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR :-I hope that the honourable member will excuse me, but so far as the question of order is concerned there is an end of it for the present.
Mr. C. ANTELME:-I merely call your Excellency's attention to the fact that it seems to me that if you ask a division of the Council they should be called on to discuss the question.
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR :-The point as to any discussion is very simple. When the Speaker of the House of Commons gives a decision, that decision cannot be discussed and appealed from at the sitting at which it is given. Any member may do as Dr. Kenealy did on one occasion; he made a motion that the decision given by the Speaker in declining to allow him to put a question was not in accordance with the Rules of the House. That motion can be made as a substantive motion, of which notice is given.
Mr. DE CORIOLIS :-I rise to a point of order. I beg to ask whether the decision just given is not a gag on the mouths of the honourable members ?
HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR :- The honourable member is out of order in endeavour- ing now to debate a point of order on which the President has decided.
Mr. FRASER-As your Excellency has decided the point I do not think it can go to the vote.
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No. 12.
GOVERNOR SIR J. POPE HENNESSY, K.C.M.G., to the RIGHT HON. THE EARL GRANVILLE, K.G. (Received June 2, 1886.)
(No. 169.) MY LORD,
Government House, Mauritius, May 10, 1886.
I HAVE the honour to transmit to your Lordship a copy of an address presented to me by a deputation, together with a statement made at the time by Sir V. Naz, K.C.M.G., and a report of my reply.*
The Right Hon. The Earl Granville, K.G.
&c.
&e.
&c.
I have, &c. (Signed)
J. PUPE HENNESSY.
Enclosure in No. 12.
To His Excellency Sir JOHN POPE HENNESSY, K.C.M.G., Governor and Commander-in- Chief in and over the Island of Mauritius and its Dependencies.
THE undersigned, faithful subjects of Her Majesty Queen Empress Victoria, residing in this Colony, and belonging to all classes of the Mauritian population:
Think it their duty, in presence of the unjust and systematical opposition which has been directed against you for some time past, to express to your Excellency their feelings of affection, of gratitude, and of confidence.
They particularly wish to make known to your Excellency that they appreciate your liberalism, your justice and your kindness towards all classes of the inhabitants of this Colony, as well at the lively solicitude which you have not ceased to show in your acts, for the general interests of the community.
They beg of your Excellency to be pleased to accept the assurance of their feelings of esteem, of gratitude, and of entire confidence.
They avail themselves of this opportunity to express their sincere wishes for your happiness and for the happiness of Lady Hennessy and of
Port Louis, Mauritius, the twenty-eighth day of April, in the year one thousand eight
your children. hundred and eighty-six.
No. 13.
(Signed) V. NAZ,
President of the Deputation.
GOVERNOR SIR J. POPE HENNESSY, K.C.M.G., to the RIGHT HON. THE EARL GRANVILLE, K.G. (Received June 2, 1886.)
Government House, Mauritius, May 10, 1886.
(No. 170.) MY LORD,
I HAVE the honour to transmit a letter Mr. Clifford Lloyd has addressed to your Lordship respecting the proceedings on the 19th of April when the draft reply he prepared to my speech was amended.
2. Mr. Lloyd's letter gives his own version of what he thinks Sir Virgile Naz said, what I said, and what the Executive Council did. But neither Sir Virgile Naz, nor I, nor the Executive Council agree with Mr. Lloyd's version of what passed.
3. I thought it proper to give the members of the Executive Council who were present
at the meeting referred to by Mr. Lloyd an opportunity of seeing his statements before they confirmed the minutes of the meeting of the 19th of April.
4. I enclose for your Lordship's information a copy of the minutes as confirmed by four votes to one, Mr. Lloyd being the minority of one.
5. Between Mr. Lloyd's statement and the carefully considered record of his colleagues there is a remarkable contrast. Mr. Lloyd says:-" The Governor before going into "the Council Chamber called a meeting in his private room of the Executive Council, at which I expressed my regret, on the ground stated, that such a paragraph was to
• Vido Enclosure 6 in No. 8.
G 2