PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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to remain in Mauritius, I should resist all attempts to alter the present system of→ Government schools, and I should recommend greater liberality to be shown in the support of aided schools. These latter have, in fact, not been fairly dealt with, and the time has come when they should receive better treatment."
15. Some of the men described by Sir Arthur Phayre as being animated by a strong anti-Catholic bias were among the English officials who were questioned by Sir Hercules Robinson as to my policy, and the causes of religious antagonism in Mauritius. Their answers seemed to indicate that the same spirit which Sir Arthur Gordon saw at work in Mauritius in 1874, and Sir Arthur Phayre in 1878, is still here.
16. When in November 1882, I was offered the honour of having my name submitted to the Queen for the Government of Mauritius, I, at first, respectfully declined the honour. I knew that the Colony laboured under political and religious grievances. I was not unwilling to face the task of dealing with such grievances, but I entertained some doubt whether, in the peculiar circumstances of Mauritius, I should receive from the Colonial Department that confidence and support without which reforms in a Crown Colony are extremely difficult. I was induced, however, to undertake the work; and, perhaps, the political grievances have been, to some slight extent, remedied. But I must frankly confess that as regards the religious grievances they remain much the same, and the consequent religious antagonism is the same as described by Sir Arthur Gordon and Sir Arthur Phayre.
17. Those who take an interest in seeing Her Majesty's Colonics justly administered, and administered in accordance with the wants and sympathies of the colonial community, will no doubt be surprised to learn that in the latter quarter of the nineteenth century so discreditable a tale of Colonial Government was recorded as that set forth in the passages I have quoted from the despatches of my two distinguished predecessors.
18. Secretaries of State, and other public men, who make speeches about the Colonies, refer with well-founded satisfaction to the mode in which Downing Street rules the Colonies with Responsible Government. Such Colonies are, in fact, allowed to govern themselves. But amidst this general congratulation, it is little suspected that a Colony like Mauritius-a Colony of the French race and the Roman Catholic religion-has been governed with the object of anglicising and proselytising the community, and that this has been done, as Sir Arthur Gordon points out, in deliberate violation of the articles on which the inhabitants capitulated in 1810.
19. It will probably be asked, how it comes to pass that such a shocking story, as Sir Arthur Gordon revealed to Downing Street, could be so long concealed? Was his despatch brought to the notice of Her Majesty's Government? Was it even read by the Secretary of State to whom it was addressed? Those who know the enormous and increasing pressure of business in Downing Street, and the inadequacy of the clerical staff to deal properly with one fourth of it, may answer those questions.
20. On the other hand, what was my duty on discovering the truth? In 1889, I officially reported that the system of State education in Mauritius was a system of proselytisn. That system came cut and dry from Downing Street years before. The reply to my despatch was that I should not touch it.
21. Over and over again I pointed to what Sir Arthur Gordon and Sir Arthur Phayre had denounced, with respect to the higher appointments of the Civil Service. I showed that it was idle to talk of trying to make the Colonies loyal, of inducing them to provide money and men for their defence as long as injustice of that kind was permitted. On this subject Lord Derby acted on my recommendations; and, before he left office, one or two important changes were made in the higher appointments. But, with those few exceptions, the descriptions given by Sir Arthur Gordon and Sir Arthur Phayre of the holders of those appointments remain correct to this day.
22. It is only the simple truth to say that the loyal feeling thus encouraged by Lord Derby was neutralized by the unhappy appointment, made by his successor, of a Colonial Secretary and Lieutenant-Governor with little sympathy for the race or the religion of the Mauritians.
23. But whatever special difficulty or prejudice I may have had to encounter in trying to get the just views of Sir Arthur Gordon and Sir Arthur Phayre carried out, there was one of the higher appointments, not mentioned by them, but with which it was necessary for me to deal. Lord Derby had asked me in 1885 to report on remedial measures that I thought were necessary to redress the grievances of the French any race in Mauritius. In writing to his successor on the 6th of August 1885, I said:-
The main cause of the widespread discontent I found here was due to the appointment of Englishmen to be Bishops of Port Louis. Since the British occupation every Roman Catholic Bishop has been an Englishman. This was one reason why the
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Catholic inhabitants believed that the Government had determined to anglicise this community in spite of the terms of the capitulation which guaranteed the preservation of the religion and customs of the French race.
"There is no doubt the sending here of Englishmen as Roman Catholic Bishops had a political object. So far it was unjust, and a mistake. To make it worse, some of the Englishmen so selected have been openly hostile to the French race.
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Considering that the salaries of the Roman Catholic Bishops come from the tate- payers, and that all their fees are contributed solely by people of the French race, it was not fair that their well-known wishes on the subject should be entirely ignored.
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"Any Englishman fit to be a Roman Catholic Bishop will be employed in his own country; if an Englishman is sent to British India or to the Colonies as a Roman Catholic Bishop, he is probably of an inferior stamp, and hence amongst the 79 Roman Catholic Bishops in Her Majesty's Colonies and in India, I only know of two English- men, Dr. Scarisbrick and Dr. of
and both of them have had serioas
disputes with their flock, which the Holy See has been called upou to consider. other hand, Archbishop Gonin, of Trinidad, is a Creole of Mauritius, beloved by his On the flock and in entire accord with the Holy See as well as with the Local Government.
"Some years before I came to Mauritius, and on more than one occasion, grave charges were sent to Rome against Bishop Scarisbrick by those who really represented the Catholic community. This year the Union Catholique' transmitted to the Propaganda a most serious indictment against Dr. Scarisbrick's management of the diocese. The Bishop at first stated that the document emanated only from a few. In reply, the Council of the Society stated that it was practically the unanimous voice of the whole Catholic community; and out of nineteen members of the Council of the Catholic Union eighteen put their signatures to a duplicate of the document, the nineteenth member being absent from illness.
"In short, it is only the simple truth to say that Bishop Scarisbrick has never been in accord with his flock-that he has no sympathy with them.
"Of course, as long as such a Prelate is maintained here for a political purpose, there will be an increase of discontent."
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24. Bishop Scarisbrick's evidence before Sir Hercules Robinson is a remarkable com- mentary on this. He describes the very kind reception he got in the Colonial Depart- ment in London; bow cheerfully the authorities there promised to continue their friendly support to him; in short, how easily he vindicated himself in Downing Street.
25. But he gives a different account of his reception in Rome. He said, "I had the greatest difficulty in clearing my character in Rome." A little further on in his evidence he again said, speaking of his interviews with the authorities in Rome, "I have "not been able to clear myself or put things in their true light.”
A few days after he had made that statement, he got the Commissioner's permission to add to the shorthand writer's transcript, the words “without difficulty."
26. Such a contrast tells its own tale, a more grievous one, perhaps, for the Roman Catholics of Mauritius than the narrative of Sir Arthur Gordon.
The Right Hon. Edward Stanhope, M.P.,
&c.
&c.
&c.
(Signed)
Enclosure in No. 51.
I have, &c.
J. POPE HENNESSY.
GOVERNOR SIR ARTHUR GORDON on the attempt to ANGLICISE and PROTESTANTISE MAURITIUS by the system of Government EDUCATION and the Mode of APPOINTMENT to the HIGHER OFFICES,
Mauritius, April 4, 1874.
MY LORD,
It has been my duty during the last few months to forward to the Secretary of State for the Colonies many letters addressed to him by Bishop Royston, and it is evident many more will follow. They all breathe the same assumption, that the church of which he is the head is the paramount and established church of the Island, possessing. a jurisdiction over all its inhabitants, and entitled to resent, if not to suppress, the "aggression" of any other religious body on the heathen mass of the population.
2. I trust, therefore, your Lordship will pardon me if I recur once more to the somewhat distasteful subject of Ecclesiastical affairs, and the relative position of the two chief branches of the Christian Church in this Colony.
R &