PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference
C.O. 882
9
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDORI
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH--NOT TO
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the majority of the unofficial members of Council would be submitted to you for your consideration.
Antelme has a motion for advances in aid of sugar estates of £400,000 repay: able in ten yearly instalments. I have held out no hope that such a scheme would be sanctioned, but I fear that a crisis, as I foreshadowed in my Confidential despatch pressed I think that a loan of of 31st May, is imminent, and if request for aid £200,000 should be granted, and I should strongly recommend it on the lines of Antelme's Ordinance No. 43 of 1902, repayable in five instalments. As the market conditions are adverse, Crown Agents should make temporary arrangements. motion will be made on 5th November, and I should therefore be glad to have your views on above proposal as soon as possible.-BOYLE.
38374
No. 4.
THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received 4.37 p.m., 31 October, 1907.)
TELEGRAM.
[Answered by No. 6.]
I propose to publish my despatch of 31 May, Confidential,* and a paraphrase of your telegram of 28th instant, f omitting fourth paragraph as to encouraging the local opposition.
Telegraph whether you agree.
Please send a despatch for publication on Mr. Leclézio's proposal and your inability to agree to a loan.-BOYLE.
38258
No. 5.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE to THE GOVERNOR.
(Paraphrase.)
(Sent 11.45 a.m., 2 November, 1907.)
TELEGRAM.
[Answered by No. 11.]
Your telegram of 30 October. In any case I should require, before assenting to your proposal, full information, which is now wanting, as to the purposes to which the loan would be applied and the financial position of the planters whom it is proposed to assist. But I fear that the objections are insuperable. Planters are already heavily in debt to Government, and the policy of making the Government a money lender to a certain class of the community is one which could not be defended unless in such special circumstances as obtained in the case of the Hurricane and Transport Loans, but are absent in the present case.-ELGIN.
38374
No. 6.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE to THE GOVERNOR. (Sent 11.45 a.m., 2 November, 1907.) TELEGRAM.
[Answered by No. 7.]
Your telegram of 31 October.§ Publication suggested would, in my opinion, be very inconvenient procedure. My telegram of 28 Octobert was sent for your guidance and to prevent questions assuming a shape which would increase difficulty of dealing with it. If published it would give impression that I had finally decided When I receive the against proposal without waiting to have it fully before me. further despatch foreshadowed in your despatch of 31 May* I shall be prepared to
{ No. 4. ‡ No. 3.
• No. 1.
† No. 2.
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give a reasoned reply. Would it not be sufficient if you state in Council that you have reason to believe that the Secretary of State will feel that the objections in principle to the proposed loan are insuperable?-ELGIN.
38952
No. 7.
THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received 3 p.m., 3 November, 1907.)
TELEGRAM.
(Paraphrase.)
Leclézio has made public what I told him, see my telegram of 30th ultimo,* and he is now determined to develop his motion on 5th November. I do not think that he will advance arguments which will differ materially from those already before you, but if you adhere to view of inconvenience of procedure in publication suggested in my telegram of 31st October,† my course will be to make statement indicated in your telegram of 2nd November, to obtain expression of opinions of the Unofficial Members for and against his motion and that of Anteline, which will follow, and to forward them for your information.--Boyle.
39623
No. 8.
THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE, (Received 5.40 p.m., 9th November, 1907.)
TELEGRAM.
[Answered by No. 10.]
No. 1. 9th November. Unofficial Members of Council agree unanimously in following expression of opinion-moved by Antelme, 5th November :-
"Considering that the Colony is in presence of great financial difficulties caused chiefly by a most severe drought and by low prices of sugar, that the sugar industry, and in consequence commerce, suffer consider- ably by such crisis, which threatens to have disastrous consequences and endanger the next crop and the future of the Colony, the Council of Government is of opinion that the Government of the Colony should raise a loan of £200,000 for the purpose of making advances on the lines of Ordinance No. 43 of 1902 to owners of sugar estates and bailleurs de fond on good security, for the purpose of assisting them to carry on the cultivation of, and for other purposes connected with, their estates. The said loan of £200,000 to be repaid in five years by equal yearly instalments with interest at the rate of six per cent. per annum on the capital due at the time of payment."
Both Banks and Chambers of Commerce and of Agriculture strongly recommend loan as urgently required, with which I agree. I am of opinion that repayment of loan could be as fully secured as in 1902, and that it is necessary to avert a crisis which is imminent, and which must have serious effect on finances of Colony. I therefore apply for permission to introduce draft Ordinance on lines of No. 48 of 1902 leaving rate of interest to be fixed when the terms under which the amount can be raised are known.-BOYLR.
• No. 8.
↑ No. 4.
↑ No. 6.
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