PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TTITNICO. 882
9
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
| ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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Law 19
MAURITIA - JOOYAL
COMMISSION, B
S CAVENDISH BOYLE.
KOMA
dis plenk, they paid was 3 per cent for the half year That is 6 per cent per annum.
10 Have you any ilen of the dividend the Credit Foncier pays I should think nil from what I know and from what I have heard
1561 How long has the Crakt Fomener been in Vistence?—I do not know, but certainly over 10 years, That I find out for I should think, nearer 20 you
1562 Did you ever hea that they were a flourishing I have institution paying large dividends - Never had frequently enquiries from friends of mine since I have been here as to the stability of the company- -hareholder%
1563. All giving you what impression That they were anxious to get out, because there is a very con derable fiability There is very nearly a 50 per cent Dability Their capital 800,000) and they have only pand up 355,000Z.
Government?
1564. Nuw I come to this question of an Agrieul- tural Bank Do you think an agricultural lank is quired here?-An Agricultural Bank run by the I mean un agricultural 1565 No. May I explain bank with a capital which would be lent by the Government to a responsible Board of Management and let out again to those who desire to borrow at a slightly increased rate of interest, mainly for the purpose of assisting small cultivators. and for doing that very thing which I understand you to say is one of the greatest requirements of the plure, namely, putting more money into circulation ?--A necessity, from that point of view, perhaps.
1566. Do you consider it an advisability?—I should infinitely prefer to see the funds made available apart I should say, if you from the Government altogether. asked me if a group of financiers in London or else. where should establish a bank of that description with the necessary permission of the Government-they would want a local charter-and if within the termik of that charter the interest which would be charged, or the charges which would be made, could be limited so as to place cheap money at the disposal of the As to persons you have mentioned, I should say, yes. whether it is an undertaking to be recommended for the Government. I am very doubtful.
1567 1 did not mean Government management. I menut rather this. Are there any people here of sufficient standing and repute to horrow the money from the Government and manage the bank for them. welves, simply lending again to the borrower at a very mall increased rute of interest, so that he may get the money at a cheap rate of interest instead of paying these extravagant rates of interest which you have been telling us of that the smal) cultivator and even the larger man should be able to obtain, undoubtedly in almirable security, a sum of money for his temporary assistance, but not that the Government would have any management of the bank at all; the Government would simply be the mean of Anding the money - May I ask what security you propose should be taken by the Government for that?
1568. I am asking whether there are any people who would be willing to undertake, for the good of the place, the management of such a bank, and people of sufficient substance to make it possible for the Government to let them have money.
1569, (Mr. Woodcock.; May 1 supplement that. Supposing that such a holy were forthcoming as the Chairman has indicated, you ask what the security would be. The security, in such a case, would be the They personal character and standing of those mien. would all be jointly and severally liable, and, in addition, the security would be such security as they had obtained from the persons to whom they had leuit out the money? -I should be very strongly opposer to such a measure. 1570. What are your chief grounds?—I think it would be infinitely preferable that the Government should lend the money direct. I would prefer even to see a lonn office established, for it would come to this, that I do not think you would find a body, of men whom you could accept as personally responsible for ach a transaction. so that, therefore, the Government
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would always have to be going through the accounts and taking charge of the security, therefore, why have a middleman at all? If, on the other hand, you are going to find a busly of men who would give you security in the shape of immovable property. I should say, by all means; I would say, if you could find corporation who would undertake, partly on philan thropic grounds and partly for their own benefit, such a work us that. I should say, by all means do it, but I do not think you would find them.
1571. Then you would not be opposed to it. I take it. assuming a body of men were forthcoming who could give the security; I will not put it higher thun that-If they were satisfactory, that would relieve the Government of all responsibility in the matter.
1572 Under those circumstances you would agree with it By all means. but 1 should insist on having exactly the same security as I should for a luan to planters. 1 do not think that I could recommend that auy less security than that could be taken.
1579. (Chairman.) That is security of real pro- perty-Of real property of at least a third more than
the value of the amount advanced.
1574. May I ask you one other question on that. you have really answered it already. Do you think that such a body of men could be found in Mauritius, able and willing to undertake that duty -No.
1575. Would you be in favour of complying with a proposal which was put in a very definite form to us. that is, that the Government should simply raise a sum of money-the am mentioned was Rs. 3,000,000—unl hund that over to be the capital of an agricultural bank? You would not be in favour of that P-May I qualify all these answers by saying that if money je needed by the small cultivator-I am not talking about the big man at all--he has not approached me personally either directly or indirectly in that sense--but if that is so, I should infinitely prefer that the Government should run its own land bank for the purpose solely of assist. ing him.
1576. That would be what you call a loan office?— That would be a loan office; its own loan office, if that is necessary.
1577. I think what you said just now was very valu able. You said no small cultivator has ever approached We hear mention of the the Government -Never. fact that it is necessary, that large rates of interest are charged and usury is adopted, but I have never seen it. I do not know it; it may be an.
1578. May I put one other bypothetical case to you. Supposing such a hank as we have indicated were founded, would there be any protection against the monies heing devoted to the large holders and not to the small ones P-None with such a board as you have indicated, unless you made it so by local Ordinance or by Statute-none whatever; I should say that what you indicate would be the natural reault.
1579. I say that because in this suggestion which was made to us yesterday, the witness mentioned advances of from Rs. 50 to Rs. 50,000, clearly showing and indeed he said so in so many words, that it was to assist anybody, whether he was a large or small cultivator ?Ra. 50,000 would probably be the faisance valoir of a medium estate at any rate.
1580. Ta that the estimated crop value - The faisance valoir is the amount of money required whilst he is not producing sugar, or not realising from the products of sugar.
1581. To carry on P-Yes, to carry on his culti vation.
1582. (Mr. Woodcock.) Perhaps you will allow me to ask a question on that. Assuming for the moment a land bank in the sense in which you have used the words, or any other of these cognate schemes being adopted. do you think that the operations of such an institution should be strictly limited to what we may call the I mean a small cultivator. By "small cultivator" person cultivating, say, not more than 40 acres, or somewhere about that ?-Yon, I think that if you do not put that limit on, you will find that the object which you have in view would be defeated at once.
1583. I rather inferred it from the answer which you gave, and I wanted to make it quite plain to get
4 June 1909 :
MINUTES OF EVIDENCE.
Sir CAVENDISH BOYLE, K.C.M.O.
that on the Notes P-The manager would prefer to lenta sum of Rs. 50,000 to lending 50 sums of Rs. 1,900, or whatever the amount is.
1584 (Chairman.) It has probably struck you that the expenditure for pensions in this Colony is very large-They are increasing.
15. Have you noticed what amount it has grown from and to-It has grown from Rs. 243,592 in 1883 1. Rs 1,616,462 in 1907–8.
156. It is possible that these figures may not have been brought to your notice. The population of Mauritius in 1878 was 354,623, in 1908 it was 374,237, an increase of 19,614. The pensions in 1878 were R 173.178. and in 1908 they were Ra. 605,372, an increase of Ra. $32.194-I will go further, I think. even than that; I think it is even more on the figures I have given, though but slightly.
1587. But even supposing these figures are correct, are not they rather remarkable, because the admini- stration of the Colony has been going on for a great many years. Is not it strange that in the last 30 years there should have been that extraordinary increase !— Wherever there is a pension arrangement, of course it is liable to increase, but I do not think it is liable to such increase as that, under ordinary circumstances. I think it is remarkable: I think it is lamentable.
1588. Is not it also a fact that in Mauritius a large number of people are on the pensionable establishment who are not so in other colonies; people, for instance, in the railway department, subordinates drawing very small wages P-I have never had any experience of any Crown Colony where the railways were owned and worked by Government. As regards that I should say,
yea.
1589. The very minor offices, public works, railways and so on are pensionable ?They are so.
1590. Now supposing that that is unusual, may I suggest that it is possible that that has been brought about by the fact that there are a number of elective members here, and that the civil servant is a voter, and that it is possible, therefore, for the civil servant to put pressure on the candidate and to say that if he votes for him he expects him, in return, to attend to his wishes -That has often been stated here, I should think with a good many grains of truth. There is no doubt about it, that one of the greatest difficulties of the administration is to deal with the constant requests that are put forward by members of the Council in favour of the people known to them, either as voters or perhaps with closer ties and relationship, who are members of or candidates for membership in the Civil Service.
1591. You suggested to us that, in your opinion, it would be advisable to curtail those pensions in the ecclesiastical department ?-Absolutely.
1592. Do you think that there would be any means of doing that in some of these other departments, because apparently the rate at which pensions are given is increasing F-I have been trying to do so ever since I have been here, and have adopted the system of charitable allowances in place of pensions, but I cannot say with any great effect, because I found individuals with established rights.
1593. How does a charitable allowance help the Government as against a pension f—It is not perpetual. A man is given a certain amount for two or three years, or half a dozen years or something like that and then it is done with.
But, of
1594. Then it stops?-Then it stops. course, the plea which is always put forward by a Mauritian who thinks about these things is: If you do not pension the man to whom you have given very little money all his life, you have had the best years of his life, and he says, unless you give him something wherewithal to live upon in the declining years of his life, he and his family will become chargeable on the public revenue in the shape of allowances from the Poor Law office, or something of that wort. He will become a beggar. That is the ples which is always put forward; I cannot say how far it is true. Ever ince the cry was initiated by Sir John Pope Hennessy, "Mauritius for the Mauritians," the result has been that every Mauritian either looks upon the Civil
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Service as a proper place for him to enter and remain in all his life, or the best part of his life, and from thence to retire on a pension, or else he looks upon it as a proper place for him to seek employment, and the result of it is that ever since the establishment of semi-representative Government in this Colony the Civil Service of the Colony has grown by leaps and bounds-there is no doubt about that.
1595. Will you now tell us what yon think of the Constitution as it is at present?—I think a hybrid Constitution with responsibility divorced from power is one of the most difficult and impossible of all Constitu- tions.
I deeply regret that it ever should have been invented or thought of. The Governor of this Colony, or the Government rather, finds itself in a standing minority of two in the Council of Government.
1596. (Sir Edward O'Malley.) It is exactly contrary to what we have had told us. Will you explain that? We heard that there was an elective body of ten, and that there were five nominated members. How does the difference come in ?-I am going to eliminate the the Governor first of all. There are eight ex-officio members; there are ten elective members, and there are five unofficial nominated members; five and ten makes 15 against eight with four nominated officials or 12 in all without the Governor.
1597. You are reckoning the nominated members Yon mid a as necessarily against the Government. permanent minority-They are unofficial members; you cannot demand their vote.
1598. I quite understand now ?—To make it quite clear, then, we have nominated officials, four, that is 12, and we have got 15 unofficials. Now we come to the Governor. If the 15 vote solidly, the Governor cannot come in. If, on the other hand, there is a majority of one, the Governor has a vote and a casting vote. Therefore there is a permanent possibility of a majority of two. In the year 1904, just before I came here, the unofficial alement in the Council of Government did join together as one man and refused taxation and refused every attempt to make the revenue balance the expenditure.
1599. When was that?-In 1904-just before I
1800. The possible event did come off !—Oh, yeɛ and it has done so on previous occasions, too. But that was the most marked occasion.
came.
1601. Refusing either to tax or to cut down ?—No attempt was made to cut down. They refused the offer then made by the Officer Administering the Government, and it was only in November or December that I succeeded in getting rid of the diculties referred to.
1602. Then the provision of the Letters Patent is for nine nominee members ?-It would be possible under Letters Patent to get an official majority.
1603. It would as they stand?-Yes, under the Letters Patent, and the question whether that was not necessary has been mooted before now.
1604. As regards the Constitution, if I may put it so. of the Colony, a permanent Government majority is secured as regards the administration directed by the Secretary of State; apparently a permanent majority in established. Is that so?-I would go further than the administration--they look upon it as an established right that the Letters Patent will not be enforced to the extent of appointing six official nominees. It can be done, of course.
1605. So that that permanent possibility could be removed if the Secretary of State, or whoever be the authority, were to carry out the terms of the Constitu. tion literally P-Yee,
1606. (Chairman.) Now, I will ask you what, in your opinion, would be the effect of giving the Colony a permanent official majority by exercising the Consti tution to the full?--I do not think that would go far enough; I should be very sorry to have to administer the Government under those conditions.
1607. Why P--Because I think it would be almost an unworkable majority. Supposing one of your officials becomes ill in any one day, I think the result would be that certainly for a period you would have the unofficial minority voting as a solid body, whatever
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