No. 4.
No. 9.
No. R.
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appointed under the new constitution, and that they, the Bürger Committee, were in constant telegraphic communication with the Secretary of State.
18. I received in consequence of the above the enclosed application from Mr. K. N. Michels, the President of Legislative Council, and elected chairman of the Combined Court, and who at the same time was, as a member of the Committee of the Executive Council, acquainted with the true contents of the memorial.
19. In reply I informed Mr. Michels that I considered that those in authority had a perfect right to know the true contents of the memorial in question, but that I should wish that it should be read in the Combined Court, and thus include the presence of the elected representatives of the people.
20. This was done on the 12th instant, and I beg to enclose a copy of the minutes of the Combined Court on the subject.
21. With regard to the memorial itself, Sir, it is a document of 60 pages of closely written German, and appended to it are several lengthy documents in the same language. *A translation of these papers will necessarily take some considerable time, indeed not only the whole of the office business hours, but also leisure time is taken up with reporting and translating the absurd and frivolous complaints of the so-called Bürger Committee, whilst a great deal of very necessary business is delayed by the same.
22. I do not, however, by any means complain of the presence of the memorial, on the contrary I sincerely trust that this sort of thing which has been going on eternally in Heligoland may by its means receive a complete check.
23. would, however, viewing the time which must elapse before I can furnish you with a translated copy of all the long sentences and digressions of the original document, avail myself of the concluding portion of your despatch of the 29th of June 1866,† and place at once shortly before you the leading points of the memorial and its enclosures.
24. The memorial commences with a statement of the position of the island on its capture by Great Britain, and the loss which the inhabitants sustained by the necessary cessation of the Court of Appeal in Schleswig, and the appointment of a Governor instead of a person learned in German law, like the former Landvogt, also that ecclesiastical matters suffered by ceasing to be under the Consistorial Court of Schleswig.
25. These are all old matters that have been gone into again and again, and it was to improve the state of things that the Constitution of 1864 was introduced by his Grace the Duke of Newcastle.
26. It is because the powers of that Constitution are working effectually and have introduced necessary reforms on the subject of better financial arrangements, taxation, schools, wrecks, and salvage cases, &c., that amongst the poorer class of fishermen, it is not so popular as a state of things which required gunboats over from England to punish a single offender against the commonest police law, where no taxation existed, where the play-tables were an unquestioned institution, and where nobody in fact was called upon to pay anything or obey anyone.
27. With regard to this subject and the general state of the island, I beg to draw your attention to the letter (confidential) of Sir P. Smith to Mr. Merivale, dated Colonial Office, 25th September 1858.
28. I have often perused the letter in question, and have done so again previous to writing this despatch.
My opinion of the letter in question is still the same which I expressed to you two years ago, viz., that it is the best and most exhaustive description of the state of Heligoland extant, and I might copy out at least, a third of it in the present despatch.
29. Sir P. Smith, however, was too short a time here to appreciate the Heligoland character. Those persons who spoke to him about taxation and changes and reforms are those who, now that these are introduced, are agitating to return to the old state of things which they have year after year so deeply condemned.
30. The mentorialists proceed curiously enough to show the extreme mismanagement which took place under the old state of things, mentioning several instances, and yet conclude by praying that the old state of things may be reinstated.
31. The argument they go upon is, that the men and not the system were to blame, and the deduction is clear that they, the so-called Bürger Committee, "possessing the confidence of the people," would know how to manage matters.
I would remark here that the leader or president of the so-called Bürger Committee, Mr. P. A. Heikens, is a man of had character and a notorious drunkard.
As such he has been well known for years on the island.
With reference to this person I beg to enclose an extract from a letter addressed to him by Governor Sir John Hindmarsh so far back as July 1842, and also an extract
† Not printed.
Printed as No. 5 in series.
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from a despatch from the Secretary of State through the Governor, dated April 1843, approving of this person's dismissal, on account of his notorious misconduct, from the office of thail carrier.
I have also the honour to inform you that at the close of Mr. P. A. Heiken's term as cassenmeister under the old regime his accounts were notoriously in disorder to the detriment of the island treasury, a fact recently stated by the chairman publicly in the Combined Court and by the Colonial Treasurer to Mr. Heiken's face unrefuted when he and the rest of the so-called Bürger Committee attended to examine the "Cassen Buch " of 1865.
This is the person who calumniates the present officials, and telegraphs to the Secretary of State strictures on the Governor's conduct.
32. The memorialists proceed to object to the Ordinance enacting that the Schleswig Holstein code should be the basis for legislation and the code to be referred to.
33. On this point I will not enter at length, because in former despatches this question has been explained.
34. I was called upon by yourself to name the law code of Heligoland; and naturally so, as it was referred to in another ordinance, and I took the Schleswig Holstein code, which is the one always referred to.
35. As to the so-called Landesbeliebungen, they do not exist in any regular form; they cannot be called laws so much as customs.
36. But the fact is, that Her Majesty's Order in Council' granting legislative powers
to the island was simply placing in a more civilized and legal manner the old custom of Landesbeliebungen.
37. What in truth were these Landesbeliebungen ?
38. The Landvogt, and his advisers amongst the inhabitants of Heligoland, thought that some proceeding regarding wrecks or any subject would be advantageous to the island; having decided this, the decision was sent to Denmark for the Royal approval, and having received that, it became a "Landesbeliebungen" or law. This is just what takes place at present, but in a more orderly manner.
39. There can, however, be no question on the subject, as you not entering fully into my views disallowed the Ordinance in question, and that decision was publicly posted up inonths ago.
40. The memorialists proceed to criticise the financial state of the island, but only for the sake of making false and frivolous charges against the colonial authorities.
41. They commence by stating that previous to a bathing season being established in Heligoland, the public debt amounted only to 32,000 marks, and that now it is 114,000
marks.
42. The proper mode of stating the above would have been that the debt was increased not to 114,000, but to 124,000, and that under the new state of things it has been reduced to 114,000. This reduction will steadily continue, and is more likely to do so if the authorities are protected from such false and mischievous statements as those of the promoters of the memorial in question.
I will adduce as one instance one of the libellous charges introduced against the Finance Committee, and therefore the Government.
43. At the commencement of this year, the so-called Bürger Committee who have been agitating all the previous winter, spread the report that the colonial steamer fund had not been accounted for. Of course this was the barest and most absurd untruth, but unfortunately the Heligolanders will believe any statement made against the authorities, more particularly if such statement refer to mal-appropriation of public money.
44. Possibly this arises from the former state of things, and the knowledge that in the "good old times" to come into office or to be connected with anyone in office was to be more or less independent.
45. In consequence of the death of one of the copartners of the steamer, the President of the Finance Committee (then Mr. Gatke) informed the Combined Court that a new contract had to be drawn up at the request of the executors, and that until the same was signed, the profits of the steamer for 1865 must remain in Hamburg, and that, therefore, probably five or six weeks would elapse before the matter was settled.
46. The Finance Committee therefore recommended that the examination of the Cassen Buch (account book) for 1863 should be postponed till this matter was settled.
47. As, however, the members preferred to examine the accounts at once, the book was laid on the table, and the profits of the steamer for 1865 entered in pencil, viz., 7,000 marks.
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