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3092
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
།།།།TcO.885
יייייוווד
No. 111A.
(SEYCHELLES.)
SIR FRANCIS J. S. HOPWOOD to THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL. [Conduct of Mr. Eric Blackwood-Wright, Chief Justice of Seychelles.]
(Private.)
MY DEAR ATTORNEY-GENERAL,
Downing Street, 5 February, 1909. LORD Crewe desires me to say that he would be greatly obliged if and
you the Solicitor-General would give him your opinion on the enclosed papers, which deal with the conduct of Mr. Eric Blackwood-Wright, Chief Justice of Seychelles.
Mr. Wright returned to Seychelles last year after being on leave of absence in England, and ever since he went back seems to have done his utmost to cause trouble. His relations with the Governor are strained to an extent which is beginning to amount to a public scandal, and he loses no opportunity of embittering them still further by petitioning the Secretary of State on the most trivial points-such as his precedence as compared with the Bishop, the method in which a demand for the payment of taxes was made upon him and the terms of the Governor's minute direct- ing the Treasurer to obtain payment, and the right of the Chief Justice to expect an invitation to a dinner at Government House.
The Governor asserts that Mr. Wright has deliberately adopted this policy with a view to causing so much trouble to the Colonial Office that he will be given substantial promotion in order to keep him quiet. Mr. Davidson makes this asser- tion in his confidential despatch of the 28th of October, and forwards in support of it, in his confidential despatch of the 5th of December, a minute addressed to him by the Members of the Executive Council, in which it is stated that the Chief Justice has frankly admitted that he returned to Seychelles "with the fixed deter- mination to bring about a situation in the Colony that would force the Colonial Office to remove him by way of prontotion." This is, of course, a very serious accusation, and if the person concerned had been an administrative officer he would have been suspended from duty with a view to an investigation, which would almost certainly, have resulted in his dismissal if the charge were proved.
The fact that it is the Chief Justice, the holder of a patent office, who cannot be dismissed in the same way as an ordinary civil servant, makes the situation very difficult. If the statements made by the Executive Councillors are correct—and it is difficult to believe that they are false Mr. Wright is obviously not a proper person to hold the important post of Chief Justice, but it is not clear to the Secretary of State that his proceedings amount to misconduct of such a kind as would make it possible to remove him from office.
It is on this point that his Lordship wishes for your opinion and that of the Solicitor-General.
I do not trouble you with the papers relating to the numerous trivial petitions to which I have referred, but I enclose two despatches on the subject of the adminis- tration of promissory oaths to Magistrates and Justices of the Peace which will serve as an illustration of the present state of affairs in the Colony.
These despatches, and the two already mentioned, are enclosed in original, and
I should be glad if you would kindly return them to me with your reply.
Yours, &c.,
FRANCIS J. S. HOPWOOD.
PAPERS ENCLOSED.
(1.) Governor. Confidential. 28 October, 1908.
(2) Governor. Confidential. 5 December, 1908.
(3.) Governor. 155. 14 November, 1908.
(4.) Governor. 166. 30 November, 1908.
(13452-2.) Wt. 96-332, 25. 509. D& S.
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