CO882-(1-2) — Page 278

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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the projected Government Bank and the issue of its notes in the form of advances upon sugar as con- templated by the Right Honourable the Secretary of State.

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12. The second, the immediate partial cessation and general reduction of the taxation which now weighs in a destruetive form upon the colonists.

13. First-The Government Bank. "This establishment your petitioners would respect- your Excellency was specially intended fully remind

by the Right Honourable the Secretary of State as

a measure of relief at a moment of urgent distress.— It was announced as such to the London Mauritius Association and gratefully acknowledged by them to the Imperial Government-the Currency Commis sioner charged with the details of the plan was hastily dispatched in order to avoid any delay in the execution, and your petitioners are convinced that nothing could be considered as more certain than was the establishment of this Bank by the Right Honourable Earl Grey, and they as firmly believe that his Lordship will deplore the consequences which have resulted from your Excellency having decided upon withholding it.

"14. They would respectfully submit to your Excellency that the conditional abandonment by the Commercial Bank of its right to issue notes made solely dependent upon the decision of the Secretary of State, appears to them to have afforded every guarantee that your Excellency could reasonably wish to possess that the conditions attached to the establishment of the Government Bank could be fulfilled.

15. That the establishment of this Bank would act as an immediate relief to your petitioners at this time of sad anxiety and suffering.

16. The planter being enabled to realize his sugar at a reasonable rate (inasmuch as the merchants would use the Government advance as an augments- tion of their present means) would at once pay his labourers and restore order on his estate.

..

17. From the same source the tradesmen would

be paid their claims, and commerce would in some degree resume its activity; whilst the present usu- rious rates of interest would be reduced in presence

of a permanently increased circulating medium.

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"18. Secondly,-AN IMMEDIATE REDUCTION Or

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"Your petitioners having represented to your Ex- cellency that the labourers' wages in the colony are

generally unpaid; that commercial engagements of all kinds are, with the exception of a very few

favoured signatures, either in suspenseor un available

to those who hold them;

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That the price of sugar taken in the whole does

not repay the cost of production;

That the cultivation of sugar as a general rule

is only maintained from month to month by loans of money at a rate of interest which must ere long prove the ruin of the borrower;

"Do not hesitate to declare their conviction, that this colony cannot during the year 1849 possibly pay

to the Colonial Treasury, taxes amounting in one

form or another to nearly 300,0001.

"19. The total net value of its exports will pro- bably not exceed 600,000l.; and your petitioners desire to convince your Excellency of the impossi- bility of deducting therefrom, directly or indirectly

no less than 50 per cent, without sealing the ruin of Mauritius.

"20. Your petitioners would anticipate the objec- tion that the public buildings now in progress must be completed; that the garrison must be paid their colonial allowances, and the present Imperial scale of the Government offices kept up until reference be made to England.

21. They entreat your Excellency in an hour of extreme necessity and acknowledged public calamity, to take at once vigorous and decided measures with the view of rescuing the colony from destruction.

"22. Under such circumstances your petitioners humbly represent that all public works not of urgent necessity should be suspended even at the risk of some damage or loss that the garrison should receive

its colonial pay from the Imperial Treasury; and that the civil establishment of the Colonial Govern- ment should undergo an immediate reduction.

"23. The reserve now in the Colonial Treasury exceeds, your petitioners are led to believe, 100,000/. They ask of your Excellency to apply that reserve at once to the rigorous wants of Government, which with the half of the present amount of taxation will enable your Excellency to proceed until that entire

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