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d'aucune sorte, et conduite à puiser lui-même des renseignements dans le Rapport à lui adressé; d'autre part, un Gouverneur qui est l'auteur du réquisitoire sur lequel le procès a lieu, pour qui la Commission Royale est un véritable Tribunal, et dont les accusations seront discutées dans un rapport adressé directement au Ministre.

Inclosure 8 in No. 27.

Extract from the “Pays” of April 23, 1872.

CE ne sont point les antécédents de ce Plévitz, avant son arrivée à Maurice, que nous recherchons. Il nous suffira amplement, sans doute, de mettre à nu son existence parmi nous, pour que les Commissaires soient suffisamment édifiés sur la valeur de cet individu dont le Gouverneur n'a pas craint de se faire le complice, en faisant un silence systématique autour de l'œuvre ordurière qui nous vaut aujourd'hui la Commission d'Enquête.

No. 28.

Governor the Hon. Sir A. H. Gordon, K.C.M.G., to the Earl of Kimberley.~(Received

(No. 147. Miscellaneous.) My Lord,

June 4.)

Mauritius, May 2, 1872.

IN my despatch No. 138, of the 21st September last, I had the honour to inform your Lordship that a petition had been presented to me, signed by between 9,000 and 10,000 old immigrants, alleging that the provisions of the Labour Law, No. 81 of 1807, were enforced with undue harshness by the police; and I then stated that it was my intention to refer that petition to the consideration of a Commission which I was about to appoint, for the investigation of other charges of a different nature, which had previously been brought against the police force.

Copies of the evidenco taken before that Commission were inclosed in my despatch No. 88, of 9th March last.

2. I have now the honour to inclose the Report of that Commission.

One of the members of the Commission, the Honourable T. Fraser, left the island before it had closed its labours. Another, the Honourable C. Antelme, preferred send- ing in a separate Report, which your Lordship will find at page 83 of the volume now transmitted. The General Report bears the signatures of Major-General Smyth, Mr. Justice Gorrie, Captain Blunt, the Acting Inspector of Police, and Mr. Robertson, the Senior District Magistrate of Port Louis.

This Report first deals with the matters which more immediately led to the appointment of the Commission-the conduct of the police towards persons accused of crime, and then proceeds to examine the other questions referred to the consideration of the Commission. The Commissioners state that it speedily became apparent to them that the complaints of the petitioners, so far as they were well-founded, related rather to the law itself than to the action of the police under it; and after a prelimi- nary review of the provisions of that Law, and the Regulations following it relating to old immigrants, they examine, sentence by sentence, the petition referred to them, and, afterwards, each of the special cases annexed to it, with one exception (that of a man who could not be found). In the next division of the Report they examine the prac- tical working of the Law. Of this portion of the Report, paragraphs 115 to 129 are devoted to cases found in the Magistrates' books; paragraphs 122 to 145 contain observations on the management of the Immigration Office; paragraphs 145 to 162 relate to the action of the police; and paragraphs 162 to 174 to the mode in which the Law has been interpreted and administered by the Stipendiary Magistrates, In the next division of the Report (paragraphs 174 to 211) the objects of the Law of 1887, and the degree in which they have been affected by it, are discussed; and the remainder of the Report (paragraphs 211 to 238) is devoted to sa enumeration of the provi- sions of the existing Law, of which the Commissioners recommend the alteration or repeal. Finally, a summary is given of the conclusions arrived at and recommenda- tions made.

Mr. Antelme's Report is divided into nearly the same heads as that of the majority.

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3. As regards the action of the police with regard to the detection of crime, both Reports come to substantially the same conclusion, viz., that, except in rare and isolated cases, violence is not now employed by the police to obtain confessions from persons accused of crime, but that other illegitimate means are not unfrequently resorted to for that purpose; that the commission of crimes has until very recently been occasionally suggested to known bad characters by the police, in order to secure the convictions of those engaged in them; and that the receipt of bribes by members of the force is by no means uncommon.

4. As regards the far more important questions which occupied the largest share of the attention of the Commission, the conclusions of Mr. Antelme are not quite similar to those of the majority, although there is much substantial agreement.

5. The arrival, however, of the Royal Commission of Inquiry has deprived this portion of the present Report of much of the interest and importance which would otherwise have attached to it, and it is, therefore, I think, unnecessary for me to make that elaborate examination of its recommendations or details which I should otherwise have felt called upon to prepare for submission to your Lordship.

6. I may be expected, however, to point out the chief particulars in which the two Reports differ, and I accordingly proceed to do so.

7. As regards the general allegations contained in the petition of the old immi- grants, as apart from the specific cases attached to it, I do not detect any very essential difference. The majority find the statements of the petition to be "mainly justified," but "put in an exaggerated form." Mr. Antelme, who, like the majority, examines the petition sentence by sentence, comes substantially to much the same conclusion, although the amount of insccuracy and exaggeration contained in the petition appeara to him to be greater than it has done to his colleagues.

8. As regards the special cases annexed to the petition, the majority find "more than one exaggerated and several not of a serious nature," but they also find more or less foundation to exist for a large majority of the complaints made. Mr. Antelme, on the other hand, finds only four cases partly proved. This portion of the report of the majority was, I believe, originally prepared by the Senior District Magistrate, Mr. Robertson, whose experience on the bench, and known impartiality and indepen- dence of character, render it probable that his appreciation of these cases is not widely inaccurate.

9. The majority of the Commission and Mr. Antelme appear to have agreed (and I think rightly so), in considering the witnesses indicated by M. de Plevits, and those who came forward on their own account, to have given no testimony of any considerable importance.

10. There is a greater difference of opinion with respect to the object and working of the Law of 1867. Of this law Mr. Antelme takes a far more favourable view than his colleagues, although they also admit (§ 256) "that the exceptional state of affairs in 1867 called for exceptional legislation," whilst both the majority and Mr. Antelme agree that its provisions may now be materially relaxed.

11. Mr. Antelme considers that the Ordinance has to a great degree effected the suppression of vagrancy and crime. The majority do not share this opinion, and consider that these results, so far as they have been obtained, are due to quite other causes. They may quote, in support of the view taken by them, the high authority of the Procureur-General, who occupied till lately a seat on the bench of the Supreme Court, and who (A 1827) expresses his belief that the pass system had not contributed in any material degree to the diminution of gang robberies and other crimes, which he attributed to wholly different causes.

12. I may remark that in deducing an argument (paragraph 180) from the great reduction in the number of convictions before the Stipendiary Magistrates for offences against the Labour Law, between 1808 and 1870, Mr. Antelme has fallen into a grave error, into which he has naturally been led by following the statements of the Protector of immigrants-reports which, of course, he had every reason to assume to be accurate.

13. I have, however, already pointed out their inaccuracy in my despatch No. 184 of the 14th November last, and if I now revert to the subject it is only because I was not then aware of the full amount of that inaccuracy. I then mentioned that the complaints of 1888 had been inadvertently substituted for the convictions of that your in the comparison instituted by the Protector in his annual Report for 1871 between the convictions for 1868, 1869, and 1870, and that the convictions for 1809 included 1,864 on account of vagrancy, the convictions for which offence were not supposed to be included. [134]