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19. Mr. Fraser's opinions and conclusions I do not, however, now propose to discuss. They will doubtless be considered by the Royal Commissioners along with those of his colleagues.

20. I cannot forbear from calling your Lordship's notice to a point which is incidentally illustrated by one of the opinions expressed in Mr. Fraser's "reasons of dissent."

21. Mr. Fraser considers that there is no evidence to show that immigrants are "settling down into habits of order and industry" more than formerly. If Mr. Fraser is of this opinion, he probably considers that the laws supposed, some years since, to be required for the control of this class of the population are still necessary. I do not now stop to consider that question, but I wish to direct your Lordship's attention to the curious change of opinion that has taken place here on this subject during the last few months. Mr. Fraser only speaks the language current at the time of his departure from the island, were he now here the tone of his remarks would probably be somewhat modified. The line at present, almost universally taken by the advocates of the Ordinance of 1887 is, that it was required at the time, but that its provisions may now safely be relaxed because the Indian population has "settled down to habits of greater order and industry," and it is not long since that the friend and partner of Mr. Fraser, the Honourable R. Stein, in his place in the Council of Government, declared that “ we had obtained a much more orderly settled and better class of population" than formerly; and "that it could only be said of a certain residuum of them that they were idle and useless. Some of these people are themselves considerable employers of labour, some are possessed of considerable property, and the bulk of them are good and useful Colonists."

*I have, &c. (Signed)

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Inclosure in No. 54.

ARTHUR GORDON,

Reasons of Dissent by the Undersigned from the Report of the Commission of Enquiry appointed by his Excellency Sir A. H. Gordon, K.C.M.G., Governor of Mauritius and its Dependencies, dated November 29, 1871, adopted and signed by four out of six of the Commissioners.

1. BECAUSE three documents alluded to in the Report are not forthcoming, and the proceedings as published are thereby incomplete. These are

(1.) The letter of "one of the Judges of the Supreme Court," Mr. Justice Gorrie, incriminating the police.

(2.) Proceedings of the investigation into the action of the police, &o., &o., &c., both of which documents are referred to in the Governor's Letter of Instructions, dated 29th November, 1871, and again in the Minutes of the Commission, page 4, as laid upon the table.

(8.) The special inquiry ordered by the Governor, and referred to in page 6 of the Report, is to be found in the Appendix. The production of this document is important, as the only means of establishing or disproving the assertion contained in the Report, that a woman was kept for nine days in the house of a police sergeant, exposed to threats and promises to induce her to accuse her paramour of murder.

2. Because two articles have been allowed to remain in the Report, although the terms in which they are couched were disapproved of by all the Commissioners, with the sole exception of Mr. Justice Gorrie.

8. Because the Report appears to me to contain much inaccuracy. Insinuations are made, and conclusions arrived at, which I consider at variance with the evidence produced, while matters of importance are omitted.

As instances in support of what I have advanced, I may cite the following Articles Nos. 18, 47, 81, 57, in commenting on 3rdly, 7thly, 8thly, 8thly bis, 9thly, 12thly, and 15thly paragraphs of the Old Immigrants' Petition; also Nos. 74, 76, 103, 114, 118, 153, 157, 165, 167, 184, 248, 261.

I further dissent for other reasons from the following Articles :-Nos. 57, 58, 68, 110, 111, 185, 15-4, 180, 171, 188, 198, 200, 202,,204, 205, 208, 210, 211, 234, 286, 240, 248, 232, 255, 271.

To point out in detail how all the various Articles cited above are partially or inaccurately drawn, and to give my ressous of dissent from all the others is, I think, needless, the more especially as the appointment of the Royal Commission has

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rendered the Report itself of comparatively small importance, I shall therefore select a few of them ouly, viz. :—

Art. 57.-Comments on 8thly. It is here mentioned that it "is proved that men have been arrested in such circumstances," but under cover of "referring to the subject more particularly when treating of the special cases" the most serious part of the complaint that, in addition to arrest, they were committed to hard labour, is eluded, a complaint which there is not the shadow of proof to justify.

Art. 118 states, with regard to Mooblah, that, "having spent one day and probably more under arrest," and again "but the police constable, who probably did not know one word of his (Mooblab's) language, having assertad that he had told him quite a different story, Mooblah was sentenced to 28 days' imprisonment."

I have found nothing to justify the insinuations conveyed by the words "pro- bable" and " probably," or the covert accusation of perjury against the constable. It seems to me quite within the bounds of probability that the constable was an Indian, and in any case that both he and Mooblah understood and spoke "Creole."

The evidence of the Magistrate proves conclusively that it was the Magistrate who made the assertion alluded to, and not the Constable.

Mr. Martindale, the Magistrate, deposes that he condemned Mooblah (who had no papers), upon the evidence of a police constable to whom he had told a totally different story.

Art. 157 is as follows:-

"The evidence in regard to the special cases annexed to the Petition shows that on one of these occasions the police had gone in the night to a populous settlement, the sergeants being drunk and the men also, and took the inhabitants prisoners, although they had passes, on pretence that their passes were for the neighbouring district, but the boundaries of which were not known to the police themselves. On this occasion, as on a similar occasion, the police arrested as vagabonds Creole children in their parents' houses, and dragged them off to the police station, &c., &c."

Mention is thus made of two occasions on which Creole children (i. e, Indians born in the Colony) were arrested in their parents' houses during the night, and dragged off to the police station, these are referred to as "this occasion" and a "similar occasion," the distinctive feature of “this occasion " were drunk, and the men also.

being, that the sergeants

But what says Inspector O'Connor, the only evidence the Commission had regard- ing "this occasion ?"

"I sent out several sergeants and a party of men to arrest any one whose papers were not in order. They brought in some ten or eleven, as far as my memory serves me. I speak particularly about a case which I recollect, because of the sergeants having been afterwards reported by me, along with some of the constables, of having been drunk and acting improperly. At Nouvelle Découverte they met with some Moka constables, with whom they got drunk, and began fighting together; several of them were afterwards severely punished. There was nothing special about the vagrants on this occasion.

"I cannot recollect why the prisoners were brought in.

"The corporal in charge of the prisoners was sober, but the sergeants were drunk."

The statement of Dilloo being read, and witness naked whether he ever knew of such a case, he replied, "No, an Englishman is incapable of such conduct.”

It results, therefore, from the evidence, that the inhabitants of a populons settle- ment arrested, on "this occasion," were ten or eleven in number, that Creole children were not amongst them, and were, consequently, not dragged to the police station.

That the reasons given for arrest in the Report are mere assumptions. That the evidence that the sergeants were drunk along with some of the men, while the corporal in charge of the prisoners was sober, is tortured into the assertion that the serjeants were drunk, and the men also.

It also results that the circumstances of the offending sergeant and constables having been punished severaly, is omitted in the Report. The fact is, that there was no case brought before the Commissioners, or any complaint made of Creole children, or any others, having been at any time arrested, during the night, in their parish houses. The only instance of arrest, in the house of their parents, was the very exceptional one of Dilloo; and the Magistrate, who knew about his case, having died, there was, unfortunately, nothing to go upon but the evidence of Dilloo, his sons, and Plevitz,-which varies considerably; and the "actes de naissance" of the children were not produced to the Commission.

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