CO882-(2-3) — Page 467

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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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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Appendix D.

Colonial Offich

Case, Appendix C (Copies, &c., p. 35). India Office Case, p. 3.

Appendix E.

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garrison of Her Majesty's Colony of Labuan. For 1859-60, the sums disbursed from the local treasuries had advanced to 54,9661., but the public statements afford no explanation of the causes to which this large increase is attributable.”

To this may be added the unimpeachable testimony of Mr. Merivale as to the intricacy of the Indian accounts. The following question and answer appears in his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons, which sat in 1861 on Colonial Military Expenditure :-

"Q. 2464. Can you tell me, with regard to that portion of the Indian territory called the Straits Settlements, whether they pay their own expenses ?-A. The accounts are so mixed up that it is not very easy to disentangle them. My impression is that they do not quite pay their civil and military expenses. They pay their civil expenses, but they are aided by the Indian Government in respect of their military."

It is admitted by the India Office that the revenues of the Settlements had contributed largely for many years previous even to 1861, to the expenditure described by Sir Charles Wood as incurred for nilitary defence; military defence, it must be remembered, regulated by Indian administration with a view to the general objects of the Indian Empire. Now, the Case of the India Office points out that the Committee of Valuation valued many of the guns in the settlements at 50 and 20 per cent. below cost price, and some at the cost of old iron. The natural inference from this valuation is, that these guns must have been long in position in the Settlements, and therefore during many of the years in which the Settlements contributed largely to the military defence, and the Colonial Office submits that, according to any system of Budget-making equitably representing the relations of the Indian Government and the Straits Settlements, such guns ought, long ago, to have been marshalled against these contributions of the Settlements towards military defence; in priority, the Colonial Office submits, to the pay, the cost of provisions, and the contingent expenses of the troops detached from the Madras Presidency; and certainly in priority-if the allegations of the merchants of the Settlements are to be trusted-to the pay, allow- ances, and provisions of the men forming the garrison of Her Majesty's Colony of Labuan. Now, the claim of the India Office admits that the guns have not been so marshalled. The budget system, therefore, adopted by the Indian Government, can be treated, in regard to this matter, only as a species of book-keeping, and when its complication, as noticed by the Duke of Newcastle, the merchants of the Settlements, and Mr. Merivale, is borne in mind, it is impossible not to suspect that under it, "by a certain amount of selection," to use the words of the Duke of Newcastle quoted above, any item might be made to appear in either budget. The Colonial Office, therefore, submits that the budget basis put forward by the Indian Government does not supply a fair basis of apportionments. VII. In the next place, the Case of the India Office, the Colonial Office conceives, in stating what took place at the transfer, "er relatione Major-General Arthur Cavanagh," is When a person is vouched for a transac- calculated to convey an erroneous impression. tion, the ordinary presumption is that he was present at the transaction for which he is so vouched. But Major-General Arthur Cavanagh had left Singapore in the middle of March 1867, before the transfer, and before the arrival there of Colonel Ord. The actual state of things will best be made clear by setting out in full the despatch written by Colonel Ord to the Colonial Office immediately on his arrival at Singapore

"My Lord,

"Government House, Singapore, 22nd March, 1867. "I have the honour to report my arrival in the Straits Settlements on the 14th instant, on which day I landed at Penang.

"2. I found there a private letter from General Cavanagh, acquainting me that, having received no official intimation of his intended supercession in the Government, he had made his arrangements for leaving Singapore on the 14th instant, and that he should proceed in the Government steamer to Penang where he should take the mail to England, for the few days during which the Settlements would remain under the India Office the charge of the Government would, of course, be vested in the senior Resident Councillor (then at Penang) Lieutenant-Colonel Man.

"3. General Cavanagh having thus fixed his departure from Singapore for the day before that on which it was possible that I could arrive there, I could only leave a letter for him at l'enang, expressing my regret that I should be deprived of the benefit of bis assistance and co-operation on which I had counted, and which Her Majesty's Government anticipated he would have afforded me in the various arrangements that would be required previous to the transfer of the administration from the India to the Colonial Government. pointed out that as he could not quit the Settlements until the departure of the English mail about the 24th or 25th instant it would not be possible for me to have even such assistance as could be afforded by Lieutenant-Colonel Man, on whom the administration

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would eventually devolve, and that in view of the great inconvenience which must be experienced if there were no person at Singapore possessing authority to act on behalf of the Governor, it appeared to me advisab e that he should at once authorize Lieutenant. Colonel Macpherson, the next Settior Officer in the Straits and Resident Councillor at Singapore to represent him in everything connected with the transfer during the fourteen days that would elapse before it could take place.

"4. I arrived at Singapore on the 16th and found Lieutenant-Colonel Macpherson, though without any instructions from General Cavanagh, quite prepared to do everything in his power to further the intentions of Her Majesty's Government with respect to the transfer, and having shown him the despatches addressed to me on the subject, I have received from him every possible assistance in the work, and have reason to hope that no impediment or even serious inconvenience will result from the unfortunate absence of the Governor."

Possibly, even probably, had General Cavanagh, who had afforded "useful informa⚫ Colonial Office tion and assistance to the Colonial Office "during the inquiries and negotiations which Case, Appendix E, preceded this transfer," and who must have been the depositary of the views of his p. 22, Government, been allowed to remain to conduct the transfer in person, be would have communicated these views to the incoming authorities. His absence is the more to be regretted as his accurate language in his letter of July 11, 1867, in speaking of the Ibid., Appendix I, "transfer of the civil government to the Colonial Office," and the contrast he draws in p. 23. regard to the military arrangements, show that he was alive to the dual administration of the Colonial possessions of the Crown by the Colonial and War Departments, which complicated the transfer and rendered necessary a full communication of views by the outgoing to the incoming Government. As it is, the India Office in its Case does not suggest that such communication was made, and the Colonial Office can find no record of such communication. Any disadvantage, therefore, arising from the course adopted must, it is submitted, fall upon the India Office, as its officer in departing from the Settlements at this juncture must be presumed to have acted under instructions from his Government, given notwithstanding the special request of the Colonial Office in the letter of January 28, 1867, that the Secretary of State for India would instruct Colonel Cavanagh to afford Colonel Ord every facility he might require for inaugurating the new Establishment on the Colonial system.

There having, therefore, been no communication from the India Office to the Colonial Office, or from the Indian Government to the new Governor of the Colony, of the principle of apportionment which the Indian Administration considered itself entitled to adopt as to the military stores, the consequent misunderstanding will be easily accounted for by reference to General Cavanagh's letter of July 11, 1867, just mentioned. Under Ibid. the administration of the Indian Government the military forces in the Settlements consisted of infantry and artillery detached from the Madras Presidency. It appears from General Cavanagh's letter that up to the date of the transfer of the Civil Government no arrangements had been made for the relief of these troops, and that consequently no slep had been taken for the transfer of the military stores, and that these stores remained under the charge of the Departmental authorities which had previously had charge of them, but at the disposal of the officer commanding an officer, after the withdrawal of the Indian Government, under the War Department. General Cavanagh's letter is corroborated by information received by the Colonial Office from the War Office that the Madras troops continued for some time after April 1, 1867, to serve in the Settlements under a temporary arrangement between the War Office and the India Office. On April 1, 1867, therefore, Ibid., Appendix G. there being no transfer of military stores from one set of authorities to another, no question arose as to the rights of the Colony in those stores. That question could arise only upon the actual transfer of military stores from the Officers of the Indian Government to the Military Store Officer appointed by the War Office, and, in fact, was brought to the notice of the Colonial Office only when the proceedings of the Committee of Valuation appointed in November 1867, and forming one link in the arrangements between the India Office and the War Office for this transfer, were communicated by the War Office to the Colonial Office in August 1868.

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VIII. Leaving now the transfer, the next point for discussion is the Committee of Valuation.

The India Office evidently considers this the strong point in its favour, for it has devoted to the point the whole of its Case, except the first page, and appears to place great reliance on the part taken by the Colonial Office in regard to the Committee as an admission of the justice of the claim of the Indian Government.

Here, again, the India Office has placed the Colonial Office in a difficulty in replying,

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