CO882-(2-3) — Page 470

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference

TIILUC.O. 882

3

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

Colonial Office

Case, p. 11.

India Office Case,

Appendix E.

Colonial Oflee

Case, Appendix D

(Correspondence, &c., pp. 9, 10).

Colonial Office Case, p. 4

}

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course adopted by the War Department, would amount to about 5,5007, making, together with the value of the guns and carriages, 11,4991. It has been already submitted in the Colonial Office cure that this course would not do justice to the relative positions of the Colony and the Indian Government, but the course is valuable as supplying a minimum, below which, it is submitted, the claim of the Colonial Office cannot be cut dowD.

In addition to the Reasons in the Case thus explained and commented on, the Colonial Office now submits three other Reasons in support of its contention.

1. The India Office states that the Government of India acquiesced in the arrange- ment proposed by the Colonial Office in the letter of January 28, 1867, which, as already submitted, took the character of the property as the basis of apportionment assigning immoveable property to the Settlements, and after enumerating some property delivered up, adds:-"The orduance, barrack, and commissariat stores were not handed over, no instructions having been sent for their transfer." The India Office therefore admits that it did not attempt to apply to these stores the arrangement which it states the Government of India to have acquiesced in.

But if the arrangement' was good at all, it was good throughout. The principle should be applied throughout or rejected throughout. Whatever interpretation is to be put upon its past conduct and correspondence in reference to this alleged acquiescence, let the India Office be judged by its own present statement that the Government of India acquiesced in the proposed arrangement. The arrangement will then be applied to these ordnance stores, and the Colonial Office submits that they will all fall to the Colony as immoveable by destination.

2. The Colonial Office relies on the precedent offered on the transfer of St. Helena. 3. Lastly, it is submitted that if the value of these stores be considered, the conten- tion of the Colonial Office offers an apportionment which carries out more nearly than any other plan the equitable settlement of accounts spoken of as desirable by the Duke of Argyll in his letter of June 21, 1872.

The stores in dispute amount to 18,6221.

It appears from two letters of the War Office to the Colonial Office, one of August 4, 1868, and the second of November 6, 1868, that commissariat, barrack, and purveyor's stores, were also taken over by the War Department from the Indian Government to the value of 4,6207. This sum added to 13,0211., the value of the military stores taken over, makes 17,641. If, now, to this sum be added 3041., half the sum, 7091, already men tioned as paid by the Colonial Government to the Indian Government for certain iniscel- laneous stores taken over in 1868 by the Colonial Government, the amount will be 17,9441. value actually received by the Indian Government for stores forming part of the military establishment in the Straits Settlements which was kept up out of revenues of the Straits Settlements as well as revenues of India, and in which, therefore, as the Colonial Office contends, the Settlements had concurrent rights with the Indian Government. To this surn of 17,9441. something must be added for the stores not valued by the Committee, which remain with the Indian Government.

If, next, the most satisfactory figures available relative to the revenues and expenditure of the Straits Settlements previous to the transfer be consulted, the figures, that is, in the Report of Sir Hercules Robinson, upon the financial condition of the Settlements for the year ending April 30th, 1863,-the following results will be obtained :----

Straits Settlements Revenue

*

Local Government Disbursements

Sarplus

Military expenditure

Deficit

"

£

165,450

119,643

45.808

43,096

7,208

And if it should

may

be

showing, therefore 7,2931. to be made up from the Indian revenue. be considered that this is a single year, and unfair as a criterion, the results shown modified by the statement of Sir Ĉ. Wood on March 22nd, 1862, already quoted in the Case of the Colonial Office :-

"The revenue has, of late years, steadily increased, and there is even prospect of its continuing to do so. The expenditure, if that portion of it which is incurred for military defence be omitted, is considerably below the revenue.”

If, now, upon the basis of these facts a division be made, by which the Colony shall retain the ordnance stores in dispute to the amount of 18,6227., and the Indian Government

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shall retain the sum of 17,8441., together with unvalued stores, an apportionment will be arrived at, which the Colonial Office submits to the Arbitrator as equitable, and of which the India Office can have to right to complain, for the Indian Government will retain half in money and stores; and amidst the untrustworthy estimates with which the Colonial Office was compelled to rest content throughout the negotiations for the transfer, one point it is submitted stands out clear-that for some years before the transfer, the Straits Settlements contributed more than half the expenses of their military establishment.

For all these Reasons, the Colonial Office prays the Arbitrator to decide that there is no ground for the liability sought to be imposed by the India Office on the Colony of the Straits Settlements, but that the Colony is entitled to retain, free of charge, the armaments and stores which form the subject of this arbitration.

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