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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :~~

C.O. 882

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

4 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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what is suited to their wants; and the 3,500 Chinese retailers, a very isolated section, know their own affairs. These separate classes are not bound to those beneath them by any tie of common origin or relationship, or by identical interests. None of them represent what I may call the aboriginal lower class of the island, namely, the 28,000 descendants (I am now speaking of male adults) of the slaves of former times, while still less do any of them represent the main factor of the population, the 111,000 men of Indian race, the immigrant class, deriving from Hindostan by birth or blood.

be 4. This petition only reached me yesterday, and the committee desire that it may despatched by to-day's mail. I am not, therefore, able to give a proper analysis of the signatures, but that it is powerfully supported, there can be no doubt. Of the four unofficial members of the Council of Government whose names figure on the title page of the report appended to the petition, I notice that one (the Honourable H. Pitot) has withdrawn his support, and it may be remarked also that the editor of the "Cérneen " (considered the leading newspaper of the island) has not signed. Among the planting class there are numerous abstentions, for the committee inform me that 79 planters have signed, whereas there must be about 300 resident in the island. But the petition has been very strongly supported by professional and other gentlemen, and by the various classes of shopkeepers and employés. These sections of the community appear I also see the names of about to have contributed nine-tenths of the signatures.

160 Chinese and Arab traders, and between 200 and 300 Indians. The committee state that they have intentionally abstained from asking Indian immigrants to sign the petition.

5. The causes which have led to this petition deserve examination, and should be taken into account.

6. It must be remembered that the cultivated and educated class in this island is numerous, considering the smallness of the community. The extraordinary richness and prosperity of Mauritius, and its long settled law and civilization, have nourished an island aristocracy, which is, perhaps, without example in any country of similar extent, for its numbers, its social refinement, and its intelligence and activity of mind, Our planters have neither been ruined by events, nor are they, as in some other sugar growing colonies, an absentee class. As a rule, they live on their estates, and many of them belong to families of old date, amongst whom, the soil of the island has for generations been held and passed under the French Code. Our merchants trade on a great scale with many parts of the world, and are men of high commercial ability and standing. Our bar is equalled in few English Colonies, in most of which gentlemen are locally admitted to practice before the Courts, and attorney's and barrister's business is done by the same person. In Mauritius, the attorney and the barrister are as sharply distinct as at Westminster, and no advocate can practice before our Supreme Court, who is not also qualified to practice before the Imperial Courts of Judicature, The medical profession here is similarly well manned, not by practitioners who have emigrated because they have failed to make their way in England, but by gentlemen of island families, who have been sent to Europe in their youth to be educated in the schools of London, Paris, or Edinburgh. As for the local press, it is enough to say that Port Louis boasts seven daily morning journals, a number significant of the heterogeneous population, and not equalled, I believe, in any Colonial town. These newspapers are carried on in an island cut off (except on the day of the arrival of the monthly European mail or of any chance vessel) from the rest of the world; and they have thus to subsist on local news, that is to say, mainly on the doings of the Govern- ment, which, as may be supposed, is sharply watched and criticised.

7. To satisfy the political aspirations and ambitions of this busy, bustling, upper section of our society, there are only the eight unofficial seats in the present Council of Government, The Crown appoints to these, and they are nominally tenable during pleasure. As a matter of fact, a councillor is never removed, and the present unofficial members have held their seats for periods varying from a quarter of a century to 13 years. It is no wonder that objections to such an inelastic council should arise amongst the educated and cultivated classes I have described, many of whom must feel a natural desire for the direct power and authorised voice in the state, which their equals, as members or electors of legislatures, possess in most parts of the Empire.

8. Other causes have contributed to procure support to this petition at the present time. Among these I would place the many important questions which have come to the surface of our local politica during the last two or three years, the offer of responsible government lately made to the Colony of Natal, the close proximity of republican institutions in the neighbouring French island of Réunion, and the recent movement in favour of a municipality for Curepipe. This municipality, I should note,

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was much urged in the press, and by the leaders of the present petition; but Curepipe itself, when consulted, emphatically declined to have anything to do with it, a fact which is quoted as showing that the voices of ardent newspaper writers and reformers are not to be taken for public opinion in Mauritius. In the report annexed to the petition, some action of the Government is also mentioned as matter of complaint. The delay in the settlement of the financial part of the reforestation scheme, the nature of that scheme itself, the question of an increased subsidy to the Messageries Mari- times Company, and the question of the fourth Judge of the Supreme Court, are referred to. Before proceeding further, I will remark upon each of these matters.

9. The financial part of the reforestation scheme was a large and difficult transaction, and it is not strange that its settlement occupied some months. It is now entirely arranged. As regards the reforestation scheme itself, it was no Government measure, but a popular boon, pressed upon the Government for years by all classes; and I believe the objection raised, refers solely to the slowness of the forests lands purchases, slowness caused by the protective machinery insisted upon by proprietors. This has been the occasion, as I admit and regret, of inconvenience to some landowners. I have done, and am doing, my best to quicken proceedings, but I cannot move faster than the law allows. With regard to the additional subsidy to the Messageries Mari- times Steamship Company, this has just been allowed by your Lordship, a fact of which the petitioners were not aware. The Fourth Judge of the Supreme Court was granted three years ago by your predecessor, at the instance of the Council of Government. The report seems to say that a fifth Judge should also have been appointed; but I feel sure that this is the opinion of a few persons only. I think there is force in what is said in the report as to the ill-result of not filling the place of a Judge going on leave, and I have lately submitted a recommendation on this head to your Lordship. It may be remarked that these questions of appointments and expenditure were not affected by the constitution of the Council. No council could have done more than the present Council did, namely, ask for the Judge, and vote for the subsidy.

10. No other specific acts of the Government are complained of by the petitioners; but some general statements are made, and it may be proper that I should notice them. Mr. Raoul, it will be observed, referred in his speech at the meeting to legislative measures "qui feraient tache dans le code de lois de tout peuple civilisé." I have personally asked Mr. Raoul what measures he alluded to, and he has informed me that he alluded only to the article of the labour law (Ordinance No. 12 of 1878) giving the Governor the power, which there has as yet been no occasion to exercise, to remove immigrants from an estate, when the employer has been convicted under the law four times in two years. This article is the 287th part of one legislative measure. Then again, Mr. Ambrose, one of the principal merchants of Port Louis, who moved a resolution at the meeting, is reported to have spoken as follows :--

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"I have no hesitation in stating that, under our present political constitution, the "control of this Colony over its affairs and finances is absolutely nil, for, whatever may be the zeal of the unofficial members of the present Legislative Council, whatever "may be their praiseworthy desire to oppose any legislation which they may consider as detrimental to the interests of the Colony, or repugnant to the feelings of its "inhabitants, their efforts, even if united, are powerless in the face of the equality " and unanimity of the official vote backed by the casting vote of the Governor."

Anyone reading this passage would be surprised to hear that of 131 laws, many of them of great importance, passed by the Council of Government during the last five years, 125 were passed without any adverse unofficial vote. Three Ordinances received one adverse vote; two received two adverse votes; and one (the temporary law of last year, extending for five months the operation of the unanimously voted Ordinance authorising the proclamation of forest lands) was objected to by four of the eight unofficial members. During the last five years, from the 1st of January 1878, the Governor has not once used his original vote in the Council, and has only had to give his casting vote on two occasions of no particular importance. During the same period, there have been 59 divisions taken in the Council. I enclose, for your Lordship's information, an analysis of these divisions, from which it will be seen that, in one division only, upon Article 284 of the Labour Law of 1878, was the matter at issue "a government question." As a fact, the official members were found voting for and against the question in 43 divisions, in which they opposed the Government in numbers varying from 1 to 4. On the other hand, I find that in 57 out of the 59 divisions, unofficial votes were recorded on the Government side, in numbers varying from 1 to 7. On two occasions only, and those quite unimportant, were no C 4

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