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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference:

TLC.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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No. 91.

COLONIAL OFFICE to SIR J. POPE HENNESSY, K.C.M.G,

Downing Street, April 28, 1887. Wir reference to the letter from this Department of the 7th inst.* I am directed by Secretary Sir Henry Holland to inform you that as he is unfortunately prevented, owing to the daily sittings of the Colonial Conference, from fixing an early day on which to hear your defence, he thinks it might perhaps save time in the end if you could furnish written explanations on the points mentioned below.

2. I am to assure you that Sir H. Holland is most anxious to deal with the case and will give you a hearing at the first opportunity.

3. Meanwhile I am to request you to inform Sir H. Holland, in regard to your confidential despatch of 23rd January 1886+ impugning Mr. Ferguson's character, and to your despatch of the 30th August 1886, by whom and in what circumstances and at what time the reasons were pressed upon your attention after the elections which led you to recommend that Mr. Ferguson should not be nominated a member of the Council, and why, before so serious an imputation upon Mr. Ferguson's character was made, a previous opportunity was not given to him of defending himself.

4.. I am also to ask you to furnish any further explanations you may wish to offer regarding your unfriendly relations with the English officials, including the Admiral and the Officer Commanding the Troops.

5. Sir Henry Holland observes that portions of the correspondence and minutes which passed between you and Sir H. Robinson were published by you in the Mauritius news- papers, and as this proceeding was contrary to official usage the Secretary of State will

obliged by your explaining your reasons for so acting.

6. If you have any further comments which you wish to offer on the evidence taken by Sir H. Robinson, I am to request you to be good enough to send them in at your earliest convenience.

Sir J. P'. Henuesøy.

SIB,

I am, &c.

(Signed) ROBERT G. W. HERBERT.

No. 92.

SIR J. POPE HENNESSY, K.C.M.G., to COLONIAL office.

12A, Curzon Street, W., May 3, 1887.

1. I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 18th April,§ transmitting to me a copy of a despatch in which the officer administering the Govern- ment of Mauritius was instructed by the Secretary of State to inform me that my suspension by Sir Hercules Robinson has not in any degree prejudged or prejudiced the consideration of my case, and that Her Majesty's Government, in empowering Sir Hercules Robinson to adopt this course, had not any intention of the kind.

2. Whatever the intentions of Her Majesty's Government may have been, there is little doubt but that my interests, and the interests of the Colony, have been prejudiced by the course adopted. In addition to what I have written to Mr. Stanhope on this subject, I venture to point to the following facts.

3. On the 14th December 1886, I was Governor of the Mauritius with the usual rights and privileges, including a salary of 6,0001, a year attached to that office. On the 15th December I was suspended from office and salary, after some charges had been made and partly investigated, but before the defence was heard.

4. It seems now to be admitted that some mistake was inade in the method of procedure by which I was deprived of all salary. After I had been left in the Colony without any pay for more than a month, instructions were given to pay me half salary from the 15th of December inclusive; some part of the pay stopped was accordingly refunded to me, and I am now drawing half pay. But if the total stoppage of an officer's salary and bis suspension from office in any way prejudice his position, the order to refund him a part of the salary improperly stopped does not, I submit, repair the prejudice so created. But this is not all.

5. To guard against the irregular or unjust creation of such a prejudice, certain rules have to be strictly observed in proceeding to the suspension of any officer from office or

† No. 4.

‡ No. 23.

§ Not printed.

* No. 84.

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salary. In what way Sir H. Robinson was to app.y the concealed Commission of the 25th of September to the matters coming before him in Mauritius, was laid down for his guidance a few days after that Commission was signed, in the following words of the Secretary of State's instructions of the 29th of September 1886:

Your long acquaintance with Colonial administration, in all its forms, renders it unnecessary for me to instruct you in detail as to those parts of the Colonial regulations and of the Royal instructions which, under other circumstances, it would be desirable that I should refer to, as bearing upon the matters which will come before you."

6. The Colonial Regulations deal with many subjects, salaries, passage allowances, correspondence etc., but the parts of the regulations bearing on the exercise of the discretion entrusted to Sir Hercules Robinson were clearly those relating to the suspension of a public officer. Clause 83 is as follows:—

The following rules, unless the mode of suspension is otherwise provided for by some local law, must be strictly observed in proceeding to suspend from the exercise of his office any public officer who has been appointed by virtue of a commission or warrant from the Crown, or whose emoluments exceed 1007. a year."

7. The general scope of the regulations is that an officer's defence must be fully heard before any suspension can take place, and in clause 86 it is laid down that if witnesses are examined against an officer, a re-examination, or cross-examination of such witnesses on the officer's behalf must be allowed, and also that the officer must be given a copy of any documentary evidence used against him.

8. Was my defence received and considered before my suspension? Sir Hercules Robinson's letter of the 13th December 1886 answers that question :-" It-the suspension has been arrived at on general grounds which would not be affected by your defence." He adds:-" I presume you will not have it--your defence-ready "before I start on Saturday." And again he says:-

:-"If your defence is not complete "before Saturday, I would of course leave with you a copy of the whole of the " evidence." In a previous letter, 7th December, Sir Hercules Robinson had refused me a copy of the evidence. It is therefore clear that the fundamental principle of the Colonial regulations, (which is also a fundamental principle of justice) that the defence should be heard before an officer can be suspended, was set aside in my case.

9. It is also evident from Sir Hercules Robinson's letter of the 10th December, that he refused my request to be allowed to put questions to the witnesses he had examined against me, or to have them re-examined.

10. From Sir Hercules Robinson's report, dated 7th January 1887,* which I received from Sir Henry Holland on the 7th April, since my return to England, I now see that documentary evidence which was used against me, and to which he refers in bis report, had not been communicated to me before my suspension, nor since then until I asked for it on seeing the report a few days ago.

11. The inconvenience and injustice of setting at naught clause 86 of the Regulations have been perhaps abundantly established by the comments I have already made on the evidence of some of the witnesses to whose testimony Sir H. Robinson seems to have attached importance. For instance, the only stipendiary magistrate to whose evidence he specifically refers, and indeed the only official witness to whose sworn evidence he refers in detail, Mr. Hodgson-par. 69 of Sir H. Robinson's report-completely misled Sir Hercules Robinson, as a reference to my coinments on the evidence shows; and it is manifest that a few questions on my behalf would have opened Sir II. Robinson's eyes as to the real nature of the statements made by Mr. Hodgson.

12. The setting at naught the other part of clause 86, that relating to documentary evidence, was also inconvenient, and allowed Sir Hercules Robinson to fall into serious errors in his report. For instance, I now see for the first time certain returns and statements professing to classify the candidates and electors into those in favour of the Governor, and those opposed to him at the last election. No such classification existed at the time of the election. Every candidate who then mentioned the Governor did so in terms of praise. But if Sir Hercules Robinson had given me an opportunity of seeing the returns and statements, on which he bases paragraphe 60, 61, 62, and 63, and part of paragraph 100 of his report, I could at once have shown him how incorrect and entirely misleading are the returns and statements in question.

13. Another instance still more important of the inconvenience of keeping back from me documentary evidence on which I was condemned is that in connexion with a document referred to at par. 56 of Sir H. Robinson's report, the "letter of Dr. Beaugeard of the 11th December 1886." According to Sir Hercules Robinson's Report, that letter

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