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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

H

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duly sent (in triplicate) to his Excellency the Governor on the 5th instant for trans- mission to your Lordship by the outgoing mail, and which will doubtless arrive in due course of time.

To the Right Hon. Lord Knutsford,

&c.

&c.

&c.

Her Majesty's Secretary of State

for the Colonies.

I have, &c. (Signed)

P. S. MAURITIUS.

To the Right Hon. LORD KNUTSFORD, &c. &c. Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies.

MY LORD,

Mauritius, St. James' Vestry,

August 5, 1889. We much regret to have to trouble your Lordship upon ecclesiastical matters; but the duty seems urgent, and is forced upon us from without.

Seychelles. No. 10 of 28/1/1889.

2. In the beginning of last May the (Anglican) Bishop of Mauritius received from his Excellency the Governor a copy of your Lordship's Despatch noted in the margin. That document sanctioned the addition of Rs. 1,000 per annum to the salary of the Roman Catholic Vicar Apostolic of the Dependency of the Seychelles: but it declined to allow (as had been requested) three new stipends of Rs. 750 each per annum for other Roman Catholic priests there. Its last paragraph, however, added that "when a vacancy occurs in the office of the [Church of England, Seychelles] chaplaincy the question of transferring a portion of the salary now attached to it, to the Roman "Catholic Church, will be considered."

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3. Postponing at present our remarks on the merits of this case we would at once explain to your Lordship that this proposed contingent" consideration" of the question has been interpreted by some in this Colony to signify an accomplished fact. Accordingly on the retirement of the Rev. R. de Carteret, Civil Chaplain of Vacoas, a few weeks ago, a proposition based upon a petition signed by about 200 members of the Roman Catholic community was brought forward at a meeting of the Legislative Council on the 9th ultimo. In it was advocated the introduction into Mauritius of the principle thus brought forward as to the Seychelles, by the transfer to the Roman Catholic clergy of the appointments from time to time vacated by the death or retirement of Protestant ministers salaried by Governinent.

4. This motion, however, was withdrawn from discussion at the request of his Excellency the Governor, before it had been seconded, with a view first to obtain your Lordship's instructions. And by the mail of the same week the Bishop of Mauritius forwarded through the local Government a request for the suspension of action in this matter until the position of the Church of England could be duly explained. As the office bearers of the representative" Diocesan Church Council" we now respectfully beg to submit the following considerations to your Lordship's impartial judgment, on behalf of the Church of England in this Colony and its dependencies.†

5. The demand now put forward is not (as far as we are aware) supported by the "Catholic Union," the body which claims to represent the Roman Catholic community; uor ostensibly by the authorities of that church. The "Catholic Union" indeed could scarcely do so consistently; for in their memorial to Lord Carnarvon, and their commu- nications to Governor Sir A. P. Phayre in 1878, when applying (successfully) for an increase to their establishment, they deprecated all idea of being actuated by feelings of jealousy, or of wishing to trench upon the grants to other communions, which they adinit are not in excess of actual requirements. But the proposition now in question does once again introduce the often refuted argument of apportioning the governmental aid to the Christian churches simply "according to the number of their adherents."

The fallacy and unfairness of taking numbers as the sole, or even principal, factor in the apportionment of State grants to different churches, the circumstances of which bear no merely numerical proportion to each other, scarcely requires to be pointed out afresh. There is a mininium of cost and agency below which no establishment of any kind can be maintained; and although the staff of Church of England clergymen

† But Vide also Postscriptum, See Appendix B.

• See Appendix A.

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could perform divine services to much larger congregations, a reduction in their number would leave many of the 50 organised congregations now worshipping in her churches and chapels in this island without clerical ministrations of any kind.

7. But we would respectfully press upon your Lordship's attention that it is necessary to decide the ground on which this and similar questions in this Colony are to be settled. Is it to be one of a merely numerical strength of denominational constituency ? or that of the requirements of Christian churches? or that of larger and further reaching principles. If the last, then we respectfully but firmly express our conviction that the best of our fellow residents in this Colony, to whatever class, nationality, or forin of worship they belong, have the same desire, as ourselves (though they may not always express it), that true British and liberal ideas in religion, as well as in education and politics, should be fully represented in Mauritius. To impose these on any we have neither the wish nor the opportunity; but to represent them adequately we cannot but believe to be alike the wisdom of the Government and the real desire and necessity of the people, whether of the "general," or of the preponderating "Indian" community. 8. If any such representation is to take place it must be duly made; and, as has already been stated, the existing number of Protestant clergy aided by Government is at its minimum.* It is superfluous to explain that, in the peculiar circumstances of this Colony, to transfer to another and (confessedly) unfriendly church any salary lapsing by death or retirement would be (in our view) to inflict upon the whole Protestant community a double wrong. Yet this is what is contemplated in the motion now

under consideration.

9. If, however, Her Majesty's Government is unwilling (which we cannot bring ourselves to suppose) to maintain an adequate representation of the principles referred to, the only logical alternative, we respectfully submit, is to have regard to the fact that nearly three quarters of our population are non-Christian, and that all State aid to the Christian churches as such must cease. The difficulties which such a measure would cause to the Protestant community here must be very great; and it would also inevitably result, in the present circumstances of the Colony, in placing the whole Roman Catholic population in the hands of the Jesuit body. For such an issue we believe that the Colony is wholly unprepared.

10. The remarks which we have made with reference to Mauritius apply with at least equal force to the dependency of Seychelles, where there is but one Protestant minister on the establishment, with the modest stipend of Rs. 3,000 per annum. Moreover, on any lower figure than this, it would be absolutely impossible to obtain a clergyman qualified by a knowledge of both the English and French languages for the varied and heavy duties connected with his office in that increasingly important dependency of many islands. In this instance, also, it is to be borne in mind that the work of Christian civilisation and of education was entirely begun by the Church of England; and that at no former period has that church been working more effectively than at the present, or at greater expense as to private resources.§

11. We respectfully submit these remarks to your Lordship in the full assurance that Her Majesty's Government will give them their impartial and favourable consider- ation and disallow any such transfer of vacant appointments as the proposition referred

to would introduce into this Colony and its dependencies.

We have, &c.

(Signed)

P. 8. MAURITIUS, President.

T. ERSKINE HALL, Colonel, Vice-President.

JOHN FRASER, Vice-President.

POVAH AMBROSE, Vice-President.

A. D. MATHEWS, M.A., Vice-President, Archdeacon.

J. A. FERGUSON.

H. D. BUSWELL, Hon. Sec.

POSTSCRIPTUM.

Diocesan

Church Council.

I entirely concur, and am grateful for the opportunity of subscribing my name."

GEORGE MCIRVINE, M. A., Chaplain, Church of Scotland.

(Signed)

• See Appendix C.

† See Appendix D.

↑ See Appendix E

§ See Appendix F.