36
full, instead of being thinly attended as at present because the work would be more concentrated in proportion to their numbers.
December 11, 1889.
1495.
(Signed)
No. 18.
T. ERSKINE HALL, Colonel,
Commanding the Troops.
87
6. The committee, therefore, earnestly trust that your Lordship may see fit to disallow the resolution referred to, and to call for a further and due consideration of the whole question at issue, as desired (they are informed) by the great majority of the intelligent inhabitants of the Colony.
On behalf of the committee,
January 31, 1890.
(Signed)
FRED E. WIGRAM,
Hon. Secretary, Church Missionary Society. C. COLLINGWOOD, Major-General,
Lay Secretary, Church Missionary Society.
LORD KNUTSFORD to the OFFICER ADMINISTERING THE
GOVERNMENT.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
لسيسيليا
Reference :-
C.O. 882
5 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
TELEGRAPHIC.
January 28, 1890.-Forward at once debates in Legislative Council, religious grants.
2405.
No. 19.
THE CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY to COLONIAL OFFICE.
To the Right Hon. LORD KNUTSFORD, G.C.M.G.,
Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Colonies.
The MEMORIAL of the COMMITTEE of the CHURCH MISSIONARY SOCIETY. 1. The committee of the Church Missionary Society have learned with extreme surprise and regret that by a vote taken on a minute of Governor Sir J. Pope Hennessy on the 8th ultimo, on the eve of his departure, it was resolved by the Legislative Council of Mauritius (not, as it would seem, in accordance with the spirit of paragraph 5 of your Lordship's Despatch of September 20th last,* to Sir J. Pope Hennessy) to transfer to the Roman Catholic establishment more than one half of the whole Governmental contribution at present made for all purposes of the Church of England in that Colony.
2. Notwithstanding the very grave character of the measure (which affects a settlement existing for a quarter of a century), it appears to have been hurriedly passed through the Council, and apparently before the information called for by your Lordship in paragraph 6 of your Lordship's Despatch of September 20th* quoted above had been furnished.
3. The proposed measure, based upon the principle of a mere numerical majority, ignores the actual necessities of the minority, a branch of the mother church of the nation; and also confounds grants made for moralising Pagan immigrants with subsidies for the maintenance of established Christian congregations.
4. Without desiring that the Roman Catholic community should be treated with other than the utmost fairness, the committee feel constrained earnestly to protest against the transference to the Church of Rome of grants now made to the Protestant com- munity. The proposal for the transference in question proceeds, they are informed, from only a small section of the Roman Catholic population of the Island.
5. But, further, as the representatives of a missionary society which, at much expense of money and labour, has long and successfully endeavoured to aid the local Govern- ment in raising the moral and religious character of the thousands of British Indian coolies temporarily engaged in the Island, and wholly providing it with labour, the committee, especially deplore a course which will greatly cripple these efforts; and which also, by being apparently at once applicable to their agents, may necessitate the dismissal of well qualified and useful employés. It may be here stated that the Church Missionary Society has at present in connexion with it in Mauritius, three European ordained missionaries, four Indian ordained clergymen, 56 Indian lay teachers, and 2,351 Indian Christian converts.
• No. 8.
D
2085.
(No. 6.) MY LORD,
No. 20.
SIR C. C. LEES to LORD KNUTSFORD. (Received February 3, 1890.)
Government House, Mauritius, January 7, 1890.
I HAVE the honour to transmit, herewith, a letter to your Lordship's address from the Venerable A. D. Mathews, Archdeacon of Mauritius, and Bishop's Commissary on the subject of the distribution of the ecclesiastical grants.
The Right Hon. Lord Knutsford, G.C.M.G.,
2094.
&c.
&c.
&c.
No. 21.
I have, &c. (Signed)
C. C. LEES,
Governor.
SIR C. C. LEES to LORD Knutsford. (Received February 3, 1890.)
Government House, Mauritius,
January 8, 1890.
(No. 15.) MY LORD,
In continuation of my Despatch, No. 6, of the 7th instant, I have the honour to transmit to your Lordship, for the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, a meinorial from the Mauritius Diocesan Church Council and others, behalf of the Church of England in Mauritius, and protesting against the proposed redistribution of the ecclesiastical grants amongst the three Christian churches in this Colony.
2. I enclose, for your Lordship's information, a copy of the letter covering the memorial, which was addressed to me by the Venerable Å. D. Mathews, Archdeacon of Mauritius, as well as copies of Sir John Hennessy's minute of the 28th of November 1889, with its annexure, of Archdeacon Mathew's letters of the 26th and 30th of November, addressed respectively to the Colonial Secretary and to Sir John Hennessy, und of a further letter from Archdeacon Mathews to Sir John Hennessy dated the 2nd of December last to which allusion is made in the margin of the 5th paragraph on page 4 of the enclosed memorial.
I have, &c. (Signed) C. C. LEES,
The Right Hon. Lord Knutsford, G.C.M.G.,
&c.
&c.
SIR,
&c.
Enclosure 1 in No. 21.
Governor.
The Vestry, St. James' Cathedral,
December 31, 1889.
As your Excellency is aware, there seems to be impending over the Church of England in Mauritius some danger of her losing more than half her Government resources (ie., upwards of Rs. 21,000 annually), in consequence of the vote adverse to the Protes- tant churches introduced into the Estimates for 1890,§ and adopted, not without protest, just before the departure of Sir John Pope Hennessy.
⚫ See No. 11.
† See enclosures 2, 5, 6 and 7 in No. 12.
↑ No. 20.
Report, item No. 19.
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