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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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سلسل...

Reference :-

C.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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improved, that withdrawals had recommenced, and that you apprehended a further serious run upon the Bank On the 3rd of February you telegraphed that the Bank would be forced to suspend payment the next morning unless the Colonial Government afforded assistance, and on the 5th of that month you stated that you understood that the loan was immediately necessary in order to avert suspension and a consequent general catastrophe and that you had acted upon that under- standing.

5 Your despatch, No 54. of the 13th of February, fully endorses these statements. For example, you mention in paragraph 5 that during the last week in January the failure of a firm of brokers and estate owners and also of a number of Chinese retail traders created a general feeling of panic and resulted in renewed and continuing withdrawals from the Bank, and that on the 2nd of February Mr. Leclézio, on behalf of the Bank, called and informed you that a run had again taken place, that the cash in hand had been reduced to about Rs. 380,000, and that if the panic continued and assistance were not forthcoming the Bank would be compelled to close its doors. You also explained that Messrs. Ducray, Leclézio, and Ritter, had waited upon you on the 3rd of February and formally asked for an immediate loan of Rs. 1.000.000, and that the position, as stated by them, convinced you that, unless the run were stayed, the Bank would have to suspend payment at an early hour on the following morning.

6. It is accordingly with great surprise that I have read what was said by Mr. Leclézio at the meeting of the Chamber of Agriculture on the 11th of March, viz.: ** Le Gouverneur

a jugé qu'il ne pouvait pas faire autrement que de mettre un million à la disposition de la Banque, dans l'intérêt du pays, je ne dis pas dans l'intérêt de la Banque, car la Banque n'avait qu'à demeurer tranquille, à ne pas faire d'escompte, et voilà tout! Elle n'avait pas besoin d'argent. Si elle en a pris, c'est pour continuer à assister l'agriculture, le commerce, qui, autrement, auraient manqué de l'aide nécessaire pour marcher. Voilà pourquoi elle s'est addressée au gouvernement Le Gouverneur l'a compris, il a tout de suite vu qu'il était indispensable de verser ce million à la Banque afin que le mouvement contínue dans la colonie." If this statement is correct, it is clear that Mr. Leclézio and his fellow Directors misrepresented the situation to you, and by inducing you to believe that there was a most serious run upon the Bank. they obtained from the Govern- ment the sum of Rs. 1,000,000 to lend to the planters- thus obtaining from you that Government assistance for planters for which my predecessor had just decided that there was not sufficient justification.

7. In view of the seriousness of this allegation as regards both Mr. Leclézio himself as a member of the Executive Council and the Directors of the Bank, I should have been glad if you had commented upon it in forwarding the report of the meeting of the Chamber in your despatch, No. 85, of the 18th of March. As you have not done so, however, I have now to invite your attention to the matter, and I will await your observations upon it.

8. I should also be glad if you would send, with your reply to this despatch, statements showing the variations in the deposits in the Commercial Bank for the latter half of January and for the month of February.

23151

No. 60.

I have, &c.,

THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

(No. 160.)

MY LORD,

(Received 27 June, 1908.) [Answered by No. 65.]

CREWE

Government House, Port Louis, 24 May, 1908. IN continuation of my despatch, No. 130, of the 25th of April, I have the honour to transmit herewith revised extracts from the printed copies of the debate! in the Council of Government at the Special Session held on the Brd of that month. 2. I also transmit copies of the dissent of the minority from the decision taken

↑ No. 28. ‡ No. 39.

f No. 51. | No. 57. 1 Not reprinted.

• No. 26.

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on that occasion with regard to the question of inviting the appointment of a Commission of Enquiry, which was recorded at the following meeting of the Legis-

lature.

SIR,

I have, &c.,

Enclosure 2 in No. 60.

CAVENDISH BOYLE.

Annexure to Minutes No. 1 of 1908.

DISSENT FROM THE DECISION OF THE COUNCIL ON THE 23RD APRIL, 1908.

Presented by the Honourable A. DUCLOS.

WE beg to dissent from the decision arrived at by a majority of this Council on the 23rd ultimo, as we are of opinion that no effort should be wanting, no stone be left unturned, to enable this Colony to secure the benefit of a loan that will once for all place its sugar industry on a sound basis.

2. Our staple industry is now insecure, because in the past we have been visited with many calamities, altogether beyond our control, which are not likely to recur in the immediate future. We refer more particularly to the cyclone of 1892 which laid low our factories and our plantations, to the Surra epizootic of 1902 which laid low our draught animals-both of which calamities were of an altogether unprecedented nature in this Island. We also refer to the fact that our industry has had for so many years to fight its way against bounty-fed sugar, and we admit that the constant unrelenting efforts it had to make during that period have diminished its resisting power and impaired its vitality.

3. Smaller returns for the arduous work done have made it an impossibility to keep abreast of the wonderful strides made ahead by more privileged because State-aided-rivals, with the result that, in spite of every effort, the Mauritian planter has lost ground.

4. We bear in mind that during that same period, the British people have gained-in the estimation of the Royal Commissioners that reported on the West Indies sugar-cane industry-" probably more than two millions sterling yearly from the cheapening of sugar by bounties."

5. We note with satisfaction that three main causes of our industry's collapse which most undoubtedly have affected every one of those connected with the sugar industry, have now subsided almost entirely. The Hurricane Loan has been to a great extent repaid; the Surra cannot any longer affect most of the estates that are now covered with a network of rails; the Brussels Convention has, we trust, been accepted in its main principle for many years yet to come.

6. But although we are at last relieved from the accumulated weight of those respective burdens, we cannot, with our sole means, replace permanently our industry on a satisfactory basis. The reason is obvious; the three causes we have mentioned have had for their united effect to absorb by far the greater portion of the reserves which in better years the planters had laid by.

7. Now we know what we have to do to further our industry, and keep up pace with the rest of the sugar-producing world, but to effect this we want cheap money. The fact is that we have none, and shall have none unless the Secretary of State at last lends a willing ear to our repeated demands.

8. We thought, Sir, that the Crown Minister "would have been generous in discharging the obligations of the mother country to one of those Dependencies that suffered so severely from the operation of the bounty system," and this is why we sought for assistance and applied not for a dole but for a loan, with the full belief that the transaction, if agreed to as asked for, would have proved a profitable one for all concerned. We had given for that purpose all the information we honestly believed was would have been deemed-sufficient to secure that end; and this may account for the fact, when we were in presence of what was held by some of us as a disguised refusal, that the majority of our colleagues, in an hour of dismay, believed it was useless to insist, at least for the present, for what is held at Downing Street to be "so much opposed to the traditions of British Administration.”

9. We of the minority are not of that opinion. We hold that the presumption above-mentioned can be rebutted shall be rebutted by all the facts we have to lay

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