CO885-(1-2) — Page 138

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference :-

885

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

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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full length, as being the last-recorded justification of their proceedings.

1st, Because the general distress prevailing throughout the colony is so great, that it is utterly unable to continue the present rate of expen- diture.

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2nd, Because the general distress has not

been produced by the ordinary fluctuations of commerce, but by the acts of Her Majesty's Government.

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3rd, Because at the time the said civil list was renewed, the Colonial Legislature considered that the faith of Her Majesty's Government and of the Imperial Parliament was pledged to the exclusion of sugar produced by slave-labour, and they never contemplated the possibility of that faith being broken.

"4th, Because the compact for the renewal of the civil list having been violated by Her Ma- jesty's Government, is no longer binding on the colonists, and it is both unjust and unreasonable to expect the colony to maintain the compact, when by its violation on the part of Her Majesty's Government the resources of the colony have been so grievously curtailed.

It now only remains briefly to advert to Lord Grey's views, as shown by his despatch of the 1st September; which despatch, as already stated, having been received subsequently to the final stoppage of the supplies, was never laid before the Combined Court.

First then, Lord Grey adhered to the principle that the Combined Court could not in any way interfere with the civil list, either in detail or in the total amount; but reiterated his willingness to consider the reduction of it on the occurrence of vacancies, and stated that had the court moved an address to the Crown, the correct course, for a reduction of the new Governor's salary, it would have met with immediate attention, "though at the same time, his impression was that the finances of the colony rendered, with reference to the importance of the office, such a reduction uncalled for." "I am well aware," continues Lord Grey, "that the police establishments cannot be kept up, that the prisoners cannot be kept in the prisons, nor the convicts in the penal settlement; that the

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churches, with few exceptions, must cease to be served, and that the schools, the asylums for the poor, and hospitals must be broken up. These are

no doubt fearful issues, if they should indeed be brought about, but the responsibility will rest neither with you nor with me. It can only attach with justice, to those who, by persevering in the attempt irregularly to set aside a law deliberately assented to, may lead to such a state of things."

As to the political effect of the stoppage of the supplies, Lord Grey remarks, "The stoppage of the supplies would indeed, by putting an end to the civil list, involve the termination of the political arrangement which was to determine simulta- neously with it, and by law the colony would) revert to its old constitution, by which the fune tions of the Combined Court were limited to fixing the particular taxes to provide for an amount of revenue previously fixed by the Court

of Policy. But Her Majesty's Government have no desire or intention to re-establish this form of government without essential modifications. It is, no doubt, the form in which the power of the Crown would be the least under local restraint; but it is far indeed from the desire, and it is equally far from the interest, of Her Majesty's Government to exercise in British Guiana, or any other colony, any power which they can properly avoid to exercise. In these times it is for the interest of every Government, and especially con- ducive to their ease and relief, to devolve respon- sibility upon Local Legislatures, wheresoever there can be found any considerable body of the colonists capable of forming a constituency and control- ling the conduct of their representatives. If Her Majesty's Government forbears in any case to delegate the uncontrolled management of the affairs of a colony to local bodies, it is from the fear that it might thereby fail to acquit itself of the duty which it owes to the colonial community at large, and especially to those classes of its inhabitants which, from want of instruction, are incapable of securing for themselves, by the in- telligent exercise of political franchises, a real representation of their interests in the Colonial Legislature. When persons possessing education

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