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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

PERC.O.882/11

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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the Legislative Council of Mauritius, which was moved by the Senior Member for Port Louis.

2. I gather from the report of the discussion that further consideration of the When the questions involved was postponed until the next Session of the Council. discussion has been further advanced I shall no doubt receive from you a full expression of your views on the matters referred to in the resolutions presented to the Council, with a report on the extent to which the proposed changes command general acceptance; and for the time being I shall defer consideration of the general questions involved.

3. There are, however, two points on which I should be glad to have further enlightenment in due course. The first relates to the proposed alteration in the franchise. I gather that no sweeping reduction in the qualification for the franchise is proposed, and that the small amendment suggested is merely intended to meet local conditions. I shall be glad to learn what importance is attached to this amendment. In this connection it may be of interest to point out that in Ceylon, where the qualifi- cations for the franchise are somewhat lower in other respects than in Mauritius, a distinct educational qualification is required, since the voter must be able to read and write ther English, Sinhalese, or Tamil.

4. I observe that one of the proposals put forward is that the Senior Member of the Council should be appointed by the vote of his colleagues. I am not clear how far this suggestion is intended to be carried. Under the arrangement now in force in Ceylon the Governor no longer usually presides in the Council, his place being taken in ordinary circumstances by an elected Vice-President. The arrangement appears to be working smoothly in Ceylon, and subject to your observations I do not think there need be any objection to the adoption of a similar arrangement in Mauritius, if that indeed is the intention of the resolution.

I have, &c.,

57802/25.

SIR,

No. 7.

THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE.

(Confidential.)

(Received 24th December, 1925.)

[Answered by No. 8.]

L. S. AMERY.

Government House, Port Louis, 14th November, 1925.

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Confidential despatch of the 15th July* in regard to the motion for the unendment of the Legislative Council of Mauritius, and to inform you that since the opening of the new session the motion has been debated and passed by the Council of Government.

2. I enclose, for your information, verbatim reportst of the preliminary debate which took place at the meeting of the Council held on the 18th August and of the final debate when the motion was put and carried on the 1st September, together with I also attach a few Press a copy of the Procureur-General's report on the motion. cuttings which may be of interest.

"

Revisionist "

movement up

3. The origin and development of the so-called to the latter part of 1923 was reviewed in my predecessor's Confidential despatch of the 28th February, 1924,‡ and may be useful if, before discussing the component parts of the motion, I give a brief account of the history of the movement from the point at which it was left by Sir Hesketh Bell. In following the sequence of subsequent events, it will be horne in mind that the origin of the movement must be ascribed to a element to counteract the determination on the part of the coloured" or "* Creole increasing political power of the Indians in whom, it is alleged, particularist sentiment and racial aspirations are now being fostered and organised; whereas the Resolutions defining the aims of the "Revisionists "which are quoted in Sir Hesketh Bell's despatch and from which the present motion is derived, represent a later stage of development when the Elected Members of Council, who, with one exception, are Franco-Mauritians and apprehensive of "Creole " aspirations, had associated themselves with the move- ment and brought their influence to hear on its orientation.

4. The year 1924 was an unimportant one in the history of the movement and, so far as I am aware, no event of spécial significance in this direction took place. It

* No. 6.

Not printed here.

1 No. 1.

13

was not until the beginning of the present year that there was a recrudescence of marked activity on the part of the Revisionists," and simultaneously the topic was revived in the Press, or at any rate in two of the principal daily newspapers, namely "Le which interests and Le Radical, Mauricien," which is associated with "coloured represents the more liberal section of Franco-Mauritian opinion. Activity culminated in an attempt to organise a mass meeting on an imposing scale for the promotion of The date fixed was the 16th of March and the meeting the cause of "Revision.' was well advertised. It was held in Port Louis in the afternoon after the hour at which business offices, &c., normally closed, but the public attendance was meagre and derived almost entirely from the lower strata of the urban population. subsequently some dispute in the Press between the promoters and erities of the pro- ceedings as to the quality and quantity of the attendance, which was reported by the Police to have numbered about 200. That was the meeting to which I referred in my telegram of the 14th (? 15th) April.* and, although the affair was more or less a fiasco and afforded evidence of the indifference of the general public to the cause of "Revision,

a formal resolution was passed, as reported in my telegram, and it was entrusted to the Senior Member for Port Louis, who was present at the meeting, to bring the matter before the Council of Government.

A.

There was

An adverse current of opinion is nevertheless discernible from this point onwards, and, as may be inferred from the debate of the 18th August, certain of the Elected Members felt the temptation to shelve the motion until after the approaching general elections. I gathered subsequently that some would have gone so far as openly to oppose the motion had they not felt they had already pledged themselves by their adherence to the Resolutions of the "Mixed Committee," of which a copy is annexed. As will be seen, these Resolutions were drafted by a sub-committee including, inter alios, three Elected Members of Council, and were subsequently presented to and initialled by nearly all the Elected Members, Two members, I have reason to believe, did not initial the document, but I have no precise information as to I also gather that a by no means negligible the circumstances of their abstention. factor in the attitude of the Elected Members at this stage was their desire to avoid the hostile criticism which would doubtless have been directed against them by the It was only small but active group representing the original "Comité de Révision." natural that with a general election approaching Elected Members desirous of retaining their seats in the Legislature should have hesitated to expose themselves to an accusation of lack of zeal on behalf of a movement which could be represented as a popular cause. 6. The motion was accordingly brought before Council by the Senior Member for Port Louis on the 28th of April, as reported in my despatch No. 257 of the 16th of May.‡ and after being debated on the 18th of August and 1st of September was finally put as one whole motion and carried on the latter date. It will be noted that of the Nominated Indian Members, Mr. R. Boodhun voted for the motion, while Dr. A. Sakir did not put in an appearance at the meeting at which the vote was finally taken. I do not, however, attach great importance to the attitude of the two present Indian nominees and I will discuss the matter at a later stage in this despatch in its bearing on the Indian section of the community.

7. Turning now to the motion itself, I do not think that I need discuss the principle enunciated in Clause 1, which is in the nature of a preamble.

Clause 2 (a). In paragraph 4 of your predecessor's Confidential despatch of the 29th Mays it is stated that it is intended in Ceylon to appoint a certain number of Nominated Unofficial Members whose qualification would be that their presence in the Council is considered to be in the interests of the Colony generally. It is also stated that such members are free to vote as they think proper and that a similar arrangement would no doubt apply in the case of any revision of the Constitution of Mauritius. Freedom of vote is, in fact, an essential feature of the present motion and I do not think that it would be either practicable or desirable to attach any limiting conditions to this right, I may also mention that this is a point on which there appears to have 1 consider, however, that in the been complete unanimity of opinion throughout.

event of a change as contemplated, it would be desirable to limit the duration of the appointment of the Unofficial nominees possessing a free vote to two years in the first instance, the appointments to terminate automatically at the end of that period unless expressly prolonged by Government. Such a limitation would operate in accordance with the principle that the different interests of the various sections of the community should be represented as widely as possible. Moreover, as it is often difficult to judge in advance of the merits and abilities of any particular nominee as a member of the Legislature and it is undesirable that the Council should be saddled with an unsuitable

1 No. 5. † Not printed here.

* No. 3.

§ No. 2.

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