CO129-598-4 Salaries Commission 11-1-1947 - 5-12-1947 — Page 11

n

Alison Russell

The latter 34's Proste fearsting will

hat the S.) S. is unoble & advice HD), that the petition three be

? His Majesty's reply in due cowore shuld

be conveyed

again though the fremm

and not in direct

bethe

to (10).

Granted.

? copy 1 (11) and is enclosures had, I suppose,

the frames for disposal

Fol

at the same time.

Vuolen

3078

Dir Alison Russell

I am not quite happy es regaris the proceduzc proposed for dealing with the letter at No. 10 on this file.

The position is that, in No. 1, a petition was sent direct to the Secretary of State instead of through the Governor as prescribed. Normally, in such cases, the petition is sent to the Governor with a request for advice as to the reply which should be returned. In the particular circumstances of this petition, this procedure was dispensed with (quite properly I think) and in No. 4 the Governor was requested to inform the petitioner's solicitors that this is not a matter in which the Secretary of State would intervene.

Now, in No. 10, the solicitors have asked that the petition, with the supplementary submission made in No. 10, should be regarded as a petition to the King for the exercise of his residual prerogative, and I agree with the suggestion in your minute or the 20th August that the matter can now properly be dealt with on that basis.

But the question arises whether it should be so dealt with without first asking the Governor for a report (which we have not yet got)? I do not suggest that we should ask the Governor for a full report on all the circumstances of the case but that he should at any rate be asked for an assurance that he is satisfied that there are no exceptional features in this case which would make it inappropriate for the Secretary of State to advise His Majesty that the petition should not be granted.

Apart from the mere question or procedure, I am the more inclined to adopt this course because it does seem to me that the supplementary submission at in No. 10 is of a character on which the Secretary of State should have the Governor's observations before reaching a decision. If you agree, I should accordingly be very grateful for your advice as to how this issue should be put to the Governor in conformity with the passage marked X in the last paragraph of the first enclosure to the circular of the 12th December.

1.ix.

48.