HC Deb 07 August 1867 vol 189 cc1042-4
SIR JOHN GRAY

said, he would beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether, having regard to the fact that in a Despatch from the Governor of Sierra Leone, bearing date the 22nd of March, 1867, His Excellency acknowledges the commission of a series of assaults upon Natives of the Colony by certain servants of the Crown, it is the intention of the Colonial Office to deny the protection of Trial by Jury in Civil Actions to the Native Population; and whether the attention of the Government has been called to certain judgments recently delivered in the Criminal Courts of that Settlement, in which the punishment awarded is said to have been in excess of and contrary to Law, and which are set forth in a Petition said to have been addressed to the Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs?

MR. ADDERLEY

, in reply, said, in the first place, it was untrue that a series of assaults had been committed by servants of the Crown in Sierra Leone upon Natives; and, in the second place, the assaults that had been committed had been effectually dealt with by the authorities on the spot. In some cases actions were brought, in which the aggrieved parties had received money by way of compromise. Assaults were, unfortunately, too common of whites against the negroes wherever the two races came in contact; but they had not been specially committed by public servants of the Crown. In one case, certainly, an assault was committed against a negro, under great provocation, by a person who happened to be a public servant, but the offence was fully punished. The Question of the hon. Gentleman conveyed the inference that, in consequence of those assaults, the Government had been led to give effect to the recommendation of the local authorities in respect to the abolition of Trial by Jury in Civil Actions. The Crown had, in fact, confirmed the local ordinance, which it was intended should be as serviceable to the negroes as to the whites. There was ample evidence to prove that this system of Trial by Jury in such cases had worked extremely ill towards all who were brought under its operation. With regard to the second part of the hon. Gentleman's Question, the Petition referred to was signed by fifteen persons, of whom the only known one was an editor of a newspaper. In no single instance had sentences been complained of by the prisoners, or any persons on their behalf. Nevertheless, the circumstances alluded to were certainly such as to demand the most serious investigation, which was now being carried on. He quite admitted that if Juries were done away with in Civil Actions, it was essential that the Judges should be men without spot as to their integrity and of undoubted capacity for office. The statement set forth in this Petition, so far as the facts had been investigated, contained many inaccuracies.