§ MR. MICKLEM (Hertfordshire, Watford)To ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Colony of St. Lucia is the only West Indian Colony in which the subjects of the Crown have no legal remedy in respect of claims against the Government; whether instructions have been given by the Colonial Office to the Acting Governor of St. Lucia not to proceed with a Bill intended to extend to that Colony the provisions of the Petitions of Right Act, 1860; and whether the Government will consider the advisability of withdrawing such instructions and of promoting a Bill to give the same rights to British subjects in St. Lucia as are enjoyed in the other West Indian Colonies.
(Answered by Colonel Seely.) The Secretary of State has already formed the opinion that a Crown Suits Ordinance should be proceeded with in St. Lucia, giving the inhabitants of that Colony in future a right of suing the Crown analogous to that possesed under the common law by subjects in this country and regulated by the Petitions of Right Act, 1860; and he is now in correspondence on the subject with the Governor of the Windward Islands who is, at present, on leave in this country.