PROBLEMS ON MAURITIUS

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27340, 4 May 1954, Page 6

PROBLEMS ON MAURITIUS

UNREST ON SUGAR ISLAND TENSIONS OF COLOUR AND CASTE (From a Reuter Correspondent) LONDON. Britain has shelved, for the moment, her next colonial problem- Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean. The Hindu plantation workers who have wrested power from the French estate owners are asking for “greatei political self-expression.” They wan to send a delegation to London. Th Colonial Secretary, Mr Oliver Lyttle ton, has, however, refused to receivthem, on the grounds that they hav< not been specific enough. Mauritius is split vertically by rac' and horizontally by class. In an are* of only 720 square miles, she is saic to have more colour and caste tensions than in any other British territory. Behind the* move to send a mission to London is the Hindu-dominated Labour Party which, in the widened franchise of the first “popular” elections in 1948, suddenly ended the political regime of the French “aristocracy,” whose families have run the sugar island since Britain took it from Napoleon. The elected majority in the Legislative Council changed overnight from French to Indian Mauritian. Politically, the 12,000 “nobility,” whose capital and brains made Mauritius prosperous, went out like a snuffed candle. Accused of living in an atmosphere of pre-revolution France, they saw that they must fight or abandon for ever the privileges they had known so long. Their leaders formed the Rallieipent Mauricien to com oat the “danger oi being swamped” by the 243,000 Hindus, descendants of indentured labourers brought to the island when slavery was abolished. They appealed for help to the 150,000 coloured people, the .69,000 Indian Moslems and the 16,000 Chinese. But at the next election, in August last year, the < Labour Party’s victory was consolidated. They lost only one of their 14 seats among the 19 elected members of the Legislative Council. “Checks and Balances”

Sir Hilary Blood, then Governor, availed himself of one of the “checks and balances” of British Colonia) Government.’He chose most of his 12 nominated members from among men who are opposed to the Labour Party—including five Frenchmen and two Moslems. The Hindus angrily pro tested that the verdict of the people was being “set aside.” If the Hindus were in the majority in any* delegation coming to London, they would be sure to ask for the abolition of the literacy .qualification, the ■ only barrier preventing further large numbers of their race from voting under universal suffrage. They wdlila also be likely to press for the number of elected members in the Legislative Council to be increased from 19 to 25. If they had their way, the constitution of Mauritius would begin to resemble the one which came to grief in five months in British Guiana. Britain wants to hear the views of the other sections of-the population who are opposed to changes. The Franco-Mauritians dread the prospect of universal suffrage, for it means their total eclipse?—handing over the colony to a racial majority which must go on increasing as the standard of education rises. The Labour Party stands for the nationalisation of sugar, the docks and the banks. All these belong to the Franco-Mauritians.