English versus French

Mauritius Times – 70 Years

By Peter Ibbotson

Professor W. M. Macmillan, of St Andrews University, is an acknowledged expert on colonial development; his experience comes from years of “on the spot” study in the colonies themselves, as well as from a lifetime’s academic study. Anything he has to say, therefore, which may directly or indirectly impinge upon Mauritian affairs is worth careful study and consideration.

His latest book is The Road To Self-Rule, published some months ago. There is but one direct reference to Mauritius; and that is to the capture of Mauritius 150 years ago. But in two places he has references to a matter which indirectly refers to Mauritius. Writing of the actions of the Transvaal Boers in the mid-nineteenth century, when they proposed to expel surplus natives from Transvaal and dump them in Pondoland, he says: “The sequel to this more comprehensive washing of hands is a classic example of how a minority left to manage their own affairs can disregard the interests of their more numerous neighbours.” Later, Professor Macmillan says of the Boers that “the sheer physical isolation they won for themselves left them too much leisure to brood on real and alleged past wrongs”.

How do these refer — even indirectly — to Mauritius? In this way. Some Mauritians wish to impose the perpetuation of the French language on their more numerous fellow-Mauritians of other racial extraction. Left to manage their own affairs in South Africa, the Boers disregarded the interests and needs of their more numerous neighbours; so, it is with some Mauritians here. They want their own way in everything, and the rest of the nation can go hang. They hark back to the capitulation treaty to bolster up their claims that French must be clung to as an official language in Mauritius; they din it into everyone that by the capitulation the place of French was guaranteed forever.

Mauritius is an isolated island, and after de Lesseps had dug the Suez Canal, the country was even more isolated from the mainstream of world communications. Thus, it was that some people had years in which to entrench themselves; years in which the Constitution went unchanged, denying civic rights to the majority of the people. The franchise was for decades virtually restricted to wealthy Mauritians, whose “physical isolation” led to the persistence in Mauritius of a pre-Revolutionary conservatism, the persistence of the spirit of Bourbon France.

Because of this closed corporation of economic and political power, Mauritius stagnated. The stagnation prevented the emergence of any anti-capitalist party until Anquetil and Dr Curé founded the Labour Party less than thirty years ago. Had there been a popular movement in opposition to that group sixty years ago, the language controversy would have been settled by now; it would have been settled by mutual compromise. Instead, we have now a virulent controversy in which some people are digging in their heels, unwilling to make any concessions, unwilling to enter into a compromise; invoking the aid of French organisations and even the French Government in their desperate attempt to maintain the imposition of French upon the overwhelming majority of their fellow-islanders.

The rest of the populace is willing to make concessions; the non-French-speaking Mauritians do not wish to impose their own languages upon the whole colony; nor do they wish to abolish French entirely. What they do want is to have English given its rightful place — I say “rightful” deliberately and advisedly in view of the long quotation I gave last week from Dudley Barker’s book — in the schools and everyday life of what is, after all, an English colony.

It is worth reminding ourselves of the position in Seychelles, whose acquisition by England was similar to the acquisition of Mauritius. Mauritius capitulated in 1810; the terms of the capitulation were agreed on December 3. Under its terms, the French colonists kept their laws and customs and language; and the Roman Catholic Church was established by the Government, which it remains to the present day.

What of Seychelles? Unofficial news of the capitulation (of Ile de France, now of course Mauritius) reached Seychelles on December 23, 1810, but official news did not arrive until April 1811.

In 1815, Seychelles became part of the British Empire as a dependency of Mauritius. The laws, life, religion and language of Seychelles underwent no change — they remained French as before. The former French Commandant of Seychelles, the Chevalier Quéau de Quincy, was appointed first British Civil Agent, Commandant, and Judge; having served the French in Seychelles for 33 years; de Quincy continued to serve his new masters, the British. Today, French names predominate in Seychelles; look at any map of the islands; Thérèse Island, Ile Vache, Roche de l’Intendence, Anse Boileau, La Digue, Cap Maçons, Le Cap, Anse aux Poules Bleues, St Pierre, Bijoutier, Anse à la Mouche, Forêt Noire, Trois Freres, Morne Blanc, Cap Malheureux — all these, and many more, geographical names evidence the French occupation of the islands before the capitulation. Today, Creole is the vernacular; the only privately-owned newspaper Le Seychellois is published in both French and English. The Roman Catholic newspaper (twice a month) has a French title: L’Echo Des Iles. The metric system has been legally established for weights and measures.

Despite the predominance of French in these ways, however, English is the official language of the colony and is taught in schools and used from the First Standard as the language of instruction. There is a daily lesson in French. In recent years steps have been taken to improve the standard of English, including oral English; the steps have already met with success. Yet there has been no outcry comparable to that at present existing in Mauritius. The Seychellois are realists; they know that in the use of English lies their economic salvation.

In this matter it would seem that some people here have a lot to learn from their opposite numbers in Seychelles.

7th Year – No 312
Friday 19th August, 1960

Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 25 July 2025