Maiden Speech

Mr. Speaker, Sir, I rise with some trepidation to make my contribution in this debate designed to help towards the solution of some of the problems facing the country. I have read carefully the Speech of His Excellency the Governor and my general impression of it is that it constitutes an admirable blueprint which will guide this House in its deliberations in the first session of this Third Legislative Council.

I personally feel that in this House we should devote our attention to the problem of the country in two directions. First, we must try to ensure that the present standard of living of the people does not fall. Secondly, we must provide for a rapidly increasing population.

Honourable Members speaking before me have laid stress, they have emphasized the ravage being done by unemployment, but so far none of them have suggested or tried to find out what are the causes of unemployment.

We, in the Labour Party, know fairly well that there are problems at dispensaries: lots of people are queueing up there and perhaps not having treatment in time. We know that in schools sometimes we are short of space. All these problems are there. We know quite well. But we are doing our utmost to tackle those problems and I think in this Address from His Excellency the Governor there are enough suggestions to meet the requirements of this country. We know that to maintain the present standard of living, one thing is essential: we should provide for more wages to the workers. That is why I request our friends, the Ministers, to give priority to the establishment of a Wages Council because Trade Unions are signing agreements with the employers on terms which are very unfair to the workers in general and also, because there is no appropriate trade union machinery, the workers have no other means of settling their problems. That is why I think Government should give priority to the establishment of a Wages Council. This is one of the means of maintaining the present standard of living of the workers.

Going through the Report of the Mauritius Chamber of Agriculture I find that the small planters produce less sugar per arpent than the millers. I do not quite know what are the reasons for this discrepancy. It is a large discrepancy of about twelve tons per arpent and I would suggest that the Minister of Agriculture should look into the matter and see to it whether by means of subsidy or some technical advice we could help them increase their production.

The next direction in which this House should give its attention is the population problem. I do not want to overemphasise this problem but still, I think, if we really are to provide, if we want to tackle the unemployment problem, we should pay some attention to the increasing population because I have a feeling that the progress that we will make through the Fiver-Year Plan will be easily nullified by the increased population.

Sir, I am in agreement with His Excellency the Governor's suggestion that we should not fritter away our energy and efforts. But, to my surprise, in this House, the Hon. Member for Rose-Belle spent a lot of time just criticising the programme. Personally, I feel that in a democracy we should allow, we should give everybody the latitude of criticising: but there are criticisms and criticisms. It is no use coming to this House and saying that this bad and that is worse without even suggesting how to bring about a solution to the problem.

It is my belief that at this juncture of our history, we should show more responsibility in dealing with the problems confronting the country. It is one thing to sit back and criticise and quite another thing to be inside and to run the whole show. I mean to say, Sir, that we expect constructive criticisms and not simply criticisms which are meant to destroy.

Maiden Speech in the Legislative Council, Tuesday 12th April, 1959.

Copyright Succession Keharsingh Jagatsingh