CHINESE EMIGRATION AND THE DECK PASSENGER TRADE 81
Until the treaty port era that began with the Treaty of Nanking 1842, most Chinese emigration was voluntary, and mainly to South-east Asia. Then the situation changed. Almost coincident with the opening of the treaty ports and the expansion of foreign shipping on the coast, a widespread demand for cheap labour arose in many parts of the tropics, to replace the recently emancipated slave labour, and also to supply the additional workers required for the increased agricultural and industrial development which followed the establishment of European administrations. In many of these places contract labour from China provided the solution.
Much of the contract labour was voluntary; but many thousands of the Chinese emigrants to the Spanish and ex-Spanish colonies of South America and the West Indies were kidnapped, abducted by unscrupulous crimps, or sold by cruel or poverty-stricken relatives. The coolies themselves were not always blameless, and many accepted engagement money and then failed to turn up at the collecting centres, or absconded before joining the ship. The labour agents employed by the centres received a capitation fee for every coolie they delivered at the coast, and were specially active during famines and depressions. In 1853 the capitation fee was three dollars per head, but in addition these agents often appropriated any money advanced to the coolies on the score of defraying expenses, and also charged them with the capitation fee, maintenance costs at the depot, and other expenses. As a result the unfortunate coolie often found himself saddled with a heavy debt which might amount to several months' wages before he ever set foot on the promised land. But whether voluntary or forced, the coolies were herded into wretched barracoons at the coast while waiting for their ship, and then suffered great hardship and cruelty on the voyage. In spite of repeated protests, British ships and Hong Kong played an invidious part in this infamous traffic in the early treaty port years.
However, the British government soon made attempts to ameliorate the abuses of the emigrant trade but only succeeded in diverting much of it to other ports such as Whampoa, Macao, Cumsingmoon, Amoy, and Swatow. The Chinese Passengers' Act, passed in 1855, prescribed certain standards of food, accommodation, medical attention, and so on; and two years later a