CHINESE LABOURERS.
No. 8.
256
PAPERS RELATIVE TO EMIGRATION OF
That even in the island of Antigua, where the population is very abundant, and the difficulty of obtaining a livelihood consequently greater than in most of the other colonies; and where it was at first believed that labour could be obtained sufficient for the profitable cultivation of the soil, the want of continuous labour is now loudly complained of.
The declining state of the West Indies has been repeatedly brought under the notice of Her Majesty's Government, without any effectual relief having been afforded to their necessities.
Their present distress having been caused, not by any negligence or imprudence of the West Indians themselves, but by a deliberate Act of the Imperial Parliament, your Memorialists conceive that they have a just claim upon Her Majesty's Government for the employment of the most energetic and comprehensive measures of relief that can be afforded without injury to the interests of other parties; and your Memorialists appeal with confidence to your Lordship and the other members of the Cabinet, because the consequences of the emancipation, as regarded the prosperity of the West Indies, were distinctly foretold during the debates in Parliament on the Bill, by
1st. His Grace the Duke of Wellington who, having presented a petition praying to be heard by counsel against the Bill, which prayer was refused, protested against the passing of the Bill, to which protest your Memorialists respectfully crave permission to refer.
2nd. By Sir Robert Peel, who, in his speech on the Bill, observed, "In the West Indies after abolish the necessity of labour from coercion, you cannot substitute the stimulus to labour from the necessity of procuring subsistence. The labour of a few days is all that is necessary in those countries to procure, not merely the articles of subsistence, but also the articles of luxury. The evidence is conclusive, that so fertile is the land in most of the West Indian islands, that a slave by a very small portion of corporeal exertion indeed can obtain all that is sufficient to maintain existence." Your colonies may become wildernesses, but the demand for sugar will continue, and it will be supplied from the colonies of other states; and either those colonies must import fresh slaves, or those they have already must labour still more severely to supply your demand."
So far from any effectual means of procuring a supply of labour in the place of that of which the emancipation deprived the West Indians having been adopted, restrictions have since been actually imposed upon the introduction of labourers from the Indian seas which did not exist at the time when the Act was passed; and thus the sources from which ample supplies of labour could be drawn have been stopped, notwithstanding the urgent and repeated remonstrances of the West Indians, while they have been opened to the Mauritius, a country in no respect more favourable to the labourer.
The only means that can be relied upon at present for the supply of labour to the West Indies is the small proportion of Africans who are each year captured in slave ships.
This being the season at which supplies are usually sent to the West Indies, and preparations made for the repairs of buildings, and other necessary expenses, it is of the utmost importance that your Memorialists should know whether Her Majesty's Government will permit free emigration of labourers from all parts of the world or not, as if there is no hope of eventually restoring the prosperity of the colonies the universal decision will be, not to go to further expense in continuing a cultivation that year after year entails a loss.
Your Memorialists respectfully submit the following considerations to your Lordship:
That the advantage to immigrate to the West Indies is amply shown by the very favourable result of the introduction of Coolies into British Guiana,
That it is unjust towards those who would willingly carry their labour to the best market, to prevent their doing so, as well as towards the proprietor of land, who would willingly pay for the introduction of labourers; and that the refusal to permit the replacing by free labour of the labour which was annihilated by the Emancipation Act is calculated, by completing the failure of that Act in the result contemplated by its promoters, to cause it to be considered a beacon of warning to be shunned by other nations, instead of a glorious example to be followed by them.
Your Memorialists therefore respectfully entreat that your Lordship will be pleased to take the case into serious consideration, with a view to the removal of all restrictions upon the undoubted right of every free man to carry his labour to the best market, and to permit the free import of labourers from all parts of the world into the West Indies, under such regulations as may appear to your Lordship to be best calculated to prevent abuses.
For CHARLES S. PARKER,
Chairman of the West Indian Association. W. R. SANDBACH.
Liverpool, 9th August, 1843.
No. 8.
Copy of a LETTER from G. W. HOPE, Esq., to W. R. SANDBACH, Esq.
Sir,
Downing-street, September 5, 1843.
I AM directed by Lord Stanley to acknowledge the receipt of the Petition of the Associated Body of West India Planters and Merchants of Liverpool, signed by you on behalf of Mr. Parker, the chairman of the Association, praying the removal of all restrictions upon the introduction of labourers into the West Indian colonies.
CHINESE LABOURERS TO THE WEST INDIES.
257
Lord Stanley desires me to express his regret that he cannot feel himself justified in complying with this request, however anxious he may be to afford every practicable facility to the introduction of labour into the West Indies. As the best means, however, of explaining his Lordship's views on this subject, I am to transmit to you the copy of a letter addressed by his directions to Mr. Malcolm, as representing the West Indian body in London, in reply to applications and specific proposals from them on the subject of immigration into those colonies.
I have, &c. W. R. Sandbach, Esq., Liverpool.
No. 9.
(Signed)
G. W. HOPE.
COPY of a LETTER from CHARLES I. PARKER, Esq., to G. W. HOPE, Esq.
Liverpool, September 6, 1843.
Sir,
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 5th instant, addressed to Mr. W. R. Sandbach, which, with its enclosure, I have this day laid before a meeting of the West India Association, specially convened to consider the measure to which these documents relate.
I am instructed to request you to convey to Lord Stanley the best thanks of the meeting, as well for the prompt and explicit communication with which he has honoured the West India Body, as for the proposed measure of Chinese immigration, the importance of which they duly appreciate, as the only relief which Her Majesty's Government find themselves at present in a position to grant in answer to the prayer of their petition.
G. W. Hope, Esq.
&c.
My Lord,
&c.
I have, &c.
(Signed) CHARLES I. PARKER,
Chairman of the Liverpool West India Association.
No. 10.
COPY of a LETTER from W. BURGE, Esq., to Lord STANLEY,
Paper Buildings, Temple, September 14, 1843.
I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of a copy of the letter of the 4th inst., which Mr. Hope, by your Lordship's direction, addressed to Mr. Malcolm relative to the introduction of Chinese labourers into the West India colonies. I shall lose no time in transmitting it to my constituents.
It would be a subject of great regret to me if any observations made either at the conference or in the written communications to which Mr. Hope refers led your Lordship to doubt that the West India Body were fully sensible of those difficulties with which emigration had to contend, and the anxious and unceasing attention which your Lordship has directed to the removal of such restrictions as were not required by the existence of those difficulties. I should not adequately express my sense of the views entertained by your Lordship on this important subject, and the measures already adopted to carry them into effect, if I did not disclaim any participation in them.
I should have postponed addressing your Lordship on the details of the plan proposed in Mr. Hope's letter until I had heard from my constituents, if I were not aware that a communication will be made to your Lordship on the part of the West India Body here for a material deviation from one of your Lordship's important suggestions. Your Lordship is of opinion that parties claiming bounty should show that the amount decided upon as the maximum or rate had at least been expended, and that they should not be entitled to make any pecuniary profit on the introduction of these labourers. Concurring entirely in the considerations on which your Lordship's opinion proceeded, and being satisfied from my own experience, and that of others, that the parties could have no difficulty in supplying themselves with the requisite proof, I felt myself bound to express my dissent from that part of the communication which urges that no such proof should be required. It is obvious, however, that one uniform rule must be adopted for all the colonies, because if such proof were required on the introduction of labourers into Jamaica, and not upon the introduction of them into the other colonies; the effect of this distinction would operate as a bonus for the introduction of them into those colonies, and as a discouragement of the introduction of them into Jamaica.
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