CHINESE LABOURERS.
264 PAPERS RELATIVE TO EMIGRATION OF
being certain whether it would be thought desirable that this should be done at our office or that of the Secretary of State.
Next follow the views already submitted as to the shipping arrangements, together with a few additional precautions of detail, which we hope will meet with Lord Stanley's approval.
It will be seen that we have inserted a clause forbidding advances of money subject to repayment in the colony, but sanctioning moderate gratuities never to exceed 15 dollars adult.
On the subject of contracts we have endeavoured to provide for such stipulations in the agreements themselves as shall carry out the intentions expressed in the letter from the Colonial Department to Mr. Malcolm, dated the 4th September. Whether or not it should afterwards be thought expedient to recommend a provision by law for all the same details, there can be no harm in the security of their forming part of the agreements themselves.
The explanatory remarks at the end of the rules are perhaps peculiar, but so likewise are the circumstances, and we have therefore offered these remarks for consideration as the simplest means of defining the extent to which the Government has pledged its faith, and of giving parties concerned all the information to which they are entitled.
With regard to the instructions to be addressed to the authorities in the Straits of Malacca, we presume that a communication will be made to the East India Board, and that after an intimation that it has been thought expedient to sanction the experiment of taking Chinese emigrants to the West Indies, the enclosed rules, or any modification of them finally approved, may be referred to as embodying the objects which it is wished to carry into effect. The principal steps to be taken by the Governor would be to fix the weekly allowance of provisions during the voyage, and to name the harbour-master or other officer who should attend to the shipping arrangements, and also the magistrate before whom contracts are to be executed. The signatures of these functionaries, as well as the impression of any seal of office used by the magistrate, should be forwarded by the Governor in a sealed communication to the Governor of each West India Colony to which any emigrants may be despatched. If it should be necessary to attach any fees to the extra duties required of the officers, we would suggest that they should be advanced by the master of the ship about to depart, and be repaid to him by the public on the production of proper vouchers immediately on reaching the West Indies, and that this payment should be altogether independent of the bounty and never fall as a charge upon the individual importer. For we conceive that to the extent to which the services of these officers, and especially of the one who inspects the shipping, are required, they may be considered as officiating in lieu of public servants of the West India Colony, and as exercising for the general interest a control of which the burthen should not fall on the individual importer.
Much must depend on the judgment and efficiency with which the shipping arrangements are superintended. We annex a memorandum of the points to which we think the attention of the superintending officers should more particularly be directed.
To the governors of the three West India Colonies concerned, we conclude that Mr. Hope's letter to Mr. Malcolm of the 4th of September, accompanied by two short letters of the 3rd instant, afterwards addressed to Mr. T. Hankey and Mr. Burge, will serve to explain the principles of the measure, while the rules, herewith submitted for approval, will contain the details. The subject of officers' fees above mentioned would require to be noticed. Under the 16th of our proposed rules, all stipendiary magistrates should receive directions from the governor to give employers of Chinese labourers immediate notice of any declaration made by the latter of their intention to relinquish their contracts.
With regard to the communications to be made to the legislatures, we would venture to submit that it would be enough to recommend that any prohibition of contracts made out of the colony should be waived as to Chinese labourers, provided that they were for a term not exceeding five years' service in the colony, and that in all other respects they were conformable to the rules under which the emigration of this kind of labourers was sanctioned by the Secretary of State. If this course of proceeding should be deemed admissible, it would, perhaps, obviate the necessity of entering into a greater amount of detail than it might be thought convenient to suggest to a legislative body. But if not, we presume that the recommendations must contain the substance of the 15th, 16th, and 17th of the enclosed regulations.
In conclusion, we would request permission to offer a remark on that passage in the letter to Mr. Malcolm, dated the 4th of September, which states that the prohibition against contracts abroad not being included in this year's Immigration Act in Jamaica, persons applying for leave to take Chinese to that Island must enter into bond that any contracts they enter into, shall be made dissoluble by the labourers, although binding on themselves. Besides the probability of the defects being remedied in the next Jamaica Act, it will be seen that by the proposals we have submitted, contracts would not be entitled to attestation before a magistrate in the Straits of Malacca, nor allow of a claim to bounty in the colony, unless they contained a clause to the foregoing effect. We would, therefore, submit for consideration, that it may be unnecessary to impose exclusively upon parties connected with Jamaica, the somewhat onerous condition of entering into a bond to the Crown.
We have, &c.
James Stephen, Esq.
&c.
&c.
(Signed)
T. FREDERICK ELLIOT, J. G. S. LEFEVRE.
Enclosure in No. 16.
9, Park-street, Westminster, October, 1843.
CONDITIONS of Bounty on Chinese Emigrants brought into Jamaica, British Guiana, and Trinidad.
1. Parties desirous of introducing Chinese emigrants on bounty must previously apply for permission to the office of the Secretary of State for the Colonies.
2. The emigrants are only to be taken from some one of the three principal British settlements in the Straits of Malacca.
3. They are to be conveyed in strict conformity with the terms of the Imperial Passengers' Act, as applicable to colonial voyages.
4. Whatever may be the number of the passengers, there must be on board the vessel a surgeon, and a proper supply of medicines, instruments, and other requisites for the surgeon's use.
5. The between decks and the under part of the upper deck and beams must be either whitewashed or painted white.
6. No gunpowder is to be allowed on board on freight.
7. The emigrants must be possessed of a reasonable supply of warm clothing to protect them from the cold in doubling the Cape of Good Hope.
8. The length of the voyage to any of the West India Colonies is to be assumed at 18 weeks.
9. The allowance of provisions under the Passengers' Act will be declared by the Governor at the place of departure.
10. The proper officer of his Government will be named by the same authority, to see that the several requirements of the Act, and of these Rules, so far as regards the preparation for the voyage, are complied with.
11. This officer will, on departure, grant a certificate, in the form hereto annexed, showing the numbers embarked, and recording an approval, without which bounty will not be claimable.
12. The amount of bounty is fixed for each colony at sixty-five (65) dollars for every adult male or female, and half for children between one and fourteen years of age. No bounty will be payable on adults above forty years of age, nor on infants under one, at the time of embarkation.
13. No advances of money can be sanctioned subject to a repayment in the colony. But, considering that emigrants commonly have small debts to discharge, or require aid in providing an outfit, there will not be an objection to any moderate gratuities which it may be thought proper to give them, not exceeding fifteen dollars for each adult.
14. If the emigrants be introduced without any contracts at all, and free to engage themselves to whomsoever they please, the whole amount of bounty will at once be claimable.
15. If contracts are employed, they must be executed before such magistrate as the Governor may name for the purpose, and be attested by his seal and signature.
16. They must not be for any longer term of service in the colony than five years, and must contain a proviso that it shall be competent to the labourer, upon making one month's previous declaration to that effect before a stipendiary magistrate, to terminate the contract at the end of the first six months in the colony, and every succeeding period of six months. The magistrates will have suitable instructions to apprise employers of any such declarations.
17. In these cases bounty will be paid, minus one-fifth for each six months the labourer remained.
18. In pursuance of the 13th Regulation, the contracts must also contain a stipulation that no claim is to be made on the emigrant for repayment of any money given to him before his importation.
19. The terms of these contracts will, in other respects, be left a matter of private agreement between the employer and his labourers; but if there shall appear reason to consider that any...
Encl. in No. 16.
CHINESE LABOURERS TO THE WEST INDIES.
233
265
CHINESE LABOURERS.