Cape or on the West Coast of America - so that all vessels carrying Emigrants to Australia, California, &c. must if possible be provided with a European or American practitioner.
I question if this be a wise restriction. All the Emigrants to the places above enumerated are free Emigrants and are to be allowed to pay for their own passage and if Contract Emigrants, Surgeons are to be provided as a boon why should not the same boon be extended to the free Emigrants? Besides one important omission seems to have been made in classifying the Voyages as above if by so doing it was intended to draw a distinction between Contract Emigrants and free Emigrants.
"Places on the West Coast of America" includes Peru, Chile, &c. and we all know that frequently vessels leave the ports of China with Contract Emigrants for those places. The effect of this would be that what is considered an advantageous arrangement for Contract Emigrants going to the West Indies or Brazil is not to be extended to the same class of Emigrants going to Peru, Chile, &c.
If a properly qualified Chinese practitioner be not considered as in the terms of Regulation II, then the effect of the clause in question is to give a privilege which did not before exist and it gives that privilege to the free Emigrants and not to the class to whom the Emigration...
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