with Sir R. McDonnell
I agree that if these regulations are fairly and honestly carried out it will be scarcely possible that any Emigrant should be put on board ship without his own consent. The weak point is, the Governor has pointed out, the mode of dealing with those who on examination before the Superintendent decline to proceed. Any such persons are, by articles 22 & 27, to be sent back to their homes at the expense of the Agency, if they have been 10-days in Depot, they are to be indebted in the amount of half the cost of their passage, cash, this per diem, very unlikely that a man in the condition of an Emigrant would be able to make these payments and the modified slavery which the Chinese law appears to allow in the case of insolvent debtors would probably give the agent power to compel a recalcitrant Coolie to emigrate. In this way the freedom which the regulations are intended to secure to Emigrants might in practice be curtailed.
On the other hand it is not...