were in other respects,
regulations
their value was
very
much
diminished by a provision that
Coolies who on
being interrogated
refuse to emigrate, should be required to pay half the expense of this passage and the cost of their maintenance in Depot. Sir R. Macdonnell observed that considering the general poverty of the class, this might
involve an
imprisonment from
which the Coolies only escape
by emigrating. He
took an
opportunity, therefore, of
calling the attention
of
The
Governor of Macao to the point.
3.
The Governor of Macao answers that his regulations
have been misunderstood; that
the half passage
is not, as was
assumed, half passage to the place to which the Coolie
was
expected to migrate - but half
passage
back to his native district -
that Coolies who are unable to
pay this amount and subsistence money
are not
subject to imprisonment but
are sent home; and that the
Brokers or the emigrants themselves are
required to pay for them
and
that in this way upwards of
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