H
413
5
the sixth year
$8. and for the seventh
and eighth years $9 per month, and at the end of the Contract a passage back to Hong Kong or fifty dollars. To this
be added a present at starting of 15 dollars with in all cases, suitable and
healthy Quarters to be provided for the emigrants.
H.
I cannot say that such terms
offered to the indigent surplus population
of China
are
11
unfair if they be understood,
and I think the Duke of Buckingham's
despatch to me (AMY) decides
of the 25th September 1867
Ld d
the limit of my
power to control Emigration to Foreign
states and shews that I
Can
only
See
that the Contracts are not unfair, and
2%. Be
8858-64 printed in
NO.3 18
of 1868.
inforce when necessary, the provisions of the Chinese Emigrants Act, more especially those in the second clause of schedule. I
5. I nevertheless felt that the proposed Emigration
was
neither sanctioned by
nor viewed
by the
any Foreign Government or consular representative of any foreign Power. I also doubted the expediency of
an
emigration of laborers to a distant country where on their arrival or at any time during the continuance of their contract they might find their intended employer Bankrupt, or dead and
themselves utterly helpless to enforce their rights. The Attorney General, however, to whom in a very full Memo: I referred
the consideration of these doubts did not