doggedly try an admittedly doubtful road if they have no better opening in view? The British Straits Settlements are the favorite destination of Emigrants from this neighbourhood, for the avowed reason that they are English possessions. But those Colonies cannot take up the whole of the people who are bent on joining abroad from here; & numbers have to proceed to the Dutch Colonies + to Manila.
If the British Colonies in the West Indies had continued open to Emigrants from this place, they would soon have ranked next to our Straits Colonies in popular favor; + for the same reason. And all these Colonies together would have absorbed the greater portion of the people going abroad from this part of China. The remainder would hardly have been more than are really required in the Straits Colonies & Manila, & the Coolie dealers would have found this too barren a field for profitable working. This would have been a check to such a scheme as that mentioned by you.
It is in no other part of China that the people are familiarized with the idea of emigrating to Manila, or so ready to proceed thither. But now that emigration to our W. I. Colonies is stopped, the Macao Coolie dealers will very likely be able to promote abundant emigration to Manila from this place; & thus, indirectly, a large portion of the surplus population of this part of China could be consigned to virtual slavery. This could be traced, in part, to the action of the Chinese Govt., which imposed ill-judged conditions on Chinese Emigration, to which their victims would be subject, and to its ill-judged care has it's...