I can speak with a good deal of confidence upon the points touched on in the inclosure, & in my preceding Desp:; for during the past 19 years I have conversed with thousands proceeding from this Chinese who were going to our Straits Possessions, the Dutch Colonies in their neighbourhood, Australia, to British W.I., Manila, Cuba, & Peru, & with the inhabitants of numbers of villages within a radius of 40 miles from this Port; so that I am well acquainted with the feeling which prevails amongst the people of the neighbourhood on the subject of Emigration.
Your obt servt W.H. Pedder.
(2)
Consul.
Copy
Memorandum regarding the Establishment of an Emigration Agency at Amoy.
16 Mar 1875
1. An Agency will not be completely successful here unless it is kept open continuously, after season. If open one season & closed the next by fits & starts, as was formerly the case, it will not get known & relied on as being open. & fewer men will be got by it than would be obtained by a permanently established Agency. Emigrants from this place (especially those from a distance) not only decide on their destination before they leave their homes, but make their arrangements perhaps a year beforehand. Our rivals, the Dutch Colonies, & Manila; can be calculated on as always open; & intending emigrants make arrangements confidently for proceeding to those places. But our W.I. Colonies could not be counted on, hitherto, at all beforehand.