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Thermita Spela Chinchill 586
PRINTED
FOR
EASTERN
No. 105
COLONIAL
OFFICE
His Majesty's Government have declared that the conditions under which Chinese coolies are employed on the Witwatersrand are "tainted with slavery" and are therefore resolved to determine such a system, irrespective of the material loss which may be involved. But the conditions prescribed in the various Ordinances regulating the employment of Chinese on the Witwatersrand, evil though they be, are nevertheless superior to any conditions hitherto prescribed by foreign countries in such cases. If therefore His Majesty's Government consider themselves bound to terminate the existing system of Chinese labour in South Africa, and to forego themselves, or to deprive the Transvaal, of any profit resulting therefrom, all the more are they bound to abstain themselves from any participation in the profits arising from the conveyance of Coolies to conditions of servitude not less and possibly more "tainted with slavery" than those which have been denounced upon the Witwatersrand. It appears to be enjoined upon His Majesty's Government, if they are to maintain a consistent and defensible policy, that they shall in no case allow Chinese coolies to be carried to foreign countries in British ships, without assuring themselves beforehand that the conditions under which those coolies will be employed are so far superior to the Witwatersrand conditions as to be wholly unobjectionable. Is this likely to be the case? Is Mexico, for instance, likely to practise a greater strictness in the conditions of her indentured labour than Parliamentary vigilance and pressure has enforced upon the Transvaal?
And