3
[Confidential.]
To
20
No. 75 of 1909.
Army Department.
THE RIGHT HON'BLE VISCOUNT MORLEY OF BLACKBURN, O.M.
HIS MAJESTY'S SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA,
Simla, the 1st July 1909.
309
MY LORD,
We have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of Your Lordship's confi. dential despatch No. 86 (Public), dated the 19th June 1908, transmitting, for consideration, a copy of subsequent correspondence regarding the employment of Natives of India in the Far East, and requesting to be favoured with the obser- vations of the Government of India on the various points raised by the Governor of Hong-Kong.
2. Referring to the statement made by the Governor of Hong-Kong:- "Until the Government of India is in a position to control the emigration of the races it desires to retain, it seems in fact useless for this Government to under- take a costly and troublesome experiment which would be clearly ineffective," we would state that the Government of India, in proposing that recruiting for the Hong-Kong, Shanghai, and Tientsin Police should be conducted through the Indian Army Recruiting Staff, and that men on termination of their service should be repatriated, were actuated by two motives, namely to protect the interests of the Indian Army, and to prevent Indians of the fighting races from enlisting in the service of foreign, and possibly hostile, Powers.
3. When the project was first mooted, it was recognised that it was practi- cally impossible to adopt so drastic a measure as to restrict the emigration of Indians eastwards, and to have enacted a special law affecting Punjabis alone would, in our opinion, have been impolitic and likely to cause great discontent. We hoped to achieve our object indirectly, without having recourse to special legislation, and suggested the scheme of enlistment in India only, and of repa triation on completion of service. This was accepted by His Majesty's Gov- crnment and promulgated by His Majesty's Minister at Peking.
Since 1st January 1907 it has been agreed to extend the scheme to all other British Concessions in China. The Straits Settlements Government also, while not agreeing to recruit through the Recruiting Staff in India, consented to repatriate men at the end of their service, and undertook to urge a similar measure on the Governments of Johore, North Borneo, and Sarawak,