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wages, without any prospect of being able to pay their passagee back to China. The result will probably be to introduce a stoady fow of emigrants. (b) in the second place a contract such as would commend itself to this Government in the discharge of the responsibility which it necessarily incure by partici- pating in the despatch of emigrants, should provide an adequate wage during the currency of the contact. The Rogistrar General informs me that the wages of farm labourers in the Curton dolta are from 32 to $3 per mensen with bourd and lodging. He considers that a fair rate to compensate for exile to a distant country with a bad climate should be 50% increase or any 18 cente per day. (c) Thirdly as to the length or the contract. A labour contract in China
entreeż(is usually for a year,- and such a period
or even a somewhat longer one would be acceptable to this Government, provided that the term shall not be extended (on the plea of idleness or absence from work on the part of the labourer) any such faults to be punishable by fine or otherwise as the laws of the Federated falny tates may provide.
7. These improvements in the contract which the labourer will be culled upon to make, are however moro palliatives and do not touch the root
of the evil, which consists in
the speculative recruitment by low class and irresponsible crimps, who necessarily resort to deceit and lying statements in order to procure saigrunts, and who dorive very large profits from this trade.- these profits must be made at the expense of the labourer, and in consequence they ultimately are to the disadvantage of the employer because he has to fac. the dis- content which inevitably follows when the labourer learns the real facts, and because they result in the long run in making it more difficult to supply his demand.
8. As a solution the Registrar veneral propoce8 that the contract between the employer or his agent and the
labourer should be entered into in Hongkong, and not on the
arrival