PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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Indian immigrants are located or employed; and Resolved, that the following recom- mendations in reference thereto be submitted to the Council of Government.
Considering that the District and Stipendiary Magistrates have been amalgamated in most of the rural districts; that, in the districts where the amalgamation has been carried out, the judicial business of the Magistrates has increased to such an extent as to render it hardly possible for them to continue inspecting the sugar estates, as they have until now been required to do; that such inspections are or may be more or less incompatible with their judicial functions; and, lastly, that there is no law empowering them to make any such inspections; we submit it to be our opinion that the instructions under which the Stipendiary Magistrates have hitherto had to inspect the sugar estates of their respective districts ought to be revoked.
But, at the same time, as we advise the withdrawal of those instructions, we think it right to suggest that the Protector of Immigrants be enabled to carry out fully and efficiently the inspections which are contemplated by the laws now in force; and for that purpose we recommend that two additional officers be placed on the Staff of the Immigration Department, each receiving a salary not exceeding 5001. per annum, besides a travelling allowance equal to that now paid to the Medical Inspectors appointed under Ordinance No. 29 of 1805.
In order that a proper and judicious discharge of their duties may be insured, we think it desirable that the two new Inspecting Officers be placed entirely under the direction and control of the Protector of Immigrants. If they were allowed to take any action independently of his instructions it is obvious that a divided responsibility would follow, the consequences of which might prove mischievous.
Should their inspections not occupy the whole of their time, we think that the two new Inspecting Officers ought to be required to undertake whatever other work connected with the Immigration Department the Protector may be authorized to allot to them.
This change in the mode of inspecting the sugar estates is recommended by us in the hope and on the understanding that the carliest possible opportunity will be taken advantage of by Government to abolish the Assistant General Sanitary Inspectorships, as contemplated by Art. 49 of Ordinance No. 11 of 1870.
H. N. D. BEYTS, Chairman.
Council Chambers, October 9, 1871.
(Signed)
Observations submitted by the Protector of Immigrants to the Immigration Committee of Council.
With his Excellency the Governor's leave I beg to submit the following obser- vations to the Immigration Committee of the Council of Government, in order that they may recommend the adoption of such measures as they may deem necessary.
Struck, at the very outset of his inquiries into the working of our labour-system, with the impropriety of requiring the Stipendiary Magistrates to inspect the sugar- estates of the island, and the hospitals, asylums, and other establishments in which Indian immigrants are located or employed, his Excellency at once resolved on relieving them from that duty. The reasons which led his Excellency to that resolution, so far as I could gather them from the explanations which were communicated to me, were principally these: first, that it is quite inconsistent to impose such a duty on the Stipendiary Magistrates, inasmuch as it is utterly incompatible with their judicial functions; secondly, that even if that duty could be intrusted to them without its clashing with their judicial functions, still it could not be left to them, as it has hitherto been, without the sanction or authority of any law whatsoever; and, thirdly, because many of the Magistrates have declared their inability to perform that duty in consequence of the amalgamation of the District and Stipendiary Courts, which measure has no doubt led to the time of the Magistrates being more fully taken up with judicial business.
But, on resolving to relieve the Stipendiary Magistrates from that duty, his Excellency conceives that its performance should not be done away with, nor even in any manner weakened. His Excellency, on the contrary, deems it to be highly important that the estates should continue to be carefully inspected, and thinks that their being carefully inspected cannot fail to be equally favourable to the interests of the labourers and to those of their employers. Such inspections can but tend to the amelioration of our system in regard to those points which still admit of improvement, and to the checking of irregularition at their very rise and before their development
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into grave abuses, such as may be taken advantage of and wielded as weapons of attack by those who may be ill-disposed towards the Colony.
That there is little ground for such attacks from any quarter his Excellency has been induced to believe by the assurances which he has received from me as to the general well-being of the labourers of the Colony, and as to the satisfactory working of our labour-system on the whole; but his Excellency would wish those assurances to have the support of irrefutable evidence, such as would be afforded by careful inspec tions of the estates, and such as might enable his Excellency to affirm that, to his personal knowledge, whatever may be the defects of the Labour Laws and of the adminis- tration of those laws in other Colonies, such defects do not exist in ours.
His Excellency has, therefore, called upon me to undertake these inspections myself, and to perform them at least as frequently as the Magistrates have hitherto done.
I need hardly say that I was obliged to declare that I could not take upon myself so heavy a task, with any prospect or hope of fulfilling it, unless adequate assistance were granted to me.
This is the point which I consequently have to submit to the consideration of the Immigration Committee: whether, under the circumstances which I have described, it is not advisable that the help of two assistants be given to me, in order that I may be enabled to undertake and carry out the inspections which have hitherto been performed by the Stipendiary Magistrates, whose exemption from that duty is now contemplated by His Excellency the Governor.
(Signed) H. N. D. BEYTS, Protector of Immigrants.
August 14, 1871.
Inclosure 2 in No. 27.
Draft of an Ordinance to provide for the Appointment of Inspectors of Immigrants.
BE IT ENACTED by his Excellency the Governor, with the advice and consent of the Council of Government, as follows:
1. It shall be lawful for Her Majesty the Queen, her heirs and successors, from time to time, to appoint fit and proper persons to be Inspectors of Immigrants, and such Inspectors shall hold office during Her Majesty's pleasure.
Provided always that such Inspectors shall not at any one time exceed two in number.
2. There shall be paid to each such Inspector of Immigrants a salary at the rate of 5001. per annum, and a further sum not exceeding 1001. per annum for such travelling expenses as shall be actually incurred by such officer.
3. It shall be lawful for any Inspector of Immigrants to enter and inspect any Duties of Inspectors asylum, hospital, school, camp of labourers, or other establishment of any kind in of Immigrants. which Indian immigrants are received, and also to enter upon any estate or premises, except private dwelling-houses, in which any immigrant is employed or located, and to investigate the condition and state of any immigrants who may be therein respectively, and may require any such immigrants in any such places, respectively, to be brought before him upon any such visit.
Every such Inspector shall be further vested with all the powers, and liable to perform all the duties assigned to the Inspecting Medical Officers by Ordinance No. 29 of 1885, entituled "An Ördinance to amend the Law as to Hospitals, and Medical Attendance for Persons under Contracts of Service," by the Proclamation No. 1 of the 5th January, 1866, or by any Regulation which has been or nuny hereafter be made
under the said Ordinance No. 29 of 1865.
But such Inspectors shall not on that account, or any other account, be in any way under the control or direction of the General Board of Health, or any Local Board of Health.
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4. Nothing in this Ordinance contained shall in any way affect the rights vented in the Protector of Immigrants by Article 17 of Ordinance No. 16 of 1862.
5. It shall be lawful for the Governor to assign districts to such Inspectors of Immigrants; and every such Inspector shall visit, at least once in every three months, every plantation or estate, asylum, hospital, school, camp of labourers, or other establish- ment of any kind in which immigrants are received, except private dwelling-houses, in his districts upon which there may be any immigrant under contract of service, and shall also do so at any other time if so directed by the Protector of Immigrants.
Rights of Protector
of Immigrants not
affected.
Visita to estates.
}