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4. We have na objection to offer to the details of the measure, and as there can be no question as to the importance of the above provisions in the interest of the immigrants, and as they form valuable features in the immigration system of all the coolie importing Colonies in the West Indies, we would recommend that the Ordinance should be submitted for Her Majesty's allowance.
5. Governor Gordon is disposed to think that one of the Inspectors should be appointed by the Earl of Kimberley from amongst gentlemen who have already acquired experience of the West Indian system of inspection; but he requests that a final decision on this point may be deferred until after the receipt of his next despatches.
6. Under any circumstances the officers appointed should receive their appoint- ments subject to any modifications which Her Majesty's Government may hereafter think it necessary to make in consequence of the report to be received from the Commissioners who have recently proceeded to Mauritius to inquire into the condition and treatment of Indian immigrants there.
I have, &c.
(Signed)
No. 10.
T. W. C. MURDOCH.
The Earl of Kimberley to Governor the Hon. Sir A. H. Gordon, K.C.M.G.
(No. 87.) Sir,
I HAVE received your despatch No. 66 of the 9th February, inclosing a Report
Downing Street, April 1, 1872. from the District and Stipendiary Magistrate at Savanne, on certain cases recently tried in his Court for neglect of those provisions of the Ordinance No. 29 of 1865 which regulate the visitation of estates by the Medical Attendants.
I shall take no action on this despatch till the recently appointed Commission has reported on the whole subject of the condition of Indian labourers in Mauritius, and you will be good enough to take steps to insure this matter being brought to their special notice.
I have, &c.
No. 11.
(Signed) KIMBERLEY.
53
two other cases for refusing to certify the hospital registers. He was fined 87. and costs in each case. His misconduct was aggravated by the fact that he was the Government Medical Officer of the district.
4. These cases illustrate in a very unfatisfactory way the laxity which has been allowed to prevail in Mauritius in the administration of the Immigration Laws; and the demoralization, at least in the Savanne district, of those who have had to deal with immigrants. Planters and managers of estates of course knew that the medical attendants whom they were required by law to engage and pay did not attend to the immigrants; that the hospitals were never used, and that the registers were falsified. And although the matter was entirely in their hands, they took no steps to put a stop to such misconduct. The Medical Inspectors also, if they were not aware of the state of the case, must have been wilfully blind to it, and apparently took good care not to be made acquainted with it, since, as one of the witnesses stated, they had " the good sense (le bon esprit) to announce their visits beforehand so that all can be put generally in order for their coming. It is always a week beforehand that they announce their visits, and the Doctor always keeps ahead of the Inspector." It is, I think, impossible not to feel that this practice of neglecting the visitation of estates or of making only colourable visits to satisfy the letter, but not the spirit of the law, must have been encouraged, if it was not originated by the neglect of the Protector to make the periodical visite which the law authorized, and the Government required him to make.
5. Sir A. Gordon promises a further report on this subject, and intends to call the Medical Inspector of the District to account for his neglect before the Executive Council. The urgency of the matter is to a certain extent diminished by the recent appointment of a Commission to inquire into the treatment of immigrants in Mauritius. The Governor will, of course, bring these papers under the notice of the Commission, and they will be able to ascertain whether the neglect of duty and falsification of documents so boldly avowed by Dr. Tyack in Savanne, and justified by him on the ples of general usage, does really prevail in other quarters of the island. These papers show, if any further proof were required, the necessity for a stricter and more careful supervision of estates on which immigrants are located than seems ever to have obtained in Mauritius, and for such an alteration of the system of medical superintendence as should make the medical attendants responsible to the Government not to the planters. More than all they prove the importance of having at the head of the Immigration Department an officer who will not only be able fearlessly to discharge his own duties, but will also insist that the Subordinate Members of the Department, and especially the Medical Officers, shall be equally punctual in discharging theirs.
I have, &c.
(Signed) T. W. C. MURDOCH.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
C.O.882
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
Sir,
Emigration Office to Colonial Office.
Emigration Board, March 26, 1872.
I HAVE to acknowledge your letter of 14th instant, with a despatch from the Governor of Mauritius, inclosing a report made to him by the Stipendiary Magistrate for Savanne, Mr. Daly, on the subject of the neglect of the law in respect to hospitals (No. 29 of 1865), and the falsification of returns by medical men in that district.
2. It appears that Dr. Tyack, the medical attendant on a number of Estates in the district of Savanne, having been called upon under the 16th Section of the Ordinance, to certify his "Hospital Registers," refused to do so on the ground that all his registries contained false entries. He excused himself for this by asserting that the law was "impracticable and a farce;" that it had been passed merely to satisfy the Indian Government and to prevent the suspension of emigration; that he "made a system of fictitious entries in order to comply with the letter of the law; and that he supposed the same system prevailed throughout. He admitted that he did not visit estates as required by the law, and that he filled up the register without seeing any patients, and by using the names of Indians who may have had no existence; but he appeared unconscious that in doing so he committed any offence, alleging that he did not consider it a "faux." Proceedings were taken against him in four cases for falsification of the registers, and in twenty-six cases for neglecting to visit cstates and for having refused to certify the registers. In each case he pleaded guilty and was fined for each of the four cases 101., and for each of the twenty-six cases 21., making in all 921. with costs.
3. Proceedings were likewise taken against Dr. J. Bolton, in two cases for neglect- ing, during several weeks, to visit estates of which he was medical attendant, and in
Sir,
No. 12.
Emigration Office to Colonial Office.
Emigration Board, April 3, 1872.
I HAVE to acknowledge your letter of 25th ultimo, inclosing, for any observations we may have to offer, a further correspondence with the Governor of Mauritius on the subject of Indian immigrants in that Colony.
2. I would submit that these despatches have already been disposed of, as far as they can be at present, by the answers returned to them, of which you inclose copies. The observations, therefore, which I have to offer will have reference to only one or two points of comparatively minor importance.
3. In despatch No. 55 Sir A. Gordon expresses his dissent from the supposition that a plentiful supply of labour can be obtained in India for Mauritius. He says that on the contrary every letter from the agent, from some of which he incloses extracts, insisted on the difficulty of procuring emigrants, which he attributes to the competition he has to encounter from the West Indian and French Colonies, from the Looshai Expedition and from Ceylon, as well as to the female contingent now insisted on. No doubt as the West India Colonies have become better known in India, their competition has become more formidable; but the West Indian Agents are even more earnest than the Mauritius Agent in their complaints as to the impossibility of procuring emigrants, which they attribute (1) to the female contingent, a real though unavoidable difficulty, and (2) to the disfavour with which emigration is regarded by Indian officials. No doubt also the increased demand for labour in India, which has raised the wages of
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