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6. But even in the absence of any such promise, the question remains, or at least may arise, whether the collection for France should be conducted by a French Agent, responsible to and paid by his own Government, or whether it should be conducted by the same officer who collects for our own Colonies.
7. There are certainly advantages in the latter method. Difficulties will no doubt be experienced in enforcing on a French Agent a due observance of the rules which regulate the collection for our own Colonies. It will be found at the moment of embarkation that some emigrants have been induced to emigrate on false pretences; that a proper proportion of women are not forthcoming; that attempts have been made to elude the inspection of the English officer, and so on. Thus coolies will occasion- ally be prevented from emigrating at the last moment, no doubt with much inconvenience; and the English officer, who merely enforces the known rules, will be said to have justified, by his vexatious conduct, the anticipations of the French Government. A single collector responsible to a single authority, and that authority the English Government, would work the whole system according to rule, and easily.
8. This mode of proceeding would also have the advantage of con- trolling the increased bonuses to immigrants, and the misrepresentations of rival recruiters which are likely to arise from the competition between different classes of Colonies.
9. But the objections to the union of offices appear to me quite insuperable. It must be remembered that the coolies do choose their destination. Some of them who have come to Calcutta in order to emigrate to Mauritius have been known to return hundreds of miles to their villages rather than go to the West Indies. It is intended, of course, that they shall still exercise this choice, and it necessarily follows that there must be a certain amount of competition between the different Colonies who enter the labour-market of India. How is it possible that one officer can act with any efficiency in carrying on this competition for all of his jealous employers? If high wages and British protection are found to draw all the coolies to British Colonies, it will be his duty, in the interest of the French, to offer such a bonus in hand, or such a reduction in the period of And when he has industrial residence, as will re-dress the balance. succeeded in this, his obligations to the British Colonies will recommence, and he will proceed to undo his own work. Every statement which he makes in recommendation of one Colony will be pro tanto an injury to its rivals; every effort which he makes for one will be ground for an accusa- tion of unfairness if it is not neutralized by being applied to all. It appears to me that an officer so placed cannot possibly act with the vigour which is necessary to set on foot this new emigration, and that the attempt to do so must, of a certainty, break down.
10. And, if so, it would certainly break down under the strongest accusations of unfairness; especially if it happened, as is most probable, that while the French Colonies failed to obtain emigrants, the supply to Mauritius was unceasing.
11. The difficulties of the Agent would be increased by the circum- stance that shipping is to be furnished not by him but by the French Government, or firms under contract with them; he will, therefore, have a very imperfect power of adjusting the supply of vessels to the number of emigrants which he may be able to procure, and this will mach enhance the inconveniences of failure and the complaints arising from it. In this and other cases many troublesome questions may arise respecting his conduct in spending, or omitting to spend, sums of money ultimately payable by the French Colonies-a very inconvenient position for an officer who is appointed by, and receives his orders, not from the French, but the English Government.
12. Again, is this arrangement to be forced on our own Colonies? They already desire separate agencies. Are they to be told that Messrs. Caird and Franklin will. be ordered in future to collect both for France and England, without the power of withdrawing themselves from an arrangement which they will probably consider as highly inconvenient
and suicidal!
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13. And, lastly, considering the not unnatural indisposition of the French Government to permit any interference, on the part of a British officer, with the labouring population of their own Colonies, is it altogether desirable that an English officer, acting avowedly as agent of the British Government, should be the medium of placing before the coolies the terms of emigration offered by the French, and thus, it may well be said, giving an implicit guarantee for their due performance.
14. All these objections apply to the proposal that one officer of the British Government should collect for English and French Colonies. And I would submit that they are quite conclusive against that mode of pro- cecding.
15. There remains another method-that the English Government should appoint different officers to collect for the different Colonies. This is not so absolutely impracticable as the collection by a single officer appears to me. But it is open to some of the same objections. The failure of the experiment will lie at the door, not of the French, but of the British Government; and the coolies who emigrate will probably consider the British Government as guaranteeing to them that the terms of their con- tract shall be accurately performed. These disadvantages have to be set against the more complete and easy control which the British Government will obtain over the actions of the collecting agent. And one of them is much diminished by the course which this negotiation has taken. The fact that the English Government would have charged itself with the collection of emigrants, against its own strongly expressed desire, will be a very powerful answer to any charge of unfairness in that collection. On the other hand, I am quite unable to see what the French will gain by this course, by which they abandon the control of the collection without getting any real equivalent either in prestige or in the way of guarantee.
16. My own opinion, having regard to the voluntary nature of the emigration, and the probability that no sufficient number of emigrants will be obtained, is that no guarantee can properly be given; that the method of recruitment by a single officer is impracticable; that no method will be without its difficulties, but that the least objectionable is that which leaves the English and French to collect each by their own officers for their own Colonies. The appointment by the English Government of an officer charged with the separate duty of recruiting for the French Colonies would be practicable, if the French Government considered it any advantage, when coupled with a clear intimation that it involved no guarantee whatever as to the extent of the emigration. But, unless it were accompanied with such a disclaimer as would be a positive detri- ment to emigration, it would, I should imagine, suggest to the coolies a delusive expectation that the British Government would secure to them the performance of terms which it offered to them through its officers.
*17. It remains to be seen what may be the effect of M. de Persigny's representations in Paris. But the above statement will, I think, suit- ciently show what are the questions on which I may have to request your instructions.
18. Till this principal point is settled, it seems unnecessary to trouble you with matters of detail.
I have, &c.
The Right Hon. H. Labouchere,
&c.
&c.
&c.
(Signed)
FREDERIC ROGERS.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference
C.O.
885
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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