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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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Reference :-
C.O. 885
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
1PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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CORRESPONDENCE RELATIVE TO
and settle elsewhere permanently is a crime. There is, therefore, a general prohibition of emigration, flowing as it were from the common law of the imperial rule (I believe there is also a special enactment, but am ignorant of its date). There always has been a prac- tical limit to the arbitrary authority of this Government, which is especially felt when it is brought in contact witli considerable masses of the people. Injustice or cruelty to indi- viduals scarcely excite the sympathy of a peculiarly selfish race; but so closely do village and clan ties unite considerable bodies of men, that general persecution is not often attempted, and frequently is successfully resisted. The over-population of China in years of scarcity occasions great anxiety to the local authorities, and often leads to their dis- grace; for any commotions which arise from famine are almost certainly attributed to their neglect or mismanagement The mandarins know well that emigration relieves the pressure of surplus population on the supplies of food, and deports wild and lawless vagabonds, who are better out of the country. The mandarins, therefore, dare not put any check on emigration; they also see that it is not for the public interests of their districts to do so, not to speak of the pecuniary interest which, some way or other, Chinese officers always contrive to find in the continuance of a forbidden practice. The mandarins, therefore, do connive at emigration, knowing that any attempt on their part to stop the flood of 50,000 hungry, able-bodied men, who annually leave the province, would, probably, lead to an insurrection. With the native emigration before them they will not attempt an interference with the foreign contract, which might bring with it the additional inconveniences of official correspondence, and a collision with foreign authori- ties. The only kind of interference to be apprehended from the local authorities is, on the commission of any crime connected with the system, the arrest of the subordinate Chinese crimps and agents, with the view of obtaining such a sum of money as will serve to propitiate their own superiors in the event of the circumstances spreading beyond the neighbourhood.
The inhabitants of Amoy are well fitted for labour in tropical regions. They endure well the heat of their own sun, whose rays in summer are fiercer than in any of the climates to which they have been removed. They are pinched up by the cold season here, which they dread rather than welcome. The labourers working on the fields wear no coverings to their heads even at midsummer. Inflammation from accidents is rare, and they recover from wounds with astonishing rapidity. Their fevers are usually of a typhoid type. I have not understood, from the experience of the Straits, that there they are.more subject to febrile diseases than the Malays, while it has been noticed that they suffered proportionally much less from cholera. They are a good deal subject to diseases connected with perverted nutrition, as tumours, wens, &c. The not unreasonable conclusion is that they are a race well adapted for labour in warm climates, and any comparison with the Indian coolies who have been sent to the West Indies would be a gross injustice to the Chinese.
The average wages of all labour at Amoy are very low, and there is not much variation between the rates paid for different kinds, skilled and unskilled From eighty to one hundred cash is the daily hire of an able-bodied man. The highest of these amounts is about equal to 4. Double these sums is the wage of artizans, such as masons, carpenters. tailors, shoemakers, &c. A first-class agricultural labourer is on the footing of a skilled craftsman, and receives 160 cash, or 6d. per diem; he is expected to understand sowing and reaping, ploughing and irrigating, the compounding of manures, liquid and solid (which is the great triumph of Chinese agriculture), and generally the entire culture of rice, wheat, millet, Indian corn, ground-nuts, pease, cabbage, ginger, sugar-cane, bringals, gourds, &c. &c; his assistant labourers receive about 80 cash, or 34. per dicu. All Loard and lodge themselves. It ought to be observed that the holdings in China are much subdivided, seblom exceeding a few acres in size, and are usually cultivated by the owner or his sons,
The Chinese of this district are well made, and sufficiently robust and strong for ordinary agricultural labour, and when substantially fed their muscular systems are rapidly developed. They are slow over their work, but are proverbially industrious and persevering. The ordinary labourer, sprung of an enterprising race, with daily examples before him of men risen through emigration to affluence and comfort, "is ambitious of elevating himself in the social scale, and hence also not indisposed to remove to foreign climes. He is not one of those content with a full belly, hutoks forward to spound himself with a home and family. Amongst no people does the transformation from the labourer to the artizan class také place with more rapidity.
It is utterly improbable that under any circumstances men of respectable character, if by that term is understood reputable persons earning at home an easy livelihood, will be induced to join the emigration. The inducement held out by removal to a distant and unknown country for wages not exceeding three dollars per mensem, clothes, and rations, is not a sufficient inlucement to overcome the love of village and other tics in parties of the above description. It is certainly only the very poorest and the refuse of the population who have hitherto enrolled themselves in the emigration lists.
The period since contract emigration las commenced has been to short to allow the return of any number of labouŕers with well-lined pockets. Until there are a sufficient number of instances of this nature to excite general notice, the labourer will depart under the impression that he is selling his services and person for a living. It may be, however,
labourers.
EMIGRATION OF CHINESE COOLIES.
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that, in event of the return of Chinese successful in their new spheres of labour, a more respectable class will in the course of years be induced to emigrate, and that we may see the same class of emigrants leaving under foreign contract as that which now annually flocks to the Straits. Industry may be predicated generally of the Chinese, and is too habitual to their thoughts to leave any question in minds acquainted with the Chinese character, as to even the present inferior class of contract emigrants, yielding, under good treatment and favourable circumstances, a large average of industrious and quiet The Chinese never emigrate with their families. It is a current report respecting the native emigration to the Company's settlements in the Straits, that though the annual number of male emigrants is at least 5,000, only one woman during the present century has gone there from China. Without affirming the report, its existence is sufficient to prove the rarity of the case. The wives of the poorest Inbourers in Amoy are small-footed women, so that the proportion of undeformed females is very small. Women with large feet are usually slaves, and may be bought and sold. Of this class a hundred or two might be bought outright and shipped off annually, but such a practice would be an indelible stigma in the eyes of the Chinese. There is therefore no chance of labourers taking their families with them. One reason of the frequent return of Chinese from the Eastern Archipelagos is their anxiety to form matrimonial connexions, and leave descendants in their native villages to maintain unbroken the chain of reverential honours paid to the ancestral tombs. I believe no Chinese ever leaves without the hope of returning. After the conclusion of the contracts, or when advancing years preclude the expectation of continued labour on the part of the emigrant, some facilities should be given by the colony for the return of well-conducted labourers, as the best means of improving the character of the emigration. formed connexions with the native women on their first arrival; their descendants In Malay countries the Chinese readily constantly intermarry; so that in the course of years the mixture of alien blood rapidly disappears.
cold.
The expense of chartering a ship to go round Cape Horn would be pretty much the same as if the voyage were round the Cape of Good Hope; but a vessel could not possibly take so many passengers as by the former route, and would probably not land them in so good a condition; the Chinese are bad sailors, and are withered up by the In the continued stormy weather of the high latitudes it would be necessary to traverse, the hatches would require to be almost constantly battened down, and there would not be sufficient ventilation for the same number as might go with safety by the other Cape. The average length of passage would be much the same; but for these substantial reasons it is not to be anticipated that the Horn route will be generally adopted.
The emigrants will readily enter into contracts of work with particular parties; but these must be signed before leaving Amoy, and be sufficiently binding and transferable. They are not on the whole a faith-keeping people. They can be kept to a bargain if they see their own advantage in it, but require to be sharply looked after. They suon acquire an idea of the subtleties and scruples of our law, so far as it regards their own interests. I do not think it would be safe as a commercial speculation to leave the Chinese free and unfettered to seek work on their arrival in the West Indies, because I believe the stipulations of wages, clothes, and rations in the contracts to form the principal item of the imlucement to emigrate. The bare intimation that plenty of labourers will find employment, and passage to a certain country where wages are so much and living cheap, would never rouse a Chinese idler from his sleep under the hot sun to undertake a distant voyage. It is the confidence he places in the contract of the white man that he is to be paid, clothed, and fed, as stated in the agreement, without trouble to himself, if he will only work. The expiry of the first contracts will determine as to the readiness of the Chinese to seek work (plantation work must be understood) for themselves; and if the experiment of secking Chinese labour at the distance of half the globe is worth the trouble, it should not be endangered on a point which the experience of twelve or fifteen years will practically resolve.
As emigrant ships must be large and roomy between decks, and as speed ought scarcely to be such an object as the health and good condition of the passengers, it is believed that the sharp lines and low runs which have increased the velocity of our cargo-carrying slipa will not be sought for in the emigrant trade. Twenty weeks, or about 140 days, would be a high average passage to any part of the West Indies for the least speedy class of vessels, Emigrant ships will always command rates of freight from a third to a half higher than they would as cargo carriers. The risk and expenses are much greater, and consist of the possibility of mutiny, and the larger supply of water casks and tanks, Recent rates to Cuba have been about 51. 10s. per ton, but the precise amount has been very properly made to depend on the number of emigrants landed at their destination from the ship.
The demand for emigrants gives employment to a number of crimps, who are dignified with the name of coolie brokers; one or two of these are in more confidential intercourse with the English merchant, and probably control the inferior agents. These latter them- selves proceed or send out their scouts to the villages in the neighbourhood, and haunt the resorts of the poor and idle about the town. They distribute printed bills containing
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