and are inserted in the Ordinances as much with a view to safeguarding the immi- grant as to punishing him. With respect to the unlawful absence and desertion clauses, I would point out that only→→
(1) the Protector or any one authorised in writing by him;
(2) any estate constable attached to the plantation to which the immigrant is under indenture; and
(3) the employer of the immigrants or manager or overseer have power to arrest. In any case I can assert that prosecutions are not unduly taken advantage of, as the following system, which is general throughout the Colony, will show :-
An immigrant commits a breach of the law, e.g., he refuses to work and is cautioned as to the consequences by the employer; in spite of this he offends again, is prosecuted before the Court, and, if found guilty, is usually again cautioned by the magistrate as a first offender; if he again commits any of the offences he is fined 2s. 6d. or 5s., with an alternative of seven days' hard labour; and so on, the punish- ment increasing in severity as the offences increase in number.
Of the total number of annual prosecutions many are against the same offenders who prove themselves unrepentant and incorrigible. Far from the maximum penalties being commonly inflicted, complaints are always being made that the magistrates are too lenient in their sentences and I am in a position to say that the law is only had recourse to as a last resort. Many of the estates are situated at considerable distances from the police courts and a prosecution means that the manager has to travel the distance to the court to lay the case and to again attend the Court on the day of trial. The same applies not only to the defendant but to all the witnesses as well, who are generally labourers; the prosecutor consequently loses not only his day's supervision of the work under his charge but also that of some of his labourers, whom, of course, he has to pay.
It will be noticed that the laws governing emigrants are embodied in a special statute. This is, for one reason, to enable the Protector and his officers to appear on behalf of any emigrant whom he may think deserving of this consideration; he is not entitled to do so under the general laws of the Colonies.
I may mention that before new immigrants proceed to their respective employers the laws are carefully explained to them and, lest they forget," extracts from the Ordinance embodying all the penal clauses, as well as those containing their rights, are given to them printed in characters they understand.
The above applies to the immigrants but, in point of fact, the employers and their overseers for certain breaches of the Immigration Ordinance are relatively much more severely dealt with than the immigrant, as the two cases instanced below will show :-
(1) One Thompson, a European overseer, assaulted an indentured woman with a light cane. He was sunimoned by the Immigration Authorities to appear before the magistrate to answer the charge. The case was not heard when first called and he was therefore put on £30 bail which the estates manager stood for him. During the interval of the post- ponement it was rumoured that Thompson would be imprisoned as it was his second offence of a like nature. He therefore left the Colony
and has never returned to it. The amount of the bail was forfeited to the Crown.
(2) Last year a Mr. Luxmoore Ball, an Englishman, was, at the instigation of the Immigration Officers, dismissed from employment on all estates having indentured labourers, as for a second time he had assaulted an immigrant. The assault was not a grave one, but so seriously does the Immigration Department regard cases of the sort that it always demands dismissal of any one, no matter his position, who has been proved to have ill-used an immigrant more than once.
Mr. Luxmoore Ball left the Colony as no further employment, such as he had been used to, was open to him. Before leaving, he appealed to the Governor to cancel his punishment as he deemed it heavier than the offence warranted, but in vain.
21443
No. 56.
FIJI.
THE GOVERNOR to THE SECRETARY OF STATE. (Received July 9, 1912.) [Ordinance sanctioned, July 17, 1912.
No. 200. L.F.]
(No. 160.)
SIR,
Government House, Suva, Fiji, 25th May, 1912. WITH reference to your despatch, No. 64, of the 15th March,* I have the honour to transmit for the signification of His Majesty's pleasure the enclosed Ordinance entitled "An Ordinance to amend the Indian Immigration Ordinance, 1891."
The usual report by the Attorney-General is attached, and I enclose a copy of the debatet in Legislative Council on this bill, to which the Elected Members of Council have asked that your attention may be drawn.
2. Clauses 4, 7, 9, and 11 of the Bill submitted to you have been amended in accordance with your directions.
3. Clause 17 has been amended so as to provide for attendance at Government Schools and payment of fees for schooling in the event of Government establishing schools to serve the plantation. This seems the fairest and best way of dealing with the matter.
4. I am advised that it is unnecessary to amend clause 19 as suggested by you since a power given to a Magistrate to order payment by instalments usually implies that he may vary such order. It small as they must necessarily be in the cases under consideration an express pro- appears probable that when the instalments are so vision such as you indicate would only result in continual frivolous applications.
5. I shall address you separately on the question referred to in the last para- graph of your despatch under reference.
I have, &c.
12861
(Confidential.)
No. 57.
COLONIAL OFFICE to MR. A. MARSDEN. [Answered by No. 58.]
F. H. MAY.
SIR,
I AM directed by Mr. Secretary Ilarcourt to transmit to you the accompanying
Downing Street, 12 July, 1912. extracts from a letter from Mr. Gibbes, the Emigration Agent in India for British Guiana, relative to the amalgamation of the two Government Agencies at Calcutta; and I am to request that you with furnish Mr. Harcourt with an expression of your views upon any points in Mr. Gibbes's letter upon which you may wish to offer observations, and at the same time favour him with an outline scheme of the arrangements which, in your opinion, are required in order to give effect to the decision that the Agencies should be amalgamated.
2.
I am to explain that Mr. Harcourt does not, as at present advised, propose to carry out the amalgamation until after the 31st of March, 1913, that being the close of the financial year; and it is possible that it may prove expedient to wait until the end of 1913, when the present lease of the depôt and Agencies for Trinidad, Jamaica, and Fiji expires.
3.
So far as you can do so, away from your records, you should, in drawing up your scheme, indicate what savings it will be possible to effect, in consequence of amalgamation, in the staffs of the two Agencies: and I am to request you to furnish an estimate of the cost of the staff which will be required in connection with the new Agency which it is proposed to establish in the United Provinces, and also of the cost of hiring and equipping the necessary accommodation for the Agency.
• No. 19. ↑ Not reprinted. ‡ Not printed.
No. 53 except last paragraph
92