PUBLIC
RECORD OFFICE
9
Reference :-
CO. 885/
9
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO
PART VIII.
Penalties on em-
ployer for illusage. Penalties
on em-
ployer for
the with-
holding of
wages.
Stoppage and pay- ment in kind.
Immigrant dying intestate.
Penalties ou immi-
grants for
abeance, indolence,
or refrac- toriness in respect of
work.
Throwing out work.
Exemp-
and in respect of work.
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94. If any employer, manager, or officer of a plantation shall assault, or in any way illuse, any indentured immigrant on such plantation, he shall, on convic- tion, be liable to a fine not exceeding Ten Pounds, or to imprisonment, with or with- out hard labor, for a term not exceeding two months, or to both.
95. If any employer, manager, or officer of a plantation shall unlawfully with- hold any wages earned by an indentured immigrant, he shall, on conviction, pay a fine not exceeding Ten Pounds, and the Justice shall order any such wages to be paid, and shall report every conviction under this or the preceding section, together with such circumstances of aggravation or extenuation as to him shall seem note- worthy, to the Immigration Agent-General.
96. Except as hereinafter provided, all wages duly earned by an indentured immigrant shall be paid in money, without any deduction, and every stoppage of wages duly earned by any such immigrant, and every postponement of payment of such wages beyond the day on which such wages shall be payable, and any pay- ment of wages in kind, shall be taken to be an unlawful withholding of wages; and no manager supplying goods on credit to his indentured immigrant shall be entitled to stop the price thereof out of any wages which may be thereafter earned by such immigrant.
97. In the event of any immigrant dying intestate during his term of service, the employer shall forthwith pay to the Immigration Agent-General the whole of the wages which would have been payable to such immigrant up to the date of his death, as if such wages had accrued from day to day, and the Immigration Agent- General shall pay them to the next of kin of such immigrant then in the colony, and, if there be none such, shall transmit them to the Emigration Agent for payment to the next of kin of such immigrant resident in British India, and, if there be none such, the amount so paid shall be placed to the credit of the Immigration Fund.
98. Every indentured immigrant who shall be unlawfully absent from his plan- tation without leave, or shall be guilty of wilful indolence during working hours, or shall without lawful excuse refuse to begin or finish any particular work assigned him, shall be guilty of an offence, and shall, on first conviction, pay a fine not exceed- ing One Pound, or be imprisoned for a term not exceeding fourteen days, and, on a second or subsequent conviction, shall pay a fine not exceeding Two Pounds, or be imprisoned for a term not exceeding one month, as the convicting Justice shall
direct.
99. Every indentured immigrant who shall without reasonable excuse refuse or neglect to amend any work duly thrown out for an improper performance shall be guilty of an offence, and shall, on a first or any subsequent conviction, be subject to the respective penalties provided for such conviction in the preceding section, and shall further forfeit any such portion of the wages which may be due for such work as the convicting Justice shall think proper; and the manager may suspend the payment of any such wages pending any proceedings which he shall have taken against such immigrant for such refusal or neglect: Provided always that no work shall be taken to have been duly thrown out for improper performance, except by the manager taking down the work on the spot the same day or the next day after such work shall have been done, nor unless such manager shall have informed the immigrant upon the spot that his work is thrown out, or, in case he be absent, so soon after as it is possible, and shall have specified the ground or matter of his objection to the work done, and shall have required him to amend the same.
100. Any indentured immigrant who shall absent himself from his plantation tions from in order, on reasonable grounds, to lay an information or make a complaint against penalties
the employer or manager before the Justice, or to make any reasonable complaint of for absence his treatment, and to ask counsel of the Immigration Agent-General, shall be entitled to receive from such Justice or Immigration Agent-General a certificate that such absence was for reasonable cause; and no immigrant possessing such a certificate shall be liable to conviction for absence from such plantation upon the day on which such certificate was granted, or within such time, before and after, as shall be necessary to allow of his free going and returning; nor shall any immigrant be convicted under this Act for wilful indolence or non-performance of work assigned him in respect to any work for which he shall have been at the time physically unfitted, or which shall be of such a description or extent, or which shall have been assigned in such a manner or for such a rate of wages, as to contravéne any provision of this Act, or which shall have been unduly thrown out, or for which any
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wages shall have been unlawfully withheld; nor shall any female immigrant con- PART VIII. victed under this Act for absence, wilful indolence, or non-performance of work be sentenced to imprisonment, except in default of payment of a fine, nor to the pay- ment of a fine on first conviction exceeding Ten Shillings.
101. Every manager of a plantation on which immigrants shall be indentured Register of proceedings shall keep a register of all cases under this Act in which he is concerned before any in respect of
Labor. Justice of the Peace in the form in the Schedule 17 annexed.
grant for
work.
102. Every indentured immigrant who shall be drunk while employed on any Penalties work, or shall use to his employer, or to any person by him placed in authority on the on immi- plantation, any abusive or threatening or insulting language or gesture, or shall, by disorderly negligence, carelessness, or other improper conduct, damage, or cause to be damaged. conduct in or shall sell any property of his employer, or shall through negligence or carelessness, respect of suffer any such property to be damaged, or shall persuade or attempt to persuade any other indentured immigrant unlawfully to refuse, absent himself from, or desist from work, shall, on first conviction, pay a fine not exceeding Two Pounds, or be imprisoned for a term not exceeding one month, and on a second or subsequent con- viction shall pay a fine not exceeding Five Pounds or be imprisoned for a term not exceeding two months, as the convicting Justice shall direct.
time in
103. An indentured immigrant may bind himself by agreement with his Extra employer, made in the presence of two witnesses and terminable on the next weekly the field. pay day, to work extra time in the field: Provided that the description or descriptions
of work to be assigned him during such extra time be expressly stipulated before- hand.
+
a watch- man,
104. No indentured immigrant shall be compelled to serve as a watchman, Service as but he may bind himself by an agreement with his employer, made in the presence of two witnesses, to serve as a watchman on the estate for any term not longer than one month, or from month to month; and unless he shall give notice of his refusal to serve any longer as a watchman, at least seven days before the expiration of any month's service, he shall be compelled to serve for the next month.
105. Every immigrant under indenture who, after having agreed to serve as Penalty for a watchman, shall unlawfully neglect his duty as such watchman, or shall unlawfully neglect of neglect to serve as a watchman during the period for which he shall have agreed to duty as a serve, or for which he shall be bound to serve, shall be guilty of an offence, and shall, on conviction, pay a' fine not exceeding Two Pounds, or be imprisoned for any term not exceeding one month.
watchman.
agreement.
106. An indentured immigrant may bind himself by agreement with his Extra time employer, made in the presence of two witnesses and terminable on the next weekly in build. payday, to work extra time in the buildings, and the employer may assign him dur- inge under ing such extra time any work in the buildings which he is physically competent to perform; but no indentured immigrant shall be compelled under any such agree- ment to work on any one day for more than six hours of extra time, or to perform work of a different description from any such as he may by his agreement have expressly stipulated for.
107. In the absence of previous agreement to that effect, an indentured immi- Extra time grant employed in the buildings may be on any day required to work extra time, in build- not exceeding six hours, provided that that intention to require extra time be comings on
notice by municated to him at least one hour before the expiration of the ordinary time, and employer. that, if he then give notice of his refusal to continue longer at work, he shall be entitled to leave work one hour after the expiration of the ordinary time.
time.
108. All extra timework shall be paid for by the hour, at a rate not less than Extra that at which ordinary timework is paid for; and the same provisions, remedies, Labor law. and penalties in respect of the due performance of work and payment of wages shall apply to service as watchman, and to extra timework, whether under agreement or otherwise, as are contained in this part of the Act with reference to ordinary work.
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