PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
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2. Your Lordship, however, will not have failed to perceive that my impressions with regard to that law were unfavourable, whilst, at the same time, your Lordship must, I think, have remarked that the position of the immigrant under it is a less advantageous one than that which he occupies in the West Indian Colonies. It is, therefore, right to add that I believe this law is, practically, less harsh in its operation than might be gathered from its provisions, and that I have no reason to suppose that there is, generally speaking, any disposition to press to their extreme limit the powers which are practically conferred by it on the employers of labour.
At the same time the defects of that law appear to me to be grave and numerous, nor can it, I think, be denied that it is at any time susceptible of gross misuse in the hands of those inclined so to misuse it.
Your Lordship may, therefore, possibly desire that I should submit for the consideration of your Lordship, my own opinion as to the practical working of the law, and the alterations which it needs. I will accordingly proceed to point out the reforms which appear to me most urgently needed, and especially those which can be at once effected by the intervention of your Lordship and the Imperial Government.
3. Your Lordship will probably have been struck by the marked difference in the position, in Mauritius and the West Indies respectively, of the immigrant after the term of his industrial residence has expired.
1
On this subject generally it is not my intention to dwell, for I shall probably have to address your Lordship again with respect to it at no long interval.
I received some time since a petition from between 9,000 and 10,000 persons of this class, complaining of the restrictions to which they are subjected, and alleging various instances of the undue harshness with which those restrictions have been enforced. These allegations I am desirous of investigating before submitting the matter to your Lordship, but on receiving the Report of the Commission entrusted with this duty, it will be at once forwarded for your Lordship's information. There is, however, one part of this subject which I will at once mention.
4. Your Lordship is aware that Mauritius is the only coolie importing Colony which is not under the obligation to provide a return passage for the immigrant after a certain term of residence. It is difficult to perceive any intelligible or sufficient reason for the existence of this distinction. If it be thought needless to require a return passage from Mauritius, it seems hard that the West Indian Colonies should be put to so heavy an expense; whilst if, on the other hand, it be deemed needful in other Colonies to secure to the immigrant the means of return to his home, it is hard that a similar security should not be afforded him in the case of emigration to Mauritius.
I presume that it is supposed that the comparative vicinity of Mauritius to India renders it at all times easy for the immigrant to return, and that the means of procuring a passage are always within his reach. This is, unfortunately, far from being the case.
5. It is, no doubt, easier and cheaper to reach India from Mauritius than from the West Indies, but in both cases the passage money is usually beyond the reach of the mass of those who desire, and who have the right, to return to their country, and I suppose no application is so frequently and earnestly made by old immigrants as that for assistance to enable them to return to India; whilst I cannot myself but believe that inability to obtain this boon is the cause of many of the suicides, which are unfortunately so prevalent among the Indian population in Mauritius.
6. In the interest both of the coolie and of the planter, I should strongly advocate the restoration to the Indian of the right of a return passage to India, enjoyed by him up
to a comparatively recent period.
Those who most wish to go are precisely those whose stay in Mauritius is positively hurtful to the Colony, where they either swell the already too numerous army of paupers, or become lawless vagabonds, pilfering when at large, and an expense to the Colony when crowding our gaols, or at best remain reluctant and disaffected inmates of the " Estates Ergastula."
7. I know the Protector of Immigrants entirely shares my opinion on this subject, although he has not ventured publicly to avow sentiments which would be in the highest degree unpopular in the Colony.
8. I will now turn to questions affecting the position of the indentured labourer during his period of service, confining myself chiefly to those where I think the active interposition of the Imperial Government might be usefully employed.
9. I am by no means satisfied with either the lodging provided for immigrants on
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estates, or with the estates hospitals. The former is very decidedly inferior to that afforded in the West Indies. The houses generally consist of low, dry stone walls from 4 to 5 feet in height, or of miserable palisades composed of aloe stalks, the roof in either case being of thatch; whilst, where houses better built of stone and lime, and roofed with iron, are provided, they are usually destitute of all ventilation.
On one of the finest estates in the Colony, which I recently visited, the house of cach immigrant family consisted of a single small compartment in a long row of similar habitations, without any aperture whatever for ventilation except the door, and of such moderate dimensions that it resembled rather the cell of a lock-up than a human habitation.
10. The hospital Ordinance, although it is, I presume, observed to the letter, is, I fear, too often broken in the spirit. The hospital seldom consists of more than one room, and is consequently useless to females, whilst only a small proportion of the men who are sick apparently make use of it, the cause for which I believe to be the fact that when sick in hospital they are usually dependent on their wives or families, if they have any, for the supply of their food. I do not wish now to dwell on this subject, but I cannot help observing that on an estate where the hospital is returned by the Medical Inspector as "perfect," only one man was treated in hospital, against 299 treated out of it, during the same quarter. On this estate the patients out of hospital are really treated and kindly looked after; but I am afraid that, in many cases, the patients who are sick out of hospital are not treated at all. I judge this from the marvellous equality between the number of cases of sickness treated out of hospital and that of the deaths out of hospital on estates.
11. How singularly uniform this agreement is, your Lordship will perceive if you cast an eye over the following return of patients treated out of hospital, and of deaths out of hospital in the district of Savanne for the last quarter of last year. I am obliged to give the estates in detail, as the number of patients treated on Beauchamp Estate would at once destroy the parallelism were the totals only taken.
Fontuelle Surinam Terracine
Bel Air, I Union, 1
La Forêt Cascades Chamouni..
St. Marie Beauchamp Frederica Union, II
Belombe
Treated
Died
Treated
Died
Estates.
out of
out of
Estates.
out of
Hospital. Hospital.
ont of Hospital. Hospital.
10
10
Bel Air, II
8
8
8
10
St. Felix ..
+
7
Benares
6
6
Savannah
3
•
77
River Anguillier
4
Colmar
Richebois
St. Arold
Constance
Bon Accueil Combo
Beaubois.. St. Aubin
Flora Choisey
12. I repeat that, so far as my observation extends, I sincerely believe that the defects in the law do not lead to the mischievous results which might have been antici- pated, but these defects are not on that account the less real, and it is evident that the hospital law may be easily evaded, if there be a desire to evade it.
13. That this assertion is well founded, may I think be considered proved by the following extract from a report made about two years since by Dr. Desjardins, one of the Medical Inspectors: "Quant aux hôpitaux qui restent constamment fermés, je ne puis rien y objecter, selon l'opinion de l'honorable Substitut Procureur-Général qui m'a été envoyé par votre entremise. J'avais toujours cru que les hôpitaux étaient non seule- ment obligatoires pour les planteurs, mais qu'ils devaient s'en servir pour leurs malades. L'opinion de l'honorable Substitut du Procureur-Général étant que le propriétaire a le choix, à mieux de ces intérêts, de laisser ses malades dans leurs cases et de ne pas les envoyer à l'hôpital, il n'y a pas une possibilité de rechercher un propriétaire parceque son hôpital reste fermé. Il paraft qu'il suffit qu'il y en ait un." And he goes on to say that it is useless for him to report cases of this nature, for that, as any prosecution must necessarily fail, it is manifestly undesirable to proclaim the fact of which probably only a few of the planters are aware, that if there is a building called a hospital on the estate,
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