CO882-(2-3) — Page 22

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LITTICO.

882

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Creole labourers.

48

departures having been in excess of the arrivals (vide margin); and lastly, to the deaths having largely outnumbered the accretions to the labouring - population from the births in the Colony.

5. The deaths on the estates within the half-year now received are given in the statement forwarded herewith, in which are shown the total number of estate labourers in each district, and the half-yearly ratio of mortality in each.

6. The next statement shows the deaths reported to have occurred on each estate during the half-year, and the half-yearly ratio of mortality of each.

7. Although the particulars mentioned in the two last of the preceding paragraphs have not been brought to my knowledge by the Stipendiary Magistrates, I have thought it right to introduce them into this Report, as they serve in a great measure to explain the information given in those Magistrates' Half-yearly Returns, and fill up a gap in those returns which renders them incomplete.

8. The Half-yearly Table herein inclosed (marked A), compared with the one in which the returns of the Magistrates for the second half of 1870 were condensed,' shows the following important increases in the numbers of Creole labourers :--

December 1870.

June 1871.

2,136 791

2,632 933

114 2

214

9

49

There being upwards of 280 souls on the estate, it is doubtless undesirable that they be left without medical assistance. So that this, as well as all similar cases in future might be fully met, I should recommend that measures be taken to invest Government with the power of imposing the attendance of a medical officer of its own choice in every such case, and of making his fees chargeable on the estate.

13. The proprietors of Union Estate, when called upon to account for their not having a medical officer, besides stating that they could not procure one, alleged that to remedy the evil as far as lay in their power, they had resolved on sending their sick labourers to the Plaines Wilhems Poor Law Hospital. On inquiry I find that not a single patient from Union Estate was admitted into that hospital since 1st January last, which shows either that there was no occasion whatever for resorting to the remedial means spoken of by the proprietors, or that they altogether abstained from having recourse to it, notwithstanding its necessity.

14. The daily average of absentees, during the first half-year of 1871, was much less than during the corresponding period of 1870. The numbers were as follows:-

1870-June 30 1871-June 30

6,014 5,484

Absentees.

15. The centesimal proportion of absentees to the total number of estate labourers Proportion of in each district was as follows :--

Pamplemousses

Rivière du Rempart

Flacq

Grand Port..

Black River

4.5 per cent. 3.1

10

5.3

**

3-5

M

4.8

1+

»

4.7 "

4.9 11

absentees to number

of estate labourers

in each district.

Women.

Children under ten years.

Camps an hospitals.

Employed by proprietors~~

Creoles of Indian origin

Ditto, African

Employed by job contractors-

Creoles of Indian origin Ditto. African

The differences exhibit a total increase of 596 amongst the Indian Creoles, and of 140 amongst the Creoles of African or mixed origin.

9. The number of women reported as being employed is only 650; in the previous half-year it was 1,192. As females do not work under written engagements, their numbers vary very much, and no doubt rise or fall according to the advantages held out to them.

The total number of women on the estates was 25,844, or 108 less than at the end of 1870. The proportion of women to male adults on the estates was 40 per. cent.

At the date of the last census the proportion of females to males in the total Indian population of the Colony was 52 per cent., and in the whole population of the island 63 per cent.

10. The number of male children under 10 who were employed, increased as follows:-

Employed in December 1870 Ditto, June 1871

Increase

785

994

709

The female children under 10 fell from 91 to 18, in the lists of labourers furnished by employers. The decrease in their number was no doubt consequent on the diminu- tion in the number of female adults employed.

11. The camps and hospitals are reported to be as follows:-

Very good

Good

Passable

In need of repairs

Bad

Very bad

Hospitals.

Camps.

162

2 180

34

16

2

18

1

I have addressed a Circular to the proprietors of those estates whose camps and hospitals were considered objectionable, requesting them to remedy the defects pointed out to them.

12. The Union Estate at Moka is stated to have no hospital, and the Magistrate refers to his previous Reports, mentioning that the proprietors of that estate allege that they can find no medical practitioner disposed to attend the estate.

Arrived, 618 men; left, 1,103: excess in departures, 491.

1 Statement merked B.

• Appendix E of my last Annual Report.

Plaines Wilhelms

Moka

Savanne

1.7

16. Although the number of deserters remaining to be recaptured at the end of June last be represented by the magistrates as only amounting to 173 in all, yet the returns I have received from the planters' report 652 desertions as having occurred merely during the first six months of 1871. At this rate the desertions of the half- year would bear the proportion of 94 per 1,000 to the total labouring population of the estates.

So high a rate of desertions, if it did really exist, would doubtless require the serious attention of Government. But I am inclined to believe that there are errors in the planters' returns, and that, in many of them, old deserters have been included as well as those of the half-year.

17. I should immediately have circulated further instructions as to the mode of filling up those returns; but as it is proposed by Government to devise measures for the more efficient inspection of sugar estates, and as the Draft Ordinance to be laid before the Legislative Council for that purpose will probably contain some provisions regarding returns from the estates, I have thought it right to wait till the new law be passed.

Deserters.

18. Had it not been decided by the Governor to make a radical change in the Inspections. present system of inspecting estates, I should have thought it at least necessary to alter the form of the Magistrates' Returns, the information which they contain being. deficient in many important respects. But it is obvious that no substantial improve- ment either in the inspections, or in the subsequent reports, can be looked forward to, until the Inspecting Officers, whoever they be, have a legal power to inspect, and the employers be legally bound to furnish all the information demanded from them.

19. As instances of the absolute necessity of authoritative prescriptions of law in regard to the powers of the inspectors on the one hand, and the obligations of employers on the other, I may mention that, on the 13th September, when the last of the Stipendiary Magistrates' Half-yearly Returns (that of Savanne), reached me, I discovered that, regarding five estates, there had been no information given, because the proprietors had not yet returned answers to the questions put to them by tho Magistrates, and that, with reference to as many more, the information supplied was so palpably wrong as to leave me no alternative but to apply for fresh returns. Hence the delay to which I have referred at the beginning of this Report.

20. The wages found in arrear by the Magistrates were as follows:-twenty-five Wages. estates owed three months; three estates owed four months; one estate owed five In months. The district in which the payments were most irregular was Savanne.

[160]

0

of

to number

Jabourers

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Reference

ILTIFICO.

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

.882

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON