CO882-(2-3) — Page 30

TUTTI I

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference-

882

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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providing I could obtain a police pass according to law. I was arrested at the central police station, Pamplemousses, next day brought before the Magistrate and sentenced to seven days' imprisonment with hard labour as a vagabond. At the expiration of the sentence I went to the depôt, and obtained a permit for a pass. I proceeded then to Pamplemousses to obtain a pass, but was sent from there to Port Louis central police station, where I obtained at last, on the 17th April, after paying two shillings, a police pass permitting me to go Pamplemousses, but there again I could not obtain a pass, as the clerk said "You must have a certificate of a later date from M. de Plevitz.

(Here follows the signature.)

11. Rajchunder, Old Immigrant, No. 138,928.

In December 1865, I went to the depôt, to have my photograph taken-I had to go on five successive days and was each day turned out with violence. There were peons there with rattans, who struck me with them and then turned me out. I remonstrated against this. I had to travel 100 miles, backwards and forwards, and pay four shillings before I could obtain this photograph.

(Here follows the signature.)

12. Ramburun, No. 163,323, Old Immigrant.

In

I with six others was a tenant on the estate of M. Rivet at Long Mountain. May 1869 M. Rivet handed over his estate to M. de Plevitz. The latter sent us to the police to get our passes put in order. On arrival we were arrested, locked up for the night, and next morning brought before the magistrate, when we were liberated through the evidence of M. de Plevitz, but we were told by the Magistrate that if we did not get our passes immediately altered, we should be arrested and condemned to twenty- eight days' imprisonment with hard labour.

And this although since the passing of the recent Ordinance, we had not changed our residence.

(Here follow four signatures.)

13. Aubeluck, Old Immigrant, No. 268,683, on the Colville estate belonging to Mr. Desenne.

When the Ordinance No. 31 of 1867 came into operation, I and twenty-four other gardeners went to Pamplemousses for a police pass, but being always turned out with violence at Pamplemousses police station, without any reason being given, we thought we were in the Moka District. Accordingly, we went there and obtained our passes. In May 1869, one morning about breakfast time, I saw a party of constables from Moka, one from Villebague, and another from Pamplemousses. Altogether about fifteen in number. They surrounded our huts, arrested us, although we had our tickets with photographs and passes, took us forcibly away from our wives and children, and after tying us two by two, marched us off to the Villebague police station, a distance of eight miles, when they locked us up for that night without food, in such a small place (about eight feet by twelve) that we could not lie down. About 7 o'clock next morning we were turned out, tied up two by two again, and marched to Pamplemousses police court without giving us any food. We sat in that court up to about 4 o'clock in the after- noon, were then taken to the Central police station, and at about 5 o'clock they gave us some rice and salt, which was thrown into our capras, after which we were looked up for the night. Next morning they took us to the railway station, without food, and conducted us to Port Louis. We were taken before the police magistrate there, sat the whole day in court, were then marched to the Central police station, where they again put some rice and salt into our capras, and afterwards locked us up for the night. On the following morning they us a piece of bread, took us by rail to Plaines Wilhems and from there marched us to Moks, where we arrived about noon at the police court. We were brought before the magistrate, who released us telling us to return in three days.

At the expiration of this time we went again to the Moka Police Court, when the Magistrate told us that we inhabited the Pamplemousses district, and that we must have passes for that district. Accordingly, next day, we went to Pamplemousses for a police pass; could not obtain it on that day, and some of us had to go there during

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fifteen days, having thus, for this purpose only, travelled a distance of 220 miles in going and coming. During these fifteen days we were very often turned out of the Police Station with violence, and sometimes we were merely told to return the next day.

(Here follow four signatures.)

14. Nootooga, Old Immigrant, No. 52,958.

In the month of July 1868 I was frequently stopped by the police, and told by them that I must have a photograph on my ticket, as otherwise I should be arrested as a vagabond. Accordingly, I went to the depot for four successive days without being able to obtain this photograph. On the fifth day I obtained it, after the payment of 45., having walked for this purpose 100 miles backwards and forwards.

On account of my absence I experienced a loss in the sale of my goods, which amounted to 148.

In the month of August, same year, I was arrested by a constable of the Long Mountain Police Station, and told I must go to Pamplemousses to obtain a police pass. Accordingly, I went there, and had to go during eight days, during which I travelled 112 miles backwards and forwards. For seven days I was expelled from the Police Station by violence, and obtained my pass on the eighth day. I am a gardener, and am frequently stopped at different Police Stations by the police to show my papers. This not only causes me a loss of time, but also considerably injures the sale of the produce of my garden.

(Here follows the signature.)

15. Jadhaya, Old Immigrant, No. 99,462, gardener.

In May 1869 I was stopped by a constable from the Long Mountain Police Station, and told by him that if I passed again without a police pass I should be arrested. Accordingly, for this purpose I went to Pamplemousses during five days, and travelled backwards and forwards, a distance of 70 miles. While at the Police Station I saw several old immigrants beaten with rattans and a broom. One day I was beaten with a broom.

On the fifth day I saw a white man standing among us, who informed us that if we would pay him 23. we could obtain a police pass at once.

Accordingly I gave him 2s., he entered the office, and about five minutes after- wards I received my police pass, whereas most of the other Indians were told to return the next day.

I am very often arrested by the police at different Police Stations, which not only causes me a great loss of time, but also injures the sale of the produce of my garden.

(Here follows the signature.)

16. Madhoo, No. 46,079, of Long Mountain.

On or about the 20th April, 1871, I was informed that my friend Mungor, residing at Vacoas, was very ill; accordingly I started on the following Friday to visit him, and arrived by train at the Beau Bassin Station, where I was arrested by a constable and locked up for that night without food-where I was kept until Monday morning, when I was brought before the Magistrate at Plaines Wilhems, who ordered me to be sent to Pamplemousses. However, was locked up for that night, and the next day (Tuesday) was sent to Port Louis, where I was locked up, and the following morning taken before the Magistrate of Port Louis. What he said 1 could not understand, but the result was that I was again locked up at Port Louis for that night, and taken the following day to Pamplemousses, and at once before the Magistrate of that district. I explained what had happened to me, and the reasons thereof. I was not condemned, but was looked up till the following Monday, when being again taken before him I was liberated the Mane day at 4 P.M. I am 57 years of age, and have resided in the Colony for about thirty-five years; I have always served my employers faithfully, and never been condemned for absence from my duties.

(Here follows the signature.)

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE. LONDON

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17. We, the Undersigned, have at one time or other been beaten with a rattan in the Immigration Office.

(Here follow 102 signatures.)

18. It is within my knowledge that the police have on several occasions exacted money from Indians.

I believe this to be generally the case, and attribute it to the opportunity given to them by the power they have to stop Indians and examine their papers.

Contemptuous and arbitrary treatment of Indians by the police seems to follow naturally; when inside the Immigration Office, where immigrants are to find pro- tection, they have, as is well known, been habitually and openly beaten with rattans by the employés.

To complete my statement, I must add, that since the present Acting Inspector- General has been in charge, Indians are not so harassed by the police as they have been previously.

ADOLPHE DE PLEVITZ.

Port Louis, Mauritius, June 4, 1871.

(Signed)

Observations.

THE preceding Petition deals only with the Labour Laws of Mauritius, because I have thought it better that it should be confined to one definite subject, and because it is by means of these iniquitous Labour Laws that injustice of every imaginable sort towards immigrants and old immigrants is introduced.

In order that the position of affairs may be well understood, it is necessary that the system which prevails here should be succinctly described. The people with whom the immigrants have to deal are the recruiters in India, the Protector in Mauritius, their employers, the police, the magistrates, and the Legislative Council, who make the laws by which they must be governed. In their relations with nearly all of these they are the victims either of fraud or oppression.

The recruiters receive a certain sum for each man whom they recruit; as soon as the immigrant is engaged, they are entitled to their reward, and it is clearly their interest to recruit as many as they can, by fair means or foul, and the greater the inducements they offer, that is in plain terms the more they lie, the greater their profits. The agent, in order to earn his salary and satisfy the Immigration Committee in Mauritius, must encourage the recruiters. Any scruples on his part would be incom- patible with the interests of his employers.

The Magistrates in India ascertain that intending immigrants are acquainted with the terms of their contracts, that they know what wages and rations they should receive, and that proper lodging and medical care should be supplied to them.

But nothing more; they can do nothing more; for nothing more is stipulated in the contracts in behalf of the immigrants; not even is any limit fixed to the days and hours of labour, but all is left to the will of their master, who, in allowing them their nightly rest and a holiday during the afternoon of Sunday, is but too often actuated only by the same considerations that prevent him from killing his oxen with overwork. Neither does it enter into the duties of the Indian magistrates to explain to intending immigrants the special laws to which they will be subjected: indeed it cannot be supposed that the magistrates themselves are acquainted with them, and still less with the regulations ever varying and increasing in injustice and severity. So the immigrant is left, for want of other information, dependent on the interested representations of the recruiter. Arrived in Mauritius, he is not even left to the ordinary protection of the laws, but is saddled with the so-called protection of the so-called Protector of Immigrants, the worth of whose protection may be estimated from the fact that, in his office, the employès have for years been in the habit of walking about the office with rattans in their lands, with which instead of words they made their way through the crowds of inmigrante waiting there to obtain their tickets, for which they must pay, and in default of which they would be sent to break stones by the road-side by day and sleep in a prison by night.

The Protector is the great support of the whol system, and if his office was instituted to facilitate the oppression of the immigrants, it has certainly answered its purpose.

His very title seems a guarantee for the good treatment of the immigrants, and it is natural to think that, if their Protector gives his consent to a measure affecting them,

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that measure must be for their advantage; the value of his name is here well under- stood, and it has probably often caused to pass unchallenged elsewhere measures that otherwise would have attracted sufficient observation to defeat them.

Here I would state what course he has adopted with regard to the complaints which form the subject of the foregoing Petition. On the 16th of May, when the Petition had been open about three weeks, and a month after the facts, for it had begun to be collected, his Report was laid on the Council table. In it most of the grievances complained of in the Petition find what he is pleased to suggest as their remedies. These are of such a nature as to provide considerable relaxation in the severity of the regulations, but leave the main points untouched. These regulations are imposed by the Executive here, without reference to England, and if now relaxed, might at the first favourable opportunity be re-enacted with more severity than ever. So well calculated, but miscalculated, I hope and trust, are the Protector's suggestions to defeat the well founded prayer of the petition. To show the illusory character of the Protector's suggestions, I will cite one of them. He proposes "That every old immigrant that is the holder of a license authorizing him to carry on any business, trade, or profession, should be exempted from the obligation imposed on old immigrants by Regulation No. 56 (that of paying for a day-labourer's license if he work by the day)." A man who has paid for a license and is carrying on a business or profession is not likely to derive much benefit from the proposed permission to work as a day labourer. This is the first of the Protector's proposals, those that follow are as unsatisfactory, if not quite as absurd.

On some of the estates no doubt the Indians are fairly treated, but when they fall into the hands of an unscrupulous proprietor, they are virtually at his mercy, and he pays them very nearly what he chooses. But are there not laws, it will be asked, by which they can recover? Yes there are laws; but when the system of payment is explained, it will be seen how inadequate they are to protect the labourers.

Their wages are always at least a month in arrears, so that those for January would be paid at the end of February at the earliest. Meanwhile, a book is kept in the form prescribed by the law, in which are marked the days on which the labourer was absent from his work or in hospital. For each day in hospital he forfeits the pay of that day, but for each day that he is absent from his work he forfeits two day's pay. The overseers are in the interest of the proprietor, and are unfortunately but too often valued in proportion to the sum which they can enable the proprietor to deduct from the wages of the Indian labourers. Accordingly, the labourers are frequently marked as absent when not absent, and stoppages are made from their wages for the non-completion of tasks almost impossible to accomplish, or for other reasons invented by the ingenuity or caprice of the overseers, who must adopt this means to retain the favour of their employers and their situations.

Those who bring only their English ideas to the consideration of the subject, will be unable to imagine such a state of things possible; but it must be borne in mind that the esteem for truth is here very small, and as has been said by the author of "Creoles and Coolies,'

," "the Englishman who has sat in a Mauritius Court of Justice and listened to the wholesale perjury and undisguised contempt for the sacred nature of an oath will be disposed to regard falsehood as a exhibited by the Creoles of all classes

vice common to the whole Creole community instead of being the characteristic of the coloured people. There is not a coloured man in the Colony who would not perjure himself for a sixpence' is the frequent charge brought against this class by the white Creoles, whom the consciousness of their own defects might teach a little charity." And the same author, the Rev. Patrick Beaton, says elsewhere "If a labourer happens to be one day absent from his work, his employer is entitled to exact two days' labour in return, or to cut off the price of two days' labour from his monthly wages. It might be easily shown that this power is liable to gross abuse when exercised by an unprincipled employer, whose interest it may be at times to provoke his labourers to desert his service. When he does not require the labour of all his coolies, which happens at certain seasons, he may treat some of them in such a way as to lead them to desert, and thus he gains a double advantage, he escapes from the necessity of nourishing them during their absence, and is entitled to cut off two days' wages for every day they have been absent when they return. The system of cutting the wages ("couper les gages") is not confined to mere absence. It extends to all possible offences, real, or imaginary, and when it is practised by a master, ingenious in discovering faults, the poor labourer, at the end of the month, often finds himself mulcted of a portion of his hard won earnings. His only mode of redress is to summon his master before the local magis- trate, where, in consequence of his ignorance of French, he is placed at a great disadvantage, and, except in very glaring cases, rarely obtains justice.

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