CO882-(2-3) — Page 303

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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Reference :-

C.O. 882.

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2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

Duties of Inspectors of Immigrants.

Rights of Protector

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of 5001. per annum, and a further sum not exceeding 2001. per annum for such travelling expenses as shall be actually incurred by such officer.

III. It shall be lawful for any Inspector of Immigrants to enter and inspect any asylum, hospital, school, camp of labourers, or other establishment of any kind in which Indian immigrants are received, and also to enter upon any estate or premises, except private dwelling-houses, in which any immigrant is employed or located, and to investigate the condition and state of any immigrants who may be therein respectively, and he may require any such immigrants in any such places respectively to be brought before him upon any such visit.

Every such Inspector shall be further vested with all the powers and liable to per- form all the duties assigned to the Inspecting Medical Officers by Ordinance No. 28 of 1865, intituled, "An Ordinance to Amend the Law as to Hospitals and Medical atten- dance for Persons under Contracts of Service," by the Proclamation No. 1 of the 5th January, 1866, or by any Regulation which has been or may hereafter be made under the said Ordinance No. 29 of 1865.

But such Inspectors shall not, on that account, or any other account, be in any way under the control or direction of the General Board of Health or any local Board of Health.

IV. Nothing in this Ordinance contained shall in any way affect the rights of Immigrants not vested in the Protector of Immigrants by Article 17 of Ordinance No. 18 of 1862. affected.

Visits to estatés.

Inspection of books, &c., on estaten.

V. It shall be lawful for the Governor to assign districts to such Inspectors of Immigrants, and every such Inspector shall visit at least once in every three months every plantation or estate, asylum, hospital, school, camp of labourers, or other establishment of any kind in which Indian immigrants are received, except private dwelling-houses, in his districts upon which there may be any immigrant under contract of service, and shall also do so at any other time if so directed by the Protector of Immigrants.

VI. The Protector of Immigrants or any Inspector of Immigrants shall have the right, when making such visits, to call for and inspect any or every book, register roll, or other written record kept on any plantation or estate, asylum, hospital, school, camp of labourers, or other establishment of any kind in which Indian immigrants are received, except private dwelling-houses, regarding the attendances, absences, wages, hospital treatment of, or other matter concerning immigrants employed on the said estate.

Inspectors of Immi- VII. The Inspectors of Immigrants shall be under the control and direction of the grants to be under Protector of Immigrants, and shall at all times comply with all his lawful orders; and the directions of the it shall be their duty to make Reports to the Protector of Immigrants at such times Protector of Immi and touching such matters as the Governor may direct.

graois.

Ultimate abolition

of Inspecting

Medical Officers.

Returns by em- ployers.

Penalty for failure

10 make returns.

Penalty for

VIII-The Office of Inspecting Medical Officer created by and in virtue of Ordinance No. 29 of 1865 shall be abolished on vacancy.

IX.-Bvery employer of immigrants exceeding twenty in number shall, within the month of January and the month of July in each year, make and transmit to the Protector of Immigrants a Return, in such form as the Governor may from time to time approve, of all immigrants, whether under written contract of service or not, in his employ during the whole or any part of the preceding six months, together with the date and number of deaths, the number of births of the children of such immigrants; of the names of all immigrants who may have ceased to be employed on the plantation or estate during the preceding six months; and also of the number of absences and desertions that have taken place on the said plantation or estate during each month of the preceding six months, together with the names and numbers of such deserters: and the Protector of Immigrants shall keep all such Returns, and shall, at the end of each year, make an abstract of the numbers, increase, and decrease of such immigrants employed as aforesaid, births, deaths, absences, and desertions.

X. Every employer of immigrants exceeding twenty in number, who shall omit to make or cause to be made by the manager of the plantation or estate the returns heroinbefore required, or who shall make or cause to be made, any such returns which shall be wilfully incorrect in any particular, shall, upon conviction before any Stipendiary Magistrate, forfeit and pay such sum not exceeding 101. as the convicting Magistrate may direct.

XI.-Every person who shall by any act or omission obstruct the Protector of obstructing officers. Immigrants or any Inspector of Immigrants in entering any plantation or estate, asylum, hospital, school, camp of labourers, or other establishment of any kind in which Indian immigrants are received, except privato dwelling-houses, upon which

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any immigrant under written Contract of Service is employed, or upon which he may reasonably suppose that any immigrant is employed under any written Contract of Service, or who shall fail on demand to produce to the Protector of Immigrants, or to any Inspector of Immigrants, any book or other document mentioned in Article VI hereof, or who shall obstruct the Protector of Immigrants or any Inspector of Immigrants in inspecting any book or other document aforesaid, or shall refuse or neglect to bring or cause to be brought any immigrant before the Protector of Immigrants or any Inspector of Immigrants at such Protector's or Inspector's request ahall, on conviction before a Stipendiary Magistrate, forfeit and pay such sum not exceeding 201. as the convicting Magistrate shall direct.

XII-All informations to be laid under this Ordinance or under Ordinance Limitation of No. 20 of 1865 may be laid at any time not more than six months next after the day action. of the offence being committed, and all such informations may and shall be laid by the Protector of Immigrants, or, as the case may be, by the Crown Prosecutor.

XIII-Nothing herein contained shall be held or construed to repeal, or vary, or Other penal laws

in any manner to interfere with the Penal Laws now in force in this Colony.

maintained.

IV. Ordinances Nos. 16 of 1862 and 29 of 1865, and the Proclamation No. 1 Modification of

of 5th January, 1866, are modified only in so far as they are repugnant to or inconsistent laws. with the provisions of this Ordinance.

XV. This Ordinance shall be read and construed with the Ordinance No. 31 of Ordinance to be

read with Ordi- 1867.

Passed in Council at Port Louis, Island of Mauritius, this nineteenth day of December, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-one.

(Signed)

JNO. ELLIOT, Acting Secretary to the Council of Government.

Inclosure 2 in No. 1.

Report on Ordinance No. 34 of 1871, entituled “An Ordinance to provide for the appointment of Inspectors of Immigrants."

THIS Ordinance is a very important step taken by the Legislature with the view of securing a more regular inspection of sugar estates and establishments on which Indian immigrants are employed, and a more constant, searching, and fairer investiga- tion into the condition of that very interesting class of men whose giant labour has brought this Colony, in spite of dire epidemic diseases, unfavourable seasons, floods, and hurricanes, to a state of very great actual prosperity, and prospects still more hopeful.

The principle of the law is not now; even the application of the principle to this Colony is not new. In Trinidad the consolidated Ordinance No. 16 of 1882, Àrticle 18, had several years ago provided for a regular plan of inspection, whilst in British Guiana the consolidating Ordinance No. 4 of 1864 had also reduced to a system the powers of Inspectors vested in the Agent-General of Immigration.

In this Colony the same principle formed part of our laws, and Ordinance No. 18 of 1809 made it lawful for the Protector of Immigrants, by himself or deputy, to visit those industrial or eleemosynary establishments in which Indian immigrants are employed or received.

It must, however, be confessed that the power enacted in a general Ordinance was but seldom exercised; and it is but just to the planters of this island to my that, although there may have been, and no doubt were, exceptions to the rule, their treat- ment of the Indian immigrants has been such as not to render more frequent inspections of estates actually necessary.

But it is not sufficient that a principle be affirmed by an Article inserted in an Ordinance which had other objects; it was felt that the precept should be put into practical operation, and that inspections should not be a power but s duty.

The Immigration Committee of the Council felt this, and when seized with the question did not hesitate to recommend to the Council of Government a measure more stringent than those which were in our Statute Book, and to provide for a machinery which would not suffer the new measure to remain a dead letter, but, on the contrary, hold it out to the officers entrusted with the operation as a duty of paramount importance.

In pursuance of the expressed opinion of the Immigration Committee au Ordinance was prepared, differing but in minor points of detail from the substance of the Report, and creating two paid Inspectors, who, under the immediate direction of the Protector

nanos 81 of 1887.