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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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TILLIC.O.

-882

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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were none.

ments in favour of the measure? They were scanty, meagre. He might say there He had gone through the whole of the recent correspondence, and could not glean from it anything in support of the measure. He had then turned to the Police Enquiry Commission, and from that he had learned that a few Indians had applied for return passages, and that there was one of them fortunate enough to inspire so much interest, that they gave him a special recommendation to the Protector, to His honour- whom the man went at once, and has never since been seen or heard of. able friend said it was not on such childish grounds that the measure was to be carried, and he quite agreed with him. He believed one of the arguments on which his honour- able friend had laid much stress was the overcrowding of the population. That point had been fully answered. There were parts that are perhaps overcrowded, such as the suburbs of Port Louis, which contained perhaps too many inhabitants. But after all we had still very large tracts of land uncultivated, and he believed that if in conjunction with the utilization of these wastes the provision of the law enjoining the expulsion of bad characters was strictly acted upon, many of those Indians who we should like to see out of the country might be removed, and our sanitary condition improved; and if the law was not sufficient in its terms to effect that, he was sure no member of the Board would hesitate to make the necessary alteration. Another consideration on which much stress seemed to be laid was that the proposed measure would free the country of the idlers and the evil-doers who were its curse. Ho did not clearly see how such a result would be arrived at. It was not likely that vagrants would go when for them there was no better place than Mauritius, where they could earn enough in a It was, he few days to keep them in their idle habits during the rest of the month. was afraid, the industrious labourer, who had saved money, who would elect to back

go if free return passages were granted, and it was that class of men which they ought to be anxious to keep in the Colony. There was one point, however, which would have great weight in his mind-and here he stood on merely practical ground-the difficulty of recruiting men in India. But the difficulty had not been proved to exist. His honour- able friend had cited two passages from letters of our agents in India, but he could only He was not systematically. think they had an incidental connection with the measure. opposed to it, and would be prepared to support it if it was clearly shown to him that, without it, the recruiting of a sufficient number of men in India would no longer be possible. But such proof had not been adduced, and he believed the Board would not be justified, in the present state of the matter, to undo what our predecessors had taken so much trouble and so much time to do. But as a compromise, as a means of both sides meeting half way, and to satisfy those gentlemen who do not wish to vote directly against the measure, he would propose as an Amendment, "That the Board considers that the subject requires further investigation, especially as regards the question of recruiting in India, and is not prepared to take the Resolution into consideration."

The Honourable Mr. Naz thought what had been said against the Resolution by the two previous speakers would considerably shorten the observations he had intended making. He would first deal with the appeal of his friend the Protector of Immigrants, who said we must protect our own interests by doing justice to the Indians. That was an appeal that would have weight with the Board; but he ventured to assert, not merely for themselves, but for their predecessors at that table, that the Indian has always been dealt with justly, and protection, as far as it could be secured by law, has been accorded them. If he could be shown that the proposed measure would extend that principle, he would feel very much inclined to go the same way as the Protector of Immigrants, but he had considered the proposal most carefully; he had given it his most impartial deliberation, and the result of that deliberation and investigation was, that the hopes of his Excellency, and the fears and apprehensions of the Protector of Immigrants, could neither be realized nor allayed by the passing of the Resolution. Just look at the matter as it stood. Twenty years ago the Indian Government, the then Secretaries of State for the Colonies, all the authorities concerned in the matter, decided that a free return passage to the immigrant was not one of the necessary conditions of immi- gration.

The Immigration Committee of this Board, in their Report No. 1 of 1851, signed Rawson W. Rawson, and unanimously adopted by the Council had said, par. 0:→

If it (the return passage) be maintained as being indispensable to induce the immigrant to quit his country, it must be tolerated as a necessary evil; but the experience of past years of the emigration to this Colony of 1835-37, and of the annual emigration to Moulmein and Ceylon, leads the Committee to believe that it is not indispensable, and, at all events, it cannot be maintained by the Indian Government as a condition of allowing emigration upon this ground. It would be for this Govern-

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ment to decide, after a trial of a different system, whether this additional encourage- ment to the Indian Coolie to emigrate to Mauritius were necessary or otherwise. The same amount might be better bestowed as a bounty upon coming here than as a premium upon returning."

The Emigration Commissioners, in their Report to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, dated 18th September, 1851, having given their concurrence to the abolition, the then Court of Directors proposed that the matter be referred to the Governor- General of India in Council (letter signed James C. Melville, dated 30th October, 1851). And in the answer of the Governor-General in Council, dated 80th April, 1852, and signed Dalhousie, F. Currie, J. Louis, B. Peacock, men of the highest worth, all known for their large and liberal views, and for their interest in the welfare of the natives of India, he read (par. 4): "The withdrawal of the right of return passages under the above conditions and reservations would not, we are of opinion, be likely to operate injuriously on the dispositions of natives to emigrate." And in a paper dated the 23rd April, 1853, signed James C. Melville, intituled "Legislative Department"- Draft proposal by the Court of Directors to be sent to the Governor-General of India in Council, he read: "We learn also, that on future consideration, you see no objection to withdrawing the right from Indian labourers hereafter emigrating to Mauritius, except in special cases, adding that it is a question for the Colony to consider whether this change may check the emigration of labourers from India. We concur in the view of the subject now taken by you.

And the whole is cheerfully approved by the Duke of Newcastle in a despatch to Governor Higginson of the 9th May, 1858. Therefore the return passage since 1858 is no longer imposed upon us as a condition of emigration from India, but it is only to be freely offered by us if we think it "indispensable to induce the Indian to quit his country."

His Excellency and the Protector have both asserted that the re-establishment of free return passages has become an indispensable inducement, if we wish to obtain labourers from India, and besides that, it is indispensable for the future sanitary improvement of the Colony. He was sorry not to be able to concur in either of these views.

First, as a planter, having long experience of this matter, and of the feelings of the labourers, he was convinced that this inducement was not a necessary one. The Immigration Committee met in February last and considered most carefully the communications of our Emigration Agents, and the additional inducements and advantages to be offered to the Indian immigrant. Mr. Eales, the Emigration Agent of Calcutta, mentioned four causes which impeded the recruiting of emigrants. The three first arose from the erroneous action of the Indian authorities, and have been removed. The last was "the active competition for labour then existing at Calcutta in consequence of the unusually heavy demands lately received from the West Indies, and the recruitment of men by the Government of India for the Looshai expedition;" two impediments, only provisional, and one of which has certainly ceased now. Mr. Eales asked two things to surmount the difficulties in the way of recruitments-

1. That he be authorized to revert to the former scale of wages, beginning at 5 rupees per month, with a proportional increase to coolies who have previously emigrated.

2. That the proportion of females insisted upon be reduced from 40 to 30 for every 100 males.

The Immigration Committee favourably reported on both points, and the scale of wages has since been raised.

Dr. Conran, the Agent at Madras, ask■ authority to engage Indian females as is done by the West Indies and French Colonies, because the want of the due proportion of females prevents his sending the labourers, large numbers of whom are ready and willing to come. But neither of them say that recruiting is seriously hampered by the want of a return passage.

The Committee also approved the recommendations of the Madras Agent, and authorized him to engage females as he suggested, and even to give them a bounty not expeeding 5 rupees.

Any fresh inducement would give an impetus to the work. The further increase in the wages of a rupee or a shilling a month, the granting of a bounty on their arrival, or any other inducement, would, no doubt, be a great help to our agents. But those gentlemen never made a decided application for this Resolution. No doubt our agents have once or twice said casually in their letters that other Colonies promised a return passage, and that if they could offer one in the name of Mauritius it would facilitate

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