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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference -

11.11C.0.88

-882

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

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

Vide pars. 2. 7, and 13 of Report.

Pars. 7 and 15,

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7. Because the reduced number of immigrants who arrived in 1871 and in the first four months of this year is due, not to the withholding of the right to a free return passage, but mainly to the difficulty of inducing the proportionate number of females (40 to 100 males) to emigrate; and secondarily, to accidental and, temporary causes, 84 distinctly set forth by our agents and as reproduced in Report No. 1 of the Immigra tion Committee of this Board, dated 5th February, 1872, annexed to Minutes of Council, No. 4 of 1872, several of which latter causes have already ceased.

8. Because our agents have suggested specific measures to surmount their difficulties in the way of recruitment, namely, the Calcutta Agent:-

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

(2.) That the proportion of females be reduced from 40 to 30 for every 100 males. And the Madras Agent:-

That he be authorized to offer engagements to females as is done by the West Indian and French Colonies. The measures proposed by them, having been approved by the Immigration Committee which has even added authority to pay bounties to females willing to emigrate, experience alone can show whether they will be sufficient or not to induce the required number to emigrate.

9. Because we are the more inclined to believe that the reverting to the former minimum scale of wages beginning at 5 rupees per month (which we think was reduced to 4 rupees after the fever epidemic and the disastrous hurricane of 1888, and has been lately raised to its former amount) will produce the desired effect, as those requisitionists who last year authorized the Agents to offer that scale have obtained a fair number of the emigrants whom they wanted.

10. Because the re-establishment of the right to a free return passage, far from facilitating the emigration of females would produce a contrary effect, as the past experience of emigration has proved that when an immigrant leaves India with the idea of returning, he is much less inclined to bring his wife and family with him; so that the proposed measures would, in that respect, increase rather than diminish the difficulties of our Agents.

11. Because, with respect to the fear of an excess of population in this Colony, the past history of immigration has proved that the vagrants whose stay is hurtful to the Island, are not those who wish to go and who would leave us if they were entitled to a return passage. By far the larger number of that class remained here under the former system, and the same thing would very likely occur in ten years.

hence.

12. Because our labouring population having considerably increased since twenty years by the permanent settlement of Indian immigrants, and the number of births being likely to exceed more and more that of the deaths on account of the daily increasing proportionate number of females; this Colony is likely to find amongst its resident population more and more of the labour which it requires, and the number of future immigrants wanted from India will, undoubtedly, be much less than it was in the past. The more so as the expense of introducing immigrants is now paid directly by the planter who asks for the men, instead of being as formerly, paid from the general revenue of the Colony; and the cost for each man averaging from 91. to 131., is materially increased by the desertion and death of a proportion of the men during five years, and by the comparative inefficiency of their labour during the first two years which makes it more advantageous to employ old immigrants at rates of wages nearly double that of the new immigranta at the Government scale, beginning at 5 rupees per month. So that the population which has scarcely increased for the last few years, from the excess of arrivals over departures is not likely to increase sensibly from that source during the next ten years.

13. Because the inference that planters having requisitioned for 7,000 men in 1871 and for 8,000 during the first four months of 1872, and having only received 2,760, are still in want of 12,240 men would be erroneous; as unexecuted requisitions lapsing after twelve months, 5,000 of the 8,000 men requisitioned for this year, must be held to replace the same number of last year for which the requisitions have lapsed. 14. Because a few hundred vagrants or inefficient labourers who, in ten years hence, might annually avail themselves of their free return passage, could produce no appreciable benefit in regard to over population or in a sanitary point of view.

15. Because the remedy against overcrowding and idleness will be better found in proper sanitary and vagrancy laws, which might provide for our present and future requirements in this respect, and has already been pointed out by several authorities,

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and indicated by the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos in his despatch of the 6th June, 1868, addressed to Sir Henry Barkly.

16. Because, in a pecuniary point of view, the obligation on the part of this Government to provide gratuitous back passages, might entail upon the Colony a con siderable, and, as regards both time and amount, an uncertain, expenditure, which might befall Mauritius just at the time when it would be less able to support it; and no attempt has been made in supporting the Resolution to estimate the probable charge, or to indicate from what source an adequate additional revenue could be raised in order to meet it.

Besides, if largely taken advantage of by future immigrants, their departure would impose a very heavy outlay on planters in the shape of the introduc tion of new men to replace the labourers who would be thus lost; to say nothing of the money carried out of the Colony by future time-expired immigrants.

17. Because the granting of a free return passage to future immigrants, whilst we have now in this Colony fully 100,000 male immigrants who are not entitled to it, would engender a strong feeling of jealousy and envy among the latter, and become a serious and well founded source of discontent. The Demerara Commissioners report that the Chinese immigrants who are not entitled to a return passage there, whilst the Indiam immigrants are, feel this as a very sore point.

18. Because many countries have found it to their advantage to encourage and promote emigration by bounties, grants of land or otherwise; but except the West Indian Colonies, which have had no option in the matter, we are not aware that any country has, of its own accord, offered free back passages in order to encourage its labouring population to re-emigrate.

Port Louis, May 29, 1872.

(Signed)

No. 40.

H. PITOT. R. STEIN.

V. NAZ

E. XERY.

CH. MONTOCCHIO.

LOUIS RAOUL.

HENRY J. JOURDAIN.

Governor the Hon. Sir A. H. Gordon, K.C.M.G. to the Earl of Kimberley.--(Received July 1.) (No. 194. Miscellaneous.) My Lord,

Mauritius, May 31, 1872. IN the postcript to my despatch No. 147 of the 2nd instant, I mentioned that I had received from the Protector of Immigrants, a Protest against the Report of the Police Commission, which I had not had time to read or consider before the departure of the mail.

2. On reading it subsequently, I perceived that it was written in a tone of consider- able irritation, and contained not only a vindication of himself, but reflections upon the conduct of others which did not, in my judgment, add to the strength of his defence, and which would have called for unfavourable comment from me.

3. I pointed this out to Mr. Beyts, who agreed to modify his composition, and took it away for that purpose. It has now been returned to me, but again too late to permit me to report on it at any length. I shall, however, not further delay its trans- mission to your Lordship.

I do not agree with Mr. Beyts in thinking that the Commission have arrived at couelusions which were not fairly and naturally deduced from the evidence before them; nor do I see any reason to suppose that they intended to hold him personally responsible for the defects in administration of the law to which they called attention.

On the other hand, I must say, I think that Mr. Beyts satisfactorily shows that the object he had in view in preparing the Report upon which the regulations of 1800 were founded, was not to render the obligations of the law more onerous, but to effect practical improvements which were generally considered desirable.

Whether the effect of those regulations was not, however, to subject the immigrant

to more stringent and vexatious obligations, is quite another matter.

I am quite unable to-day to add another word before the departure of the mail; but will offer a few more observations on this protest by the earliest opportunity.

I have, &o.

(Signed) ARTHUR GORDON.