CO882-(2-3) — Page 374

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

EPEREC.O.882

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE

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9th January, 1850.

150

Inclosure in No. 48.

Papers respecting Discontinuance of Return Passages.

Extract from Minutes of the Proceedings of the Council of Government, at a Meeting held at Government House, on Monday, the 19th April, 1847.

Present:

The Officer Second in Cornmand.

})

Colonial Secretary.

"

Collector of Customs.

"

"

Procureur and Advocate-General.

Auditor-General.

Treasurer and Paymaster-General.

Collector of Internal Revenues.

Messrs. Bourgault Ducoudray.

H. Koenig.

P. Harel.

F. Barbé.

W. Forster.

H. Lemière.

Sir D. Barclay, Bart.

3. THE Board proceeded with the Order of the day.

Adjourned 2nd reading of the Draft of Ordinance for promoting immigration and the industrial residence of immigrants.

4. Moved and carried, that an allowance of 21. be paid to each immigrant who, on completing his or her term of industrial residence, shall remain in the Colony. Such immigrant to have no claim afterwards to a return-passage to India at the expense of Government, and, if the immigrant continue to remain, 17. be paid for each of the two following years of industrial residence.

It was also resolved, in consideration of the prejudicial effects to the permanent settlement of Indian immigrants in the Colony, which result from the promise of a free return-passage, that his Excellency the Governor be requested to renew his application to the Secretary of State and to the Government of India for the discontinuance of a gratuitous passage as a condition of the emigration of labourers thence to Mauritius. It being satisfactorily proved by the experience of the last 4 years, and by the statement communicated by his Excellency, of immigrants returning at their own expense, that no Indian need remain in this Island from not being able to provide a back passage for himself; since it is shown, by the statement in question, that 928 immigrants returned to India at their own expense, whose term of residence here did not, in any one instance, exceed 18 months,and that 2,158 left the Colony, whose stay ranged from 18 to 30 months only; it being well known that the individuals so departing took with them a sum of money, besides paying for their passages respectively.

Report of the Immigration Committee of the Council of Government on the various points connected with Immigration to which the Governor has called their attention.

Committee:

The Acting Treasurer and Paymaster-General, Chairman.

19

Procureur and Advocate-General.

Auditor-General,

Messrs. P. Harel.

F. Barbé.

W. Forster.

Sir D. Barclay, Bart.

1. The points on which the Committee consider themselves now called upon to report are embraced in the following extract from the Governor's Minute of the 2nd July, 1840:-"I would recommend that the Committee should proceed to consider

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and report the present expenses attending immigration, enumerating the causes occa- sioning this expense; and to consider how the immigration could be satisfactorily relieved from any of these causes, always keeping in view the fair and just provision for the immigrant on his passage down, and all that is required in India for guarding him againt deception in his contract on emigrating, as well as what is required in the Colony for his full and perfect protection."

2. Such inquiry on the part of the Committee involves the whole system of immigration, which they are of opinion is susceptible of radical improvement. They will, accordingly, endeavour in this Report to point out where such improvement is most required, and how it can best be effected.

tare.

3. First, as to "the present expensee attending immigration." They are all Estimated expande- enumerated in the Estimate for 1850 as passed by the Council, and the following is a summary of the same:-

Establishments-

Protector's Offoe, Mauritius.

Emigration Agent's Office, Calcutta

Total establishments Services exclusive of establishments—

Passage of 5,000 male adult immigrants Return passages

**

Other expenses at Mauritius.. Shipment expenses at Calcutta Other

Total expenditure

:::::

.. d.

2,416 4 0 1,746 8 0

0

4,162 12

28,000 0 0 10,000 0 0

1,091

0 0 3,000 0 0 440 0 0

41,991 0.0

46,693 12 0

4. The Committee will now proceed to explain the causes of these expenses,

and

to show, at the same time, what in their opinion should be done with a view to modify or remove them. They will take the several items in the order in which they stand above.

establishment.

5. The Order in Council of 15th January, 1842, regulating the emigration of Protector's Of natives of India to Mauritius, requires the Governor to nominate a proper person to act as Protector of Immigrants at Mauritius; and directs such Protector, on his receiving notice of the arrival of a vessel with immigrants, to proosed on board of such vessel, to inspect both it and the immigrants, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the regulations established by the said Order and by law in India respecting emigration to Mauritius, have been duly complied with; and, further, when the immigrants are landed, to register them.

8. By Colonial laws and regulations the Protector is also charged with superin- tending and regulating the distribution at the depot of newly arrived immigrants, of registering as "old immigrants" all those whose "industrial residence" of five years has expired; of expediting, under nearly the same rules as the agent in India expedites the emigrants for Mauritius, all immigrants who leave the Colony at their own, or at Government expenso.

7. These duties of the Protector, and others of minor importance which it is not necessary to specify, entail upon his office an expense for clerks which must necessarily be considerable; yet the Committee are not prepared to say that such expense may not be diminished. Under any system of immigration there must, they apprehend, be an officer charged with most of such duties. Exposed as the Colony is, and will probably continue to be, so long as it produces annually 50,000 tons of sugar, to suspicions and accusations none but a Slave Colony could possibly deserve, the Committee deem it most important, in the interest of the whole community, as well as of the immigrants themselves, that Government should, as far as possible, protect the immigrant against embarking under false impressions, and secure to him during his

passage to, or from Mauritius, all that is necessary to insure his health and safety.”

8. The said Order in Council also requires that the Governor nominate a person Emigration Agent's to act as emigration agent at any port in India which the Governor-General of India Offer mitblink-

may designate as a port for the embarkation of emigrants to Mauritius; that thet.\\\ remuneration to be given to such agent shall not depend upon, or be regulated by, the number of the emigrants sent to Mauritius by him, but shall be in the nature of an annual salary; and that such agent shall ascertain by personal communication with every emigrant previously to his embarkation, that the emigrant has not been induced to emigrate by any fraud, false nor unreasonable expectation, and is aware of the distance of Mauritius from the place whence he is about to emigrate; that he shall

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