CO882-(2-3) — Page 375

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :--

TILLC.O.882

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

Services exclusive of establishments.

Passage-money.

Women.

Height between decks.

Families.

152

explain the real advantages likely to be derived by the emigrants from a removal to Mauritius, at the same time cautioning them against unreasonable and unwarrantable expectations; and shall also ascertain that each emigrant is in good health, and not incapacitated from labour by old age, bodily infirmity, or disease. The Order in Council further requires that, before any ship be cleared out with emigrants, the agent survey, or cause to be surveyed by some competent person, the provisions and water required to be on board, and ascertain that the same are in good and sweet condition; that the ship is generally reputed seaworthy; and that the directions contained in the Order for insuring the health and safety of the emigrants have been complied with, The agent is also bound to furnish every emigrant with a certificate or pass, and the master of the ship with a descriptive list of the emigrants embarked; &c.

9. The whole of these duties cannot be performed by one individual, and the Committee are not aware that in point of numbers the establishment of the agent's office can be reduced; but, with regard to the agent's salary, they quite concur with the Finance Committee in the opinion they have expressed in the 17th paragraph of their Report, No. 267, on the estimates for 1850. Indeed, it appears to them that no situation can be more provisional in its nature than that of an emigration agent; that the salary of such agent cannot be regulated altogether irrespectively of the extent of emigration; and that the salary now received by the agent is entirely out of proportion to the present limited emigration and straitened resources of this Colony.

10. The next items of immigration expenditure that figure in the estimates for 1850, are "Services exclusive of Establishments." These items amount to 41,9917., and embrace all that is most important in the matter; upon these the Committee will proceed to comment.

11. First, the passage of immigrants, 28,0001. This sum may be said to provide for introduction of—

6,000 men, at 74s, each

1,300 women (20 per cent of men), at ditto..

720 children (60 per cent. of women), at 87#.

£

22,200

4,410

1,332

27,972

but this amount would be reduced to 20,400., calculating the passage at 70s. per adult, which was nearly the average rate during the last year, a low one for Calcutta, when compared with the averages of former years, but one which the Committee have reason to hope, from the improved mode of procuring offers of shipping now practised, must continue, except that commerce should become disturbed by some unforeseen circumstance. The average number of women introduced during the four years 1846 to 1849, was 15 per cent. of the men, and that of children, exclusive of “infants,” 50 per cent. of the women.

12. The Committee would fain see introduced a larger proportion of women; and they cannot but think that were proper pains taken by the agent to obtain it, they would be attended with success. The ship "Futtay Salam," which arrived on the 28th November last, brought 130 men and 65 women, and the Protector, in his Report on that arrival, remarks, “50 of whom (the women) are regularly married and accompany their husbands." This case, he adds, "affords a proof that natives have not, as asserted, insuperable objections to emigrate with their families."

13. It has been represented in 'the Finance Report above mentioned, that it is of great importance, in an economical point of view, to obtain a modification of the Order in Council which requires that all vessels bringing emigrants to Mauritius shall have a height of 6 feet between decks. The Finance Committee very justly remark, that "on no account is this space necessary, and to require it so far restricts the com- petition amongst shipping to carry emigrants, as considerably to enhance the cost of introducing them." It will be seen by the statement annexed to this Report that of the thirty vessels which brought emigrants to this Colony in 1849, only five measured lens than 500 tons each, and only two less than 450, which is in great part, no doubt, attributable to the smaller class of vessels rarely having between decks a height of 6 feet. Were no more than 5 feet exacted, assuredly more vessels would be tendered, and the cost of transport be reduced, while ample room would be given to the immigrant, who, whether Indian or African, would rarely be of high stature.

14. The Committee would suggest that familica should always be admitted at the depôt at Calcutta, although it might occasionally necessitate the removal of unmarried people; and that they should always have the preference as regards embarkation, whatever length of time they may have been in the depôt.

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15. Return passages are estimated at 10,000, but it is hardly possible to form Return passages. any satisfactory estimate of what the amount may be. There will this year be in the Colony about 88,000 immigrants whose five years will have expired, and this number, at the very low rate of 11. 58. 74d. per adult (the average of last year), would make upwards of 48,0001. The departures and deaths last year almost equalled the arrivals. The numbers were :—

Arrivals

Departures and deaths..

Excess in arrivala

Men. Women. Children. Total.

5,936 887 4,550 654

459

7,282 95 6,299

1,386 233

304 1,983

16. The Finance Committee, in their report above referred to, while declining to discuss the question of free return-passages protest against the payment for such passages by Government being made a sine qua non of the Indian immigration, it being their deliberate opinion that such a condition is fraught with the worst consequences to both the planters and the immigrants themselves, and should, in the interests of all parties, be immediately cancelled. The Committee entirely concur with the Finance Committee in this opinion. Unfortunately that condition has always been so much insisted upon by the Indian Government, that the Council has been accustomed to look upon it as an evil inherent in the Indian immigration, and altogether irremediable, and have, consequently, not so strongly and frequently represented the mischief and injustice of it, as they would have been more than justified in doing. It was first exacted by the Indian Act No. 5 of 1887, published in this Colony in September 1887,-then came the Act No. 15 of 1842, embodying the Queen's Order in Council of 15th January, 1842, and repealing the Act of 1899 which prohibited Emigration to Mauritius, from the day the Government of India should notify in the "Gazette" that measures had been taken by the Government of Mauritius for the protection of emigrants on their passage to Mauritius and during their residence there, and for their safe return at the expiration of five years, or any subsequent period, should they be desirous of returning to India. The required measures were taken by Ordinance No. 11 of 1842, and in January 1843 the first batch of emigrants, under the said Act No. 15, arrived. The right to free return-passages is now regulated by Ordinance No. 25 of 1848. Of the 75,935 adult Indian immigrants introduced under the Order in Council of January 1842, up to the end of 1849, there have returned to India :---

At their own expense.

Mon. Women.

Total

6,804

604

7,408

At Government expense

Men.

Women.

As unfit for service As having completed their five

years' residence

436

18

4,507

Total

691 4,943 709

11,747 1,813

6,552

15,060

17. The number of those having completed their five years' residence and left at the expense of Government, is, it will be observed, already very considerable, being equal to about 7 per cent. of the total introduced-And there can be no doubt that by far the greater portion of them have left merely because a free passage was offered them, and because, this being offered, they looked, and had been always wont to look, upon the expiration of their Ave years as a period fized by Government at which it was expected they would return to India. Many of them had no means whatever, and if they had desired to return, had felt no need to save, na a free passage was promised them; and those who have means could have had no strong desire to go back, or they would not have waited for a free passage, as it is notorious, and the Protector states that, when, before the expiration of the five years immigrants wish to leave the Colony, they will rarely be deterred from so doing by the expense attending it, if they can possibly defray such expense.

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