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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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be uniformity in this matter, and that the issue of the police passes to jobmen should take place on the production by them of their licenses.

4th. As regards the notice of removal of an immigrant from the district to which pass applies, it is not sufficient that he should simply notify his intention to quit the district; he should state the district in which he is about to reside, and that district should be mentioned in the acknowledgment of the notice made on the pass, and on the counterpart of the pass.

5th. The passes for foreign districts provided for by Article 14 of the amended Regulations instituted particularly with a view to hawkers whose itinerant vocations lead them through several districts, but whose fixed residence is in the district in which they have taken out their passes. The authority endorsed on the pass may be made to extend over a considerable period, and need not be so worded as to require renewal at short intervals; it should also enable the bearer to reside in any of the districts mentioned by the endorsement, as well as in the district for which the pass was originally issued.

6th. Instructions have been issued to the prison authorities to forward to the police the passes of all immigrants sentenced to more than one month's imprisonment, on receipt of these passes a note of the offence, &c., should be made on the pass, and the couterfoil, and the pass should then be returned to the gaoler. The utility of these means of supervision is self demonstrative.

Permits to Work.

Arrangements have recently been made at the Immigration Department. for sending all permits to work, under cover, to the General Police Office, to be there delivered to the parties to whom they refer. Before being delivered, they should be visee'd by the police, and should moreover be countersigned by the Inspector of Police of the district in which the immigrant intends to work, if it be his wish to take work in a country district.

Job Contractors.

As the amended Regulations (Article 6) prohibit the employment by job-con- tractors, of labourers engaged verbally, the police should strictly enforce the law against persons who contravene the regulations on this point, for the class of labourers who are thus employed by job-contractors are for the most part deserters, vagrants, &c., who take to this mode of working to evade the obligations imposed upon them by the law.

J. T. N. O'BRIEN,

Inspector-General of Police.

(Signed)

General Police Office, January 12, 1870.

General Order No. 11.

Ordinance 31 of 1887.

In cases of men having their passes endorsed for the purpose of proceeding from one to another district (in accordance with the Honourable the Procureur-General's remarks, Police Passes Article 4, published in General Order No. 1, of this year), and then changing their mind, and wishing to remove to a third. The Inspector-General would remark that it seems to him there is no necessity to send the immigrants back. to the district from which they originally started, as it is perfectly competent for the police to re-endorse the pass for the district to which they purpose moving.

J. T. N. O'BRIEN,

Inspector-General of Police.

(Signed)

General Police Office, March 2, 1870.

General Order No. 78.

An officer of the force having suggested a travelling police pass being issued to Indian immigrants, to obviate the necessity of the many endorsements on the regular police passes, the subject was referred to the Honourable the Procureur-General, and the following reply received:—

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Report No. 451.

*The regulation under which leave is granted to immigrants, to go temporarily to a foreign district, is No. 575 of the Labour Laws.

"I think it would not be expedient to increase the number of papers an immigrant, en règle, is bound to have on his person. He has already to be in possession of a portrait ticket and of police pass, and I think all reasonable checks ought to be obtainable by means of two documents in such cases. If a third is now introduced, s fourth may be deemed advisable at a later period. I think it would be increasing the man's difficulties concerning the regularity of his status.”

The Inspector-General, also, at the suggestion of the Honourable the Procureur General, now directs, that in cases of men of the Indian population (hawkers do.) whose avocations cause them to wander constantly from district to district, the permission to go to a foreign district should, as formerly, be written at first on the police pass, but that whenever a duplicate police pass is required, on account of there being no longer any room for further writing on it, there be issued a duplicate free of charge.

(Signed) J. T. N. O'BRIEN, Lieutenant-Colonel,

Inspector-General of Police.

General Police Office, December 14, 1870.

General Order No. 3.

Licensed hawkers of respectability need not, in future, be restricted to three months' pass to proceed to other districts, for the purpose of hawking their goods; but may be accorded a pass for six months. This is done with a view to save time and labour in renewing these passeD.

(Signed)

J. T. N. O'BRIEN, Lieutenant-Colonel,

General Police Office, January 12, 1871.

General Order No. 21.

Inspector-General of Police.

The following queries having been submitted to the Honourable the Procureur and Advocate-General for opinion, are published with the replies received, for the general information of the force :-

1st. "Whether an Indian who changed his occupation without changing his residence was bound to give notice to the police agreeably to Article 48 of Regulation No. 154 of 1869 P**

"I am of opinion that a change of 'master' cannot well be considered as a change of 'occupation, and that which the law requires is, that old immigrants should notify to the police any change in abode or 'occupation.' In the case before the Magistrate the man had continued to live in the place indicated in the pass, and his occupation was still that of a labourer.

"The police are wrong to suppose that because a Magistrate diamiesen a case, when the case is not proved before him that they are thereby prevented from prosecuting similar cases. The duty of the police is to prosecute cases that fall within the terms of the law, and to prove the contraventions if they can.

upon

the

"There is nothing in the Magistrate's decision which throws a doubt right of the police to prosecute under the Regulations, spoken of, but there has evidently been a misunderstanding of the Magistrate's decision."

"W. F. F. GORDON, Captain,

"Acting Inspector-General of Police.

(Signed)

"General Police Office, March 8, 1871.”

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