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7. Again, Mr. Beyts was Chairman of the Committee in 1869, whose deliberation resulted in the regulations of that year. Those regulations, which were never communicated to the Government of India, added very greatly to the severity of the repressive system applied to the "old immigrants." Yet Mr. Beyts, so far from protesting against them, fully approved of and adopted them, as is manifest from his evidence at pages 340 et seq. of the appendix to the Report.

8. From another portion of his evidence (questions 1995-2016 and 2026), it is clear that Mr. Beyts observed no system whatever in dealing with the immigrants who came or were sent to the Depôt, and that large numbers found their way back to be punished by the magistrate as vagrants. The extraordinary laxity with which he allowed accounts to be kept was as unjust to the immigrants as it was unbusinesslike. He has altogether pretermitted that most important duty, the inspection of estates. But, perhaps, the most flagrant instance of neglect on Mr. Beyts' part is in connection with the Vagrant Depôt. Between 1864 and 1867 upwards of 15,000 vagrants passed through the depôt. In 1869, 30,824 persons were arrested for vagrancy, of whom about 17,000 appear to have been punished by imprisonment or fine, or sent to the vagrant depôt. Many of the committals were contrary to the regulations, being committals of immigrants made without any proper offer of work to them. Clearly it was Mr. Beyts' duty frequently to visit the depot, and carefully to watch a system which resulted in such an enormous number of committals. His evidence shows that he performed the duty in the most perfunctory manner, if at all. We refer to questions 1832-1843, 1976-1989, and 1995-2016.

9. But it is needless to enlarge further on the shortcomings of the Protector. In the opinion of the Governor-General in Council no more emphatic condemnation could be expressed than in the words of the Commission, when they state that the Immigra- tion Office" has been transformed from an office where the immigrants may come freely for advice and assistance, into a department by means of which fees are levied from the immigrants, in addition to the ordinary taxation fixed by law."

The reason for dwelling on this feature of the case is a practical one. Seeing what has actually happened, and the undoubted desire of the Government of the Mauritius to deal fairly by the immigrant class, it which has taken place coupears to the Governor-General in Council that the oppression

never have taken place on any large scale, or on any scale for any length of time, if there had been an officer in existence who really set himself to study the interests of the immigrants, and to call attention to any ill effects of the law or its administration; and that for the future the best remedy and safeguard will be found in the establishment and continued existence of such an officer.

10. While thus, however, calling attention to some of the defects of law and administration disclosed by the Report of the Commission, the Governor-General in Council desires me to assure his Excellency the Governor that he has the most perfect confidence that the abuses proved to exist will be dealt with as speedily as the requisite formalities will allow. But the Government of Mauritius is doubtless aware that by express legal enactment the Governor-General in Council is charged with the responsibility of convincing himself that proper measures are taken for the protection of immigrants in Colonies which draw their labour supply from India. This responsi- bility cannot be evaded, nor can the Governor-General in Council consider it dis- charged, unless full assurance is given that the Colonial laws shall neither be framed nor administered for the benefit of any class at the expense of Indian immigrants, and that whatever restrictions of personal freedom are necessary, shall, as far as possible, be laid equally on the whole population, and shall be subject to efficient supervision and control. That the state of things revealed by the Report does not fulfil these conditions, the Government of India has no doubt that his Excellency the Governor will himself admit.

11. That the needful supervision can be exercised through the agency of Mr. Beyts, the Governor-General in Council is constrained to say he does not believe; and I am, therefore, to suggest for the consideration of his Excellency the Governor that, pending the adoption of other arrangements, it would be right that some more efficient officer than the present Protector of Immigrants should be entrusted with the duty of watching over the interests of that class.

• Section 57 of the Indian Emigration Act (VII, 1871)—" Whenever the Governor-General in Council has reason to believe that, in any place to which emigration is lawful under this Act, proper measures have not been taken for the protection of emigrants immediately on their arrival in such place, or during their residence therein, or for their safe return to India, or to provide a return passage to India for any such emigrants at or about the time at which they are entitled to such return passage, the Governor-General in Council may, by notification published in the "Gasette of India," declare that emigration to such place shall cease and be prohibited from a certain day to be specifled in the notification."

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12. I am directed to forward, for the information of his Excellency the Governor a copy of a despatch which has been addressed by the Governor-General of India in Council to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for India on this subject.

The Hon. the Colonial Secretary, Mauritius.

My Lord Duke,

I have, &c.

(Signed) A. O. HUME,

Secretary to the Government of India.

Inclosure 2 in No. 56.

WE have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your Grace's despatch,

Simla, July 15, 1872. dated 31st January, 1872, forwarding certain correspondence relative to the condition of Indian labourers in the Mauritius. We communicated a copy thereof confidentially to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, whom we knew to be at the time anxiously considering the position of Indian subjects of Her Majesty in the Mauritius, and requested an expression of his Honour's views. letter, and of the replies from the Government of Bengal, are inclosed for your Grace's A copyt of our information.

2, Previous to the receipt of the despatch above cited, we had received a letter from the Colonial Secretary, Mauritius, dated 29th December, 1871, informing us that the numerous allegations which had been made regarding the treatment of certain classes of Indian immigrants were "under the investigation of a carefully constituted Commission," and that as soon as that Commission had reported, a copy of its report would be forwarded to us. Afterwards, early in March, we learned from the news- papors (for no communication on the subject has reached us from your Grace) that the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies had stated in the House of Commons, on the 12th February last, that a Commission was about to be deputed from England to enquire into the condition of Indian labourers employed in the Mauritius.

3. The papers received with your Grace's despatch of the 31st January last showed the anxiety felt by Sir A. Gordon, the Governor of Mauritius, that all measures should be taken which would tend to the welfare of the immigrants. We therefore thought it right not to take any immediate action, and preferred to wait for the Reports of the two Commissions which had been appointed, the one by the Govern- ment of Mauritius on the spot, the other by Her Majesty's Government. And even after receiving the letters from the Government of Bengal (referred to in the 1st paragraph of this despatch), containing the views of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal upon the subject, we were still disposed to await the Reports of the Commissions.

4. We have now, however, received direct from the Government of the Mauritius a copy of the Report, dated 4th April, 1872, of the Police Inquiry Commission, appointed by the Government of Mauritius on the 28th November, 1871. The state of things disclosed by this Report is so extraordinary that we could not, consistently with our duty, refrain from taking immediate notice of it.

5. We think it will not need more than the following outline of the facts found by

the majority of the Commission to be proved to justify our conclusion.

6. Under the head of abuses on the part of the police, the majority find that violence was at one time systematically used to obtain evidence, and that, although the practice has ceased to prevail as a system, occasional instances still occur; that trickery and espionage are still resorted to for the same purpose; that fictitious cases have not unfrequently been got up by the detectives; and that bribery and extortion were of frequent occurrence.

7. Passing to the grievances of the "old immigrants," as those Indians who choose to remain in the Colony after expiry of the term of their indenture are called, the Report, after going "through the petition sentence by sentence," declares, result of this minute dissection, that most of the grievances complained of have a real as the and substantial foundation, and that although the statement given is exaggerated, and was probably very imperfectly comprehended by not a few of those who signed it, yet that it conveys no unfair representation of the sentiments of the old immigrants respecting the grievances which bear most hardly upon them."

8. The elaborate analysis of the laws and regulations brought to bear on the "old immigrants" which the Report contains, seems to us fully to establish the statements of the Commission, and to prove that this class of the inhabitants of

• Treated as confidential under the orders conveyed in your Grace's telegram of the 9th February. †To Government of Bengal, April 20; Government of Bengal, May 7 and May 28, 1879.

But one copy has been received by us; doubtless a copy will be procurable from the Colonial Office.