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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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Reference:-

C.O. 882

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

2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

Sir,

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Inclosure 1 in No. 60.

Calcutta, April 20, 1872. I AM directed to forward, with reference to former correspondence on the subject of emigration to the Mauritius, copy of a despatch from the Secretary of State, dated 31st January, 1872 (with inclosures), and to request that it may be treated as strictly confidential.

with the Mauritius.

The Governor-General in Council will be glad to know what course the Lieutenant- Governor would advise with regard to the questions raised in the despatch connected

I am,

&c.

J. GEOGHEGAN, Under-Secretary to the Government of India.

(Signed)

The Secretary to the Government of Bengal.

Sir,

Inclosure 2 in No. 60.

Calcutta, May 7, 1862.

I AM directed to acknowledge the receipt of your office letter, dated 20th ultimo, forwarding a despatch, with inclosures, from his Grace the Secretary of State for Indis on the subject of the treatment of emigrant coolies at the Mauritius, and asking what course the Lieutenant-Governor would advise in regard to the questions raised in those

papers.

2. In reply, I am to submit that the facts stated in the inclosures of the despatch seem to confirm the suspicion, which his Honour has for some time entertained, that affairs in the Mauritius have been very much in the hands of a dominant planter interest and that the management of the coolie population there has been much influenced, if not wholly guided, by the views of this party.

3. The Lieutenant-Governor has, however, felt at the same time that, whatever the state of things at the Mauritius may be, it is well known to the classes in this country who emigrate, information being derived by them from the large number of persons who have returned from the island from time to time during the many years that emigration to it has existed. The planters make it worth the while of a certain class to emigrate, and whatever abuses exist these people leave Calcutta with a general knowledge of the state of things they are to expect and of the restrictions to which they will be subjected.

4. His Honour need not refer here to certain questions connected with the existing mode of licensing recruiters, &c., with which it is in the power of the Indian Govern- ments to deal and which are being dealt with. As regards the mode of recruiting and dispatching coolies to the Mauritius from Calcutta, the only point he would notice here is, that while on the one hand the coolies do not seem to be under the direct protection of the Colonial Government, being recruited for private estates, according to the demands of each estate (with which it seems the Mauritius Government has no power to interfere), they have not, on the other hand, the correlative advantages to which the Lieutenant-Governor thinks they are entitled of being allowed to choose their own masters and make the best bargain they can for themselves.

5. It appears that all requisitions for labour for the Mauritius are made by the planters and sent to the Mauritius Agent here for compliance, the Government of Mauritius being a mere channel of transmission, and having no power, whatever may be the character of the planter, to interfere with his indent. The Agent gathers the doolies into his depôt, allots them to the different estates, without much regard to their wishes in the matter, and dispatches them to the Colony, It has been ascertained by his Honour, by personal inquiry, that when, as sometimes happens, the owner of an estate who is particularly anxious to obtain coolies sends a requisition offering wages higher than usual, the Agent here does not announce this offer to intending emigrants and allow them to elect to go to the employer who offers most, as they naturally would wish to do. The Agent considers that such a course would spoil the rate of wages for the Colony and throw everything into confusion, and he therefore deals with such special requisition in the same way as he does with those offering the ordinary rates of wages, and complies with each in its turn. The Lieutenant-Governor has been unable to gather whether those coolies who are lucky enough to be assigned to the planters who offer the higher rate of wages do receive this rate, but he suspects that they do not, and that practically there is, through the intervention of the Emigration Agent here a uniform rate of wages which is fixed from time to time according to the demand for labour in the Colony, and that those planters who offer a higher rate gain nothing

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by the offer. In his Honour's opinion this is inconsistent with the Mauritius system, which allows, or ought to allow, the offer of a higher rate of wages, and is unfair to the coolic: and he thinks that the Indian Government should insist that the offer of each employer should be made known to the coolies, and that they should be allowed to choose the masters under whom they wish to serve.

6. Passing to the general question, the Lieutenant-Governor finds it plainly evident, from the papers received with your letter, that some grave abuses in the treat- ment of indentured emigrants at the Mauritius exist; but these abuses, which were brought to light by the present Governor of Mauritius, have attracted the attention of the Home Government, and are being dealt with. The principal paint, therefore, to which his Honour would solicit attention is the treatment of the time-expired coolies, who ought to be free men and be treated as free men, but who are in reality subjected to the harshest rules, which completely deprive them of their freedom. From what the Lieutenant-Governor can learn, the restrictions imposed on this class culminated in an Ordinance passed at the Mauritius in the year 1887, by which the whole body of time-expired Indian residents are placed under a code of rules such as could only be suited to the military administration of a conquered people of desperate and ungovern- able character. They are bound down to narrow localities; they are not allowed to move without a police pass; and they are altogether treated very rigorously, and dealt with as "suspects."

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7. It is more than once observed by the Secretary of State and other authorities in this correspondence that these rules are harsh and unjustifiable, unless the representa- tions on which they were passed are well founded. The information at his Honour's disposal on the latter point is not very much, but he gathers from it that the time- expired coolies were represented as such lawless desperados that nothing but this stringent vagrancy law (so it is called) would keep them in order. To any person who knows the quiet poor classes from which the emigrants are drawn, such an account of them must seem, as it does to the Lieutenant-Governor, highly improbable. His Honour would strongly urge on the Government of India to call for the whole of the correspondence on which this Ordinance of 1887 was based, and the whole question would then be better understood and dealt with.

8. The Lieutenant Governor greatly suspects that in truth the planters of the Mauritius, being accustomed to the indenture system, strongly object to freedom, and think the growth of a free population a thing to be deprecated. It is probable that vagrancy in their language means free trade in labour, and that the main object and result of restricting vagrancy and binding the Indiana down by harsh rules is to drive the time-expired labourer to re-indenture. It seems to the Lieutenant-Governor that though a certain inferior class of labourers of this country may be content to emigrate on the terms now offered, it would be very much more to the advantage of all parties that emigration to a Colony which already contains a large Indian population should

be of a higher and freer character, and that the time-expired labourer should be encouraged to settle there. His Honour considers that if we facilitate, as we do, the emigration of our British Indian subjects to a British Colony, we may reasonably insist, and indeed are bound to insist, that after the fulfilment of their contracts they shall be treated in all respects as free subjects of Her Majesty, as they are in this country, and shall not be coerced by law or otherwise into making fresh engagements of indenture.

9. Seeing, as said above, that the present emigrants understand the position before them tolerably well, and seeing also that the present correspondence makes it clear that the beat efforts of the Colonial authorities are now being used to discover and remedy abuses at the Mauritius, his Honour would not suggest the stoppage of emigration to this Colony or other measures than those suggested in the concluding parts of paragraphs 5 and 7 of this letter; but he would certainly recommend that the authorities at the Mauritius should be told that the Indian Government will be prepared immediately to stop emigration to that Colony if the measures which Her Majesty's Government may consider necessary for the amelioration of the condition of Indian emigrants, indentured and free, are not fully carried out by th the doing so may rest in the Colony.

those with whom

I have, &c.

(Signed) C. BRRNARD, Officiating Secretary to the Government of Bengal.

The Secretary to the Government of India.

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