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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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to the inspection of the Agent-General of Immigrants, and shall be evidence in favour of such immigrant of his having worked on the several days on which he shall appear to have received wages.

LXIV. Every employer of immigrants shall, within the first five days of the month of January, April, July, and October in every year, make and deliver to the Agent General of Immigrants a Return, in such form as the Governor may from time to time approve, of all immigrants whether under indenture or not, in his employ or residing on the plantation of such employer during the whole or any part of the preceding three months, and shall distinguish and set down opposite to the name of every such indentured immigrant the days on which he shall have worked during the said term of three months, and the cause of his not having worked, so far as the same shall be known to such employer, and also the date and cause (as far as the same may be known) of all deaths and the number of births of the children of such immigrants; and the Agent- General of Immigrants shall keep all such Returns, and shall in the month of October of every year make an abstract of all such Returns, which abstract shall be laid before the Legislative Council.

LXV. Every employer of immigrants who shall omit to make any Return herein. before required, or who shall make any such Return which shall be incorrect in any particular, and every person who shall by any act or omission obstruct the Agent General of Immigrants, Sub-Agent, or Inspector of Immigrants, from entering upon any plantation where he may reasonably suppose any indentured immigrant to be employed, or inquiring into the state or condition of any indentured immigrant, shall, on conviction thereof before any Justice of the Peace, forfeit any sum not exceeding 101. for every such offence.

(No. 23.) Sir,

No. 28.

The Earl of Kimberley to Governor the Hon. Sir A. Gordon.

Downing Street, January 28, 1872.

I HAVE received your despatch No. 210 of the 12th December inclosing, with other papers, the draft of an Ordinance to provide for the appointment of Inspectors of Immigrants.

I approve of your action in this matter.

My Lord,

No. 20.

I have, &c. (Signed)

KIMBERLEY.

Bishop Ryan to the Earl of Kimberley,

Vicarage, Bradford, Yorkshire, February 8, 1872. AS I find from private and public sources of information that the question of the Labour Laws in Mauritius in their bearing on the old immigrants is under the consideration of the Government, I feel bound to lay before your Lordship certain *tatements respecting it, which are based on a personal observation of nearly thirteen years, and which formed the subject of representations made by me to Sir James Higginson, Sir William Stevenson, and Sir Henry Barkly, who successively governed Mauritius during that period.

The first statement I have to make is that the old immigrants urgently needed some such measures for their own protection. This was first impressed on me by one of our missionaries, who, being a native of India, was thoroughly acquainted with the language and the ways of the Indians. On one occasion he came to me in much trouble of mind, and on my inquiring the reason said that he had just seen two old immigrants trying to persuade one who had recently finished his engagement, and had a certain number of rupees in his possession, to go with them to the interior of the island; and he said he felt very apprehensive that they would rob him and murder him, and no one would know anything about it. Not long before that time several skeletons had been found in an unfrequented cavern, and others in different parts of the island; without the possibility of finding any clue as to the manner of death through which they had got there. As soon as Indian coolics had finished their engagement they were free to go to any part of the island they pleased; there was ne

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settlement answering to the tything or the hundred, or the village with its local authorities, where they would be known and missed if murdered, and the result was a condition of lawlessness and danger which evidently needed a remedy.

I had spoken on the subject several times before I came to England in 1860. During my absence a very sad proof of the need of such a remedy was supplied by what took place on the grounds at Bishopstowe. One of these old immigrants came to a "case "not far from the house and took away the wife and two children of another man. No one knew whither he had gone until some weeks afterwards a child was left near the police station adjoining the premises, with a handkerchief round its neck, through which it was recognized as being one of the two taken away. It was in such a state of sickness and emaciation that in a few days it died. Search was made on the sides of a mountain covered with forest and, in an abandoned "case," the dead body of the mother and the other child were found, the man having simply gone off to another part of the island, there not being any means of ascertaining to what part

gone.

he had

Subsequently to this, a band of these old immigrants, who made a central part of the island their rendezvous, attacked a plantation at Pointe aux Sables, about four miles to the cast of Port Louis, and so injured the proprietor, M. Nayle, that he did not long survive. The same band (it was supposed) attacked a plantation at Flacq, and they also broke into the house of the Civil Chaplain, near Mahebourg, the Rev. Mr. Pennington, and inflicted injuries on him from which he never recovered.

A most painful feeling of insecurity prevailed in all the country districts of the island at that time, and however active and efficient the police might be, it was impracticable for them to grapple effectually with a state of things so loose and intangible.

In the second place, some measures were urgently needed to develop anything like civilization, and organized industry amongst them. While Her Majesty's subjects in England are liable to be taken up by the police if they are not able to give an account of themselves and their means of subsistance, it surely cannot be a hardship to compel those who have come to Mauritius from India, to show that they are following an honest calling; to devise measures for settling them together in villages; to let them feel that they make part of a community. The wholesome competition arising from settlement in rural villages would stimulate many branches of "la petite industrie," which are now exercised in the rudest manner by the roving inhabitants of many parts of the island; and the reproduction, on a smaller scale, of such places as Bamlion, Souillez, Grand River, South East. The village of Flacq would speedily absorb the vagrant population, which may be said, in many spots, to infeet the island.

It is hardly necessary to point out how such settlements in villages would facilitate the progress of education.

With respect to the treatment of the Indians generally, as labourers, I can bear testimony to the attention which is paid to their comfort, to their lodging, food, and medical attendance, and have often witnessed the contrast between the depressed condition in which they arrive in Mauritius, both as to "physique" and "morale," and the appearance of healthy development and independent bearing which they present after some years' residence. The real difficulty is the small proportion of women to men, which is one cause of the ferocity and frequency of the murders which defile the land with blood. I am led to believe that the disparity of numbers of the sexes is diminishing every year.

My own firm conviction is, that with the correction of certain faults of detail and application, the Labour Laws tend to promote the security and the well-being of the old immigrants in Mauritius, and having that conviction, I could not refrain from expressing it to your Lordship.

I have, &c. (Signed) VINCENT W. RYAN, Bishop,

Late of Mauritius.

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