CO882-(3-4) — Page 198

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference:

882

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO.

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al, and I point out those who did not send any during the year 1874 and first six months of 1875, viz., Savy of Fregate, Island Sanzier of Forêt Noire, Hodoul of Antoine, Le Marchand of Bay Lazare, Mrs. Quessy, of Silhouette, Pousson, of Cascades, Morin and Co., of Denis island, Charles Albert of Petite Anse, and the proprietors of St. Louis. I did not find any hospitals on any of these estates; neither were any books or receipts produced to me by any of those proprietors to show that any of their Africans had ever received medical advice.

I have also been informed by the Acting Government Medical Officer that some of the few Africans admitted of late into the public hospital were in a very bad state and beyond recovery. I found very few Africans sick and unfit for labour during my inspection; but those I found I requested the proprietors to send them to the public hospital.

7. The number of Africans sentenced to imprisonment appear rather large, and the greater portion were sentenced at the instance of the inhabitants situate at the island of Mahe very few charges are brought up from the other islands. There are, no doubt, some very bad characters amongst the African population; but in many instances the I have proprietors are to blame, because they do not treat them according to law. found on some estates, where they are treated well, and on others, if not bad, but differently, and without consideration. In one instance an African girl was sentenced, at the instance of her employer, to three months imprisonment for desertion, and on the expiration of her imprisonment was sent under escort back to her employer, who, no sooner having recived her, gave her a caning with a stout rattan; in another instance Such treatment, of a certain proprietor was cruel enough to set his dog on an African. course, is enough to set any person against his employer. There are many other cases where Afiicans have been cruelly treated, not on estates alone, but in private dweiling houses.

The number of complaints made at the police station by Africans against their employers in 1874 were as follows:- Assaults, 31; insufficient rations, 17; non-payment of wages, 3. During the first six months in 1875 the complaints in comparison with last year have been considerably less, viz., assaults, ; insufficient rations, 1 non- payment of wages, 1.

. I found the camps with one or two exceptions in a middling condition; the huts are principally constructed of palm leaves, after the fashion of this country, which the Africans prefer to any other building. On some estates I found the new Africans with a very scanty supply of clothing, cooking utensils, and other necessaries; but the old Africans I found generally with a good supply of everything. On some estates women actually provided with parasols and spring-side boots, and from information received I believe that some of them had saved up money.

found

9. The law in respect to the working system I found had not been carried out on none of the estates visited by me. I found only two estates on which the Africans did not perform more than nine hours labour daily, that was at Petite Anse and Mamelles ; on all other estates, exclusive of the breakfast hour, they perform from ten to eleven hours work daily; on several estates they commence to work at 5 o'clock in the morning. I did not find one estate on which the Africans had breakfasted before 10 o'clock (and with the exception of one estate, on which they breakfast from 11 to 12 noon), the hour for breakfast, as a rule, is fixed from 10 to 11 o'clock. There are two or free proprietors who on Sundays make their Africans, under contract of service, perform other labour than that defined in Article of Ordinance No. 17 of 1841.

I found only two estates on which they did not work at all on Sundays, viz., Mamelles and Stag Island. At two other estates they perform about half-an-hour in the morning in sweeping up the yard and feeding animals. On three or four other estates they perform more than two hours labour before 8 o'clock. I found only one estate on which they work after 8 o'clock, but I have every reason to believe that there are two or three other estates on which they work after that hour. Some of the policemen informed me that on their Sunday patrols they found on one estate a cocoa nut mill at work on a Sunday after 9 o'clock; that ou another estate they found Africans carrying timber a'ter 9 o'clock, and on one occasion an African declared before the Court, in a complaint lodged by a proprietor against some of his Africans for having refused to work, that they carried leaves as late as 11 o'clock; on another estate members of the police force have seen Africans employed on Sundays as late as 11 o'clock in carrying manure from one place to the other, and other ordinary works of cultivation.

The working system in regard to women, especially to those who are under contract of service, is indeed very hard; on two or three estates I found them actually employed

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in the field with their infants tied to their backs. On other estates they are treated more kindly; they are either employed about the premises as servants, or doing other easy work. On one estate women who have more than one child do not work at all, and their wages being stopped, but they receive their rations.

In respect to women who are pregnant, I found only two or three estates on which they did work on one estate the manager informed me that one woman had worked in the field until the very day of her confinement, and that three weeks after commenced to work as usual,

10. I found only one estate on which an account of the whole of the monthly rations Issued was kept; on another estate an account of the quantity of rice issued weekly was kept only; on the other estates no account of rations issued was kept at all. On six or seven estates the Africans are supplied with cooked food instead of other rations; this system, I believe, is a very good one for Africans who are not married and who have no children; but do not approve of the same system being applied to those who are married, and who have children. There was only one estate on which they were not satisfied with the latter system, and I requested the proprietor to give them their rations they were entitled to by law, to which no objection was made.

On one estate they received a shilling a week in lieu of their rations, and they are allowed to plant for their own benefit; no one complained, in fact they all appeared to be satisfied; and I informed the proprietor to continue this system until such time they were satisfied.

On another estate the proprietor gave each African a sixpence monthly in lieu of fish. This sum I found too little, because the Africans were unable to obtain the quantity of fish allowed to them by law for that price, and therefore requested the proprietor to give them their allowance, which he has complied with. On some estates a fisherman is employed, and the quantity of fish caught are divided amongst the Africans, after the proprietor or manager having appropriated the larger portion to them. selves, and therefore their share, if they receive any at all, is very small. On several estates the Africans complained not getting sufficient fish, and on some estates I was convinced that they did not get their whole allowance. On two or three estates the proprietors and managers in fact informed me themselves that they gave two pounds of fish only instead of six, of course being ignorant of the former tariff having been changed; but on questioning them on the subject of dholl, I found that on none of the estates they had ever received any except one, and I believe it is on account of the scarcity of the latter grain. At Seychelles my predecessor recommended that six pounds of salt or fresh fish, instead of two pounds of dholl and two pounds of salt fish should be given.

11. In relation to the rate of wages of all Africans employed on estates, I give a statement of those proprietors who kept their books somewhere near the mark, and I am obliged to omit many estates, owing to the books being kept very irregular, and some proprietors only commenced to keep books at the latter end of last year, and others have kept none at all.

I have requested all those proprietors who have Africans in their employ, to keep books in future, and I have given every one of them a scheme in the form of which the books ought to be kept; on some estates the proprietor had not even distinguished the absences from the sick "and vice versa."

12. In relation to the deductions of wages for absence; sickness of a certain number of Africans einployed on estates as aforesaid, I have to remark that the total deductions on some estates are very large, and on five estates I found the double cut had been enforced, and on one estate only I found the double cut had been enforced illegally.

On four estates I found proprietors keeping shops who had supplied their Africas with goods, and the price charged was very reasonable; on four estates I found Africans were supplied by proprietors with goods, who kept stores in town, in one instance, found that the price for the goods charged was very high, and exceeding the market price by far; I found only one estate on which bonds in lieu of cash was given, that was at Denis Islands; the arrears of payment on some estates exceeded three months; on two or three estates settlement had been made at periods from five to eight months.

13. On some estates I found that a certain number of Africans had been underpaid of the tariff regulation, and on others they had been paid in excess, all pleaded ignorance, and were prepared to make up the balance due to them.

14. The statement in respect to the monthly rate of wages, that Afiicans are supposed to receive generally, is according to the statement of the inhabitants, and the Africans themselves; in many instances I had reason to doubt their statement, and in one case, at

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