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26 EMIGRATION FROM CHINA TO THE WEST INDIES.

DEAR SIR,

Enclosure (a) in No. 5.

Messrs. DENT and Co. to JAS. T. WHITE Esq.

Hong Kong, 23d August, 1851. THOUGH we have had frequent interviews with you, we have not yet acknowledged your several communications on the subject of Coolie emigration from China to the West Indies, which we beg now formally to do. We need only to add, for your satisfaction, that if the parties whom you represent require our services in the undertaking, we will do our utmost to afford them every satisfaction in carrying out their views, and we shall be at all times ready to procure any information they may require to assist them in the object they have in view.

We are, &c. (Signed) DENT and Co.

Enclosure (b) in No. 5.

EXTRACT OF LETTER from P. S. FORBES Esq., senior partner of the firm of Messrs. RUSSELL and Co.

"With reference to the emigration question, you are right as to cost; and although we might take a cargo on contract, it is out of our line as commission merchants. We should prefer to act simply as agents. I understand that Tait & Co., of Amoy, would willingly take a contract, and we might make such an arrangement through them as might be satisfactory; although the Demerara Government would perhaps get the emigrants cheaper by taking the risk.

"I should say that 177. would cover everything under contract.

"Canton, 20th August 1851."

No. 6.

EXTRACT from DR. BowRING'S ANNUAL REPORT ON TRADE.

THE emigration from China seems every year to extend itself to new regions, and there is perhaps scarcely any limit to the supply of Coolies which China could furnish. Of course, in periods of scarcity, and when the demand for labour is from any cause slackened, the number of candidates for embarkation would be augmented; but such is the superfluity of population in many districts that crowds of adventurers would be found to engage their services for a term of years, in utter ignorance of and carelessness about the name or the distance of the country to which they are sent. Nor do they appear to exhibit the slightest foresight as to the arrangements made for their accommodation during or after the voyage, the numbers to be crowded into the transporting vessel, the quality and quantity of the provision supplied, the sort of labour they are to be called on to exercise, or any matter connected with their personal comfort. A few dollars in advance, always spent-in the purchase of clothes, a promise of rice and fish for two, and of wages (from 2 to 5 dollars a month) for a certain number of years, are generally the sole conditions of arrangement; and whether the letter C be painted on his breast, designating him for California, P for Peru, or S for the Sandwich Islands, is really a matter of indifference to him. I have seen them express great annoyance at being rejected, whether on account of youth, age, natural defects, disease, or any other cause, and endea your again to pass muster in new groups as they offered themselves for examina- tion. In the course of the past year several horrible cases of loss of life from inadequate provision of food and water, of mutiny and of murder, and of suffer- ings in many shapes; but, notwithstanding, the number anxious to be engaged is by no means diminished, and the accounts which have reached China of the success of some of them in California has augmented the desire to emigrate. This ambulatory and adventurous disposition, so rare among oriental nations, cannot but have great influence on the future destinies of the human race. many places the Chinese settlers already greatly outnumber the native popula-

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EMIGRATION FROM CHINA TO THE WEST INDIES.

27

tion, and by their greater industry and activity have superseded them in the field of labour. In the Dutch East India possessions they are so strong as to embarrass, and in some spots to defy, the government. Accustomed to combine and to associate, and trained alike by the social and political institutions of their country to habits of discipline, order, and obedience, they may become formid- able in their discontent in the very proportion in which they are valuable and productive if satisfied with their condition. But, independently of the hired labourers who have been principally shipped to the western coast of North and South America and the Islands of the Pacific, there is a constant stream of emigration to the Straits, to Cochin China, Siam, Formosa, the Philippines, and to almost every part with which the junks carry on their foreign trade. No religious superstitions seem to interfere with their movements. neither bonzes nor priests to accompany them, but provide a few idols, incense They require sticks and coloured papers, and launch themselves upon waters and worlds unknown. This pouring forth of the Chinese population upon other countries will hereafter be of much importance as reacting upon China itself; and these wanderers forth, or their descendants, will probably become useful instruments for breaking down that wall of seclusion within which it is so much the policy of the Chinese government to enclose its multitudinous people. The Chinese emigrants will probably retain their language and their literature, their forms of popular education and domestic usages; and as the fields in which their ener- gies may find exercise are boundless, and no limits can be placed to the supply of human beings which China is in a condition to furnish, we may safely form a high estimate of the influence China will contribute to the cultivation and civilisation of the world.

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO