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EMIGRATION FROM CHINA TO THE WEST INDIES.

centage for conveying it. The parties remitting the money, if unable to write themselves, employ scribes (who may be found at the corner of every street with their little tables and materials for writing) to write to their relations to inform them of the proposed remittance and its amount; and so well arranged is the system of security provided against fraud, that cases of misappropriation of the money entrusted to these agents have seldom or never occurred.

9. The Indians from the Presidency of Madras and the Coromandel coast (called Chuliahs or Klings) are next to the Chinese. They are good workers, if they choose to exert themselves, and are easily managed, but require watching where continuous labour is required, and are considered wretched eye servants, if not constantly looked after. They are useful as grass cutters, nutmeg gatherers, and in the lighter descriptions of field work; and in the province Wellesley I found them employed on the sugar works, where they are often preferred to the Chinese in consequence of their greater docility. In point of physical strength these people appeared to me generally stronger and more active than the emigrants from Calcutta.

10. The Malays, that is, the original inhabitants of Singapore, as well as those who come from the adjoining islands and the neighbouring peninsula, are averse to every description of field-work. They cultivate rice, but to a very limited extent, and not more than sufficient for their own support, and consider that they have obtained all that is worth struggling for in life, as soon as they obtain possession of a hut in which they may chew betel undisturbed, and dream away their existence. Here, as well as in Penang and province Wellesley, their houses, erected on piles, are placed on the sea shore or on the banks of running streams, so that the water may flow underneath; or they live in detached cottages skirting the road, and delight in the deep shade afforded by the fruit trees, and by the cocoa-nut and areca-nut trees with which they sur- round their dwellings. Addicted to fishing and to roving along the coasts, or from island to island in their native "prahus," they are, of course, of little use as agriculturists when continuous labour is required; but they cut fire-wood and search for the various natural products of the forests which have now become articles of export. They are also frequently employed, as well by Europeans as by Chinese, in cutting down the forest and clearing land for cultivation, and as they are very expert in the use of the native hatchet or "parang," this is a description of labour to which they are exceedingly partial. In this respect, as well as in many others, they bear a strong resemblance to the aborigines of British Guiana.

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11. Besides the three races I have mentioned, and who, from the bulk of the population in Singapore, l'enang, and province Wellesley, there are a few Javanese and Boyanese (the latter from the island of Bawean, near Java). These are also of Malay race, but of different habits and characteristics. day labourers, and particularly on the nutmeg plantations, they are preferred to the others, and although without much physical strength, they are said to pos- sess honesty, the habit of continuous labour, and a cheerful disposition. It is to this race principally, under the system of coerced labour established by the Dutch Government, that Java is indebted for her extended cultivation and the large amount of her agricultural exports.

12. The only sugar estate now in Singapore is the property of Mr. Dalmeida, a gentleman of Portuguese extraction, but a British subject and a permanent resident. The two other estates formerly in cultivation have been totally aban- doned, owing partly to poverty of soil and the consequently inadequate return, and partly also to the expensive system of management and high wages which prevailed while they were under cultivation. Mr. Dalmeida's estate has been established about two years, and the cane cultivation extends over 200 acres. The relative situation is low and rather swampy, and as there is in places a con- siderable deposit of vegetable matter, it bears some resemblance to the Pegas lands of Demerara. A few leading canals answer the double purpose of giving drainage to the surface and conveying canes to the mill. It is cultivated en tirely by Chinese under a system of contracts, and as this system has been found to answer well, and is in operation, with some slight modifications, on the only estate which exists on the island of Penang, and also on one or two estates in province Wellesley, I have thought that a few details regarding it might not be unacceptable. The Chuliahs and Klings had at first undertaken similar con- tracts to the Chinese, but did not persevere with them, and soon threw them

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EMIGRATION FROM CHINA TO THE WEST INDIES. 33

The Malays had been tried, but refused to enter upon any contracts, and their labour was confined to clearing the land for cultivation.

13. The contracts for working the land are very simple, and have hitherto been faithfully carried out; Mr. Dalmeida has had no difficulty in obtaining respectable Chinese contractors, and has never had occasion to break any con- tract from the failure of the contractor to fulfil his engagements.

The contractor plants the canes (the land, if new and recovered from the forest, having been previously cleared), cultivates them, and engages to give a certain number of weedings, eacthings, and trashings, cuts them, and carries them to the nearest road or canal; and with this his portion of the contract is at an end. The ones are now taken possession of by the other contracting party or owner of the estate, and are carried to the buildings and manufactured into sugar.

14. The contractor is paid in proportion to the quantity of sugar made, in the following manner. The "wet sugar," that is, the sugar with the molasses in it (in the state in which it is when removed from the coolers to the square boxes in which it is cured), is weighed, and the contractor receives a certain sum, according to agreement for every pical made. When the estate was first established, this sum was fixed at one dollar and a half per pical; but from the number of contractors who have come forward this sum has been gradually reduced, and the recent contracts have been taken at one dollar. Little or no time is lost in weighing the sugar, as before being potted it is passed through a box or measure constructed to hold exactly a pical weight of wet sugar. The pical weighs 133} lbs. English, and the proportion of dry to wet sugar ranges from 50 to 65 per cent., according to quality of soil and the amount of claying required.

There is a stipulation in the contract that not less than one labourer shall be employed for every two acres, and that two dollars per man, or one dollar per acre, shall be advanced to the contractor monthly for payment to the Jabourers. This sum is deducted from the amount accruing to the contractor as soon as the sugar is made. The labourers are almost invariably interested with the contractor in the result of the undertaking, and besides the monthly sum paid to them for their sustenance, they receive a portion of the nett proceeds.

15. I saw several groups of Chinamen at work, three or four in a field. They use a hoe with a long handle, similar to the one in use in Demerara, but rather narrower and heavier, and more convenient for weeding and moulding between the canes. The fields were in fine order, and had a luxuriant appearance. Mr. Dalmeida considers the Chinese excellent cultivators, and that from the great care they take of every single plant, their free use of manure, and their careful weeding, abundant moulding, and frequent trashing, they obtain a larger return from the soil than would be the case under any other system of manage-

ment.

16. The canes are cut with a hoe of the same kind as that used for moulding. but generally stronger, and so eager are the Chinese to secure every particle of the cane that can be converted into sugar, that they cut as deep as possible into the ground, so that little or none of the root appears on the surface. The canes are carried out from the field of their full length, and are not cut into short pieces. They are tied in bundles of twelve and twenty, and are generally carried on one shoulder, the weight being partially relieved from that shoulder by a stick which rests on the other shoulder, and is passed behind, underneath the outer portion of the bundles. Occasionally a kind of crook is used which the Chinese place on their back, resting it upon their shoulders on a thick pad. The lower bar of this crook is sufficiently high from the ground to enable a man to stoop underneath for the purpose of raising it. In the province Wellesley the fields are never less than two orlongs square (one orlong is 240 feet), and sometimes they are four orlongs, so that the distance the canes have to be carried is never less than 210 feet, generally 860 feet, and sometimes 480 feet. I was astonished at the heavy loads of canes carried by the Chinese over this distance, apparently without any unusual effort.

17. The method of cultivation, which is precisely the same as in province Wellesley, is in many respects similar to what prevails in Demerara and Trinidad, but much greater attention is paid to the moulding, or, as it is termed here, to the "earthing" of the canes, than is the case in our system of cultivation. By

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TRILLIC.O.

885

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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