CO885(1-2) — Page 358

EMIGRATION OF CHINESE COOLIES.

17

Query 1.-Has emigration taken place from Canton during the last few years? Emigration from Canton, both in junks and foreign vessels, to the countries and settlements above-hamed (not including California), has continued to increase during late years, although the average number of emigrants, 3,000 to 4,000 annually, is much below that of the other departments. For deck passages in foreign vessels, which they prefer to their own junks, they pay from five to ten dollars, and always provide themselves with food. The greater part of them proceed under contract to join planters or tradesmen; in the former case their engagements are for five or six years, at a fixed rate of pay with advances; or they receive, instead of regular pay, a share in the profits of the plantation; terms differ considerably, and in many cases emigrants are relations or friends of the parties they go to join. They generally travel in small parties of twenty or thirty, some times in charge of a man of respectability, who has, perhaps, come from the south on purpose to engage them.

The late extraordinary emigration to Californin should be viewed as an exception to the general mode. It was in the hope of gathering gold, in participating in the high remuneration paid for labour of any kind, that caused the Chinese to flock there in such numbers, not as settlers, but merely as sojourners for a brief term of two years.

Many of the poor emigrants started with the purpose of returning as soon as they had netted, inclusive of expenses, 200 or 300 dollars, which to the common field labourer. whose united gains for twelve months du tot amount to more than a tenth of that sum, is sufficient inducement for the venture. The despatch of men of this class was largely undertaken by monied parties quite as a matter of speculation; they paid the passage of the coolies, which rose as high as fifty dollars, and other expenses amounting to about twenty more, on the condition of receiving from the latter, upon their return, the sum of 200 dollars. Emigration to the gold fields of Australia, if ever commenced in this quarter, might, probably, be conducted in a similar manner; but a wholly different system would have to be pursued in obtaining coolies for the West Indies. Passengers rather than coolies would be the best name for Chinese emigrating under these circumstances, the former term being reserved to denote labourers who are engaged to serve for a number of years at un uniform rate of pay. The only Chinese of this class hitherto contracted with at Canton or its vicinity, by Europeans, have been shipped to Callao, on the coast of Peru; that they were composed of men of bad character, and of others in most indigent circumstances, is evident from the harshness of the terms on which they consented to engage, and the frequent tragedies which occurred on board the vessels transporting them.

Query 2.-Is emigration sanctioned or connived at by the local authorities? China sanctions by law the emigration of its subjects for purposes of trado, or as hired labourers; but it is necessary that each person should be furnished with a pass on leaving his country, as without one, he is liable to heavy punishment, graduated according to the extent of the intercourse he may have held with foreigners whom he visited unauthorizedly. But the law in this respect, involving as it does even capital punishment, is far too severe for a weak government to carry into execution; and thus a pass from the authorities is the last thing that a Chinese emigrant ever thinks of procuring; not because it would be refused him, but on account of the cost of the application, perhaps ten or twenty dollars,—by which sum may be estimated the extent of the risk incurred by the

omission.

The following case, recorded in the laws, shows that instances of their enforcement have occurred :-

“Chin Eshe, a native of Fuhkeën, went by stealth to Java, where he intrigued with foreigners, and was publicly employed by them as a captain. He sought gain with insatiate greed, presumed to ally himself to a foreign woman, and purchased ground and men and women slaves. In the same stealthy way he returned again to his native country; and in accordance with the law regarding intercourse and trade with foreigners, which regulates the punishment of those offenders, who by the employment of fraud and artifice, occasion troubles on the confines of the state, he was banished as a slave to the army beyond the frontier. His wife (not the foreign one) was also banished with him; and all his property, together with his men and women slaves, were confiscated to the Government."-Keenlung, 15th year (1750).

The law alluded to is to the following effect :-"All those who hold (unauthorized) intercourse with foreign nations, or stealthy communication with aboriginal tribes, who trade with them, borrow from them, or fraudulently deprive them of their property, and thereby endanger the peace of the frontier, or those who steal away to or reside with the aborigines, and incite or allure them to revolt, thereby occasioning trouble to the country, shall be punished, the principals, including those who shall have crossed the frontier into foreign territory, or have taken out of the country men, arms, or sulphur, with death,— the accessories with banishment to the army beyond the frontier."

Thus it will be seen that at one time the Chinese Government viewed commercial communication with the European settlements of the Straits as a crime analogous to treasonable correspondence with wild aboriginal tribes. Now, however, their policy is altogether changed, and emigration to any region, in all vessels, whether native or foreign, (an old local law, infringed since its institution, forbids Chinese taking passage in the latter,) has their complete connivance, though not their expressed sanction Still the F 1

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

C.O.

Reference :-

885

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

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON