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4. I am to request that, should the proposal commend itself to the Government of Bengal, a draft of the notification to be issued under Section 81 of the Emigration Act in order to attain the object in view may be forwarded to the Government of India.

I have, &c.,

SIR,

R. E. ENTHOVEN,, Secretary to the Government of India.

Enclosure 2 in No. 55.

Government Emigration Agency,

21, Garden Reach, Calcutta, 19th June, 1912.

I HAVE the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your endorsement, No. 2138, of the 27th May, 1912, forwarding a copy of the Government of India's letter, dated the 6th May last (with enclosures) with reference to the suggestion that intending emigrants to the Colonies should be notified in advance of the penal liabilities attaching in the Colonies to the agreements into which they are invited to enter in India. You enquire :-

(a) Whether I am aware of any objections to informing intending emigrants

of these penal provisions before the execution of their contracts; and (b) Whether it would be feasible to embody them in the terms of service and

in the agreement.

2. From the point of view of mere justice there can, of course, be no question as to an intending emigrant's right to be fully informed of every detail of his contract before he is invited to execute it; and the fact that the great majority of emigrants are virtually children in their simplicity and ignorance of the world is an added reason for safeguarding their interests. But in connection with the subject under consideration there are certain features which suggest the question whether in pub- lishing the existence, and insisting on the insertion in the printed Agreement, of the penal clauses the Government of India may not, in its anxiety to protect the intend- ing emigrant, be working directly to his detriment. Pace Mr. Gokhale and his well- intentioned but ill-informed supporters at the meeting of the Imperial Council on the 4th March last I submit that the recent findings of Lord Sanderson's Committee (v. paras. 46, 51, 54, &c., of their report) prove conclusively that with rare exceptions, which only serve to emphasise the rule, employers in the West Indies and Fiji treat their immigrants kindly and justly, and that indentured emigration to those Colonies offers to the ordinary agricultural coolie possibilities of material advantage and mental advancement far in advance of anything he can hope for in India.

3. If this is admitted, it is for the Government of India to consider whether the objects aimed at in their present proposal are of such vital importance as to justify them in excluding Indian labourers from these possibilities in future; for the action proposed would mean nothing less. At the time of registration the coolie is timid, uncertain of himself, and highly suspicious of the recruiter; and the native registering officers, who in most cases are prejudiced against overseas emigration by caste feeling or, alternatively, by their own ignorance of its advantages, already lose no opportunity of emphasising the fact that it involves crossing the "Kala Pani and expatiate unfairly on the many possible dangers of the lengthy voyage, the unknown period of absence from home, and the uncertainty of ultimate return to India. If these officials are now to he instructed to specifically warn the coolie of all the pains and penalties provided by the Colonial laws (largely, though he would not know it, in his own interests) for insubordination, breach of his contract, &c., &c., it is certain that not. 5 per cent. of the recruits would execute the agreement. The first reference to a prison in connection with it would scare their timid tempera- ment beyond the reach of any reasoning or argument; unable to balance the concrete benefits awaiting the industrious labourer against the possible punishment provided for the habitual idler, they would be terrorised from the project altogether, and so miss a unique opportunity of self-betterment, not because the penal liabilities are really unconscionable in themselves or are in practice regularly or over-strictly enforced, but because the mere mention of their existence by a Government official would in itself act as an overwhelming deterrent.

I say deliberately that, in my opinion, on the day that the penal clauses appear in the agreements of intending emigrants, or that registering officers are instructed

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to draw the emigrants' special attention to them, indentured emigration will cease instantly, automatically, and altogether. I state this conviction with an intimate knowledge of the Indian coolie which extends now over more than 20 as Emigration Agent in Calcutta, and previously as Magistrate and District Officer

years, 12 in the two largest sugar-producing districts in the Straits Settlements.

years

4. No question as to the equity of the penalties prescribed by the Colonial Legis- latures under their Immigration Ordinances has been raised by the Government of India in their letter under reference; but valuable information in regard to the actual incidence of these penalties is furnished in the attached memorandum prepared by Mr. A. de Boissière, who for nearly 12 years has been specially charged with the protection of Indian labourers in Trinidad, and has recently been selected by the Secretary of State as Assistant Emigration Agent in the Trinidad Agency at Cal- cutta. His experience is limited to Trinidad, but labour conditions and the general scope of the Immigration Ordinances in the other Colonies are not dissimilar, and his remarks may, with slight modifications, he taken to apply equally to British Guiana, Jamaica, and Fiji. The salient facts disclosed by his Memorandum are—

(a) That several of the punishments are actually prescribed for the immi-

grant's own protection and welfare.

(b) That, as regards several others, the object of placing the indentured labourers under a special instead of the general law is, again, to afford him a protection not enjoyed by any other class of the community, as he is thus enabled to command the advice and assistance of the Immi- gration officials when in trouble; and

(c) That, severe though some of the maximum penalties seem to be (and it is on the maximum penalties that the intending emigrant's thoughts first and last would concentrate), they are in practice only inflicted as a last resource, and on habitual or incorrigible offenders; the general rule of the local Magistrates being to warn for a first offence, and for subse- quent offences to graduate the punishments as leniently as each case permits.

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I would invite the Indian Government with every respect to consider carefully this first-hand evidence from an experienced official as to the actual working of these penal clauses before they commit themselves to a decision which, as I submit, must prove disastrous to the system of indentured emigration.

5. It is unnecessary, I imagine, to dwell on the consequences which a sudden stoppage of indentured labour from India would involve to the Colonies concerned; but I may mention that to my personal knowledge a sum of £800,000 is at present available and earmarked for investment in the extension of sugar cultivation in Fiji alone. provided the planting community is assured of a continued and annual adequate supply of Indian labour. The sums already sunk in sugar, cocoa, and other estates in Fiji and the West Indies amount to millions of pounds, most of which outlay will be instantly jeopardised if the regular influx of indentured labourers from India is interfered with. I ask, therefore, very urgently that the Government of India, if they are of opinion that the insertion of the penal clauses in emigrants' agreements is desirable and necessary will. in view of the enormous interests at stake, be pleased to defer action in the matter until the position has been laid before the Governments of the Colonies concerned so as to afford the latter an opportunity of considering the sudden crisis that confronts them and, it may be, of modifying their present Ordinances to meet it. I submit respect fully that as the existing pro- cedure has been in operation for some 80 years past a respite of a few months may not unreasonably be granted.

I have, &c.,

R. P. GIBBES, Officiating Government Emigration Agent

To the Protector of Emigrants,

Calcutta.

33891

for Trinidad, Fiji, and Jamaica,

and Government Emigration Agent

for British Guiana.

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