CO885-(20-21) — Page 517

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

गय

Reference :-

C.O.885

21 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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declined somewhat of late, owing to increased competition on the part of the Assam tea-gardens in the northern districts of the United Provinces, the fact remains that the advantages of overseas emigration are more widely recognised, and the operations of colonial recruiters better tolerated both by the officials and the labouring classes in the vicinity of Faizabad than, probably, in any other part of India. We are accord- ingly advising the Indian Government to this effect, and inviting a formal expression of their approval of our selection of Faizabad as the site of the new up-country depôt. As regards the dimensions of this depôt, we are of opinion that it will be unnecessary to arrange for accommodation for more than a maximum of 200 emigrants, at any rate, in the first instance, although it will be advisable to lease a sufficient area of land to allow of further construction later on, should this prove necessary. For the reasons explained 22nd January last* this accommodation will require to be divided into two sections paragraph 4 of Mr. Gibbes's letter of the entirely separate froin each other. Mr. Marsden will proceed to Faizabad at an early date and make preliminary arrangements for leasing a suitable site and for the construction of the buildings required. We are unable at present to make even an approximate estimate of the probable cost of construction, rent, &c., of this depôt, but this will be submitted as soon as we are in a position to do so after enquiries on the spot: it is certain, however, that land can be had at Faizabad on relatively very easy terms.

4. Restriction of Recruiting Area.—We are addressing the Indian Government with reference to the question of restricting the area of recruitment on the lines indicated in paragraph 4 of the Secretary of State's letter to the India Office of the 19th December, 1912,† and requesting that no action in this matter may be taken until the new depôt has been working for at least twelve months. A copy of our letter, in which we have also embodied our recommendations in regard to the locality of the new depôt, is attached.

:

5. Assistant Agents.-The immediate appointment of two assistants is obviously necessary, one to be attached to the Calcutta Agency, but available also to assist the officer up country should necessity arise and one to be stationed either in charge of the Madras Agency or of the up-country Agency, as the Secretary of State

may decide.

As it will be essential that the latter officer should acquire some preliminary knowledge of emigration work in this country before he assumes charge of his appointment, e., that he too should be temporarily attached to the Calcutta Agency, it is desirable that arrangements should be made for both him and his colleague to arrive here with the least possible delay, and we accordingly despatched a telegram to you recommending this on the 14th ultimo.‡

required later at Madras also must

The possibility that a second officer may be borne in mind, although we do not feel justified at the present stage of affairs in definitely recommending such an appointment. It must, however, be clearly under- stood that the appointment of two assistants as recommended above provides only for the actual and immediate requirements of the amalgamated Agency's work, and that it leaves no officer available to fill any vacancy that may occur through furlough, sickness, &c.

6. Depôt at Madras.-A copy of Mr. de Boissière's report on the present Fiji depôt and the depôt utilised till recently by Messrs. Parry and Company, Emigra- tion Agents for Natal was despatched to you on the 13th ultimo.§ The insanitary and offensive conditions resulting from its vicinity to the sewage farm clearly render the former a most undesirable place for the accommodation of intending emigrants, and, in our opinion, further use of it as a colonial depôt should be discontinued forth- with, and a lease of the Natal depôt arranged with Messrs. Parry and Company despite the increased rent that will be required. As a set-off against the latter there is, as Mr. de Boissière points out, the important fact that the Natal depôt is already surrounded by a high wall-a measure which in the case of the Calcutta depôts has always been regarded as an essential precaution against desertions, the ingress of outsiders, and the possible introduction of infectious diseases. The Natal depôt, moreover, is situated at least half a mile farther away from the sewage farm and the same distance nearer to the embarkation shed than the Fiji depôt-a material advan- tage whether the embarkations take place in the hot sunshine or in the rainy season. We have no hesitation in recommending that Messrs. Parry's premises be leased in lieu of the property hitherto utilised by Mr. Conran. As regards any extension of

† No. 92.

10422: not printed.

• No. 107.

8685: not printed.

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the buildings already erected in the former, we consider that the question can con- veniently be allowed to stand over until experience shows whether such extension will be required or not. Mr. de Boissière reports that erection of more accommodation sheds, should this become necessary

there is room for the case of emergency recourse could presumably be had to the subsidiary depôts

and in any referred to by Mr. Conran in paragraph 4 of his letter of the 20th June, 1912, to the Fiji Government.

7. In connection with the arrangements to be made at Madras we feel strongly that Mr. Conran's services should not be finally dispensed with until all preliminaries for the new organization there have been completed and the officer who is to have future charge has acquainted himself thoroughly with local conditions and assumed effective control of the new Agency.

8. Staff at Calcutta.-In considering the question of the personnel to be selected for the staffs of the new combined Agency and its two connected depôts at Calcutta we find ourselves in a position of some difficulty. Mr. Gibbes, who has a personal knowledge of the individual characters and abilities of each member of the staffs of both Agencies, proposes, as the Agent deputed to Calcutta, to retain unchanged his present establishment of British Guiana clerks, &c., as the staff of the new combined Agency; and we are agreed that in so far as the latter's clerical requirements are concerned that establishment, with the addition of one junior accounts clerk, will be sufficient, for we anticipate that the work of the up-country depôt will reduce materially the bulk of the Agency's correspondence, while the pooling of the expenses of all the Emigration Agencies in India (to which we refer later) will result, if our proposals are approved, in a marked simplification of the Agency's accounts and render possible a corresponding reduction of the staff hitherto required in the Accounts Departments of the two Agencies. Small clerical establishments will be necessary for the new Calcutta depôt and the Faizabad depôt, and these we propose to draw as far as possible from among the present employés of the Trinidad, &c., Agency; but, even so, you will see, on reference to Annexures D, F, G, and H, showing respectively the existing Trinidad, &c., personnel and the staffs as we propose to allocate them in future, that it is unavoidable that the services of several old employés should be dispensed with. Assuming that the various appointments in the Calcutta and Faizabad establishments are approved as recommended by us in Annexures F, G, and H, it will be seen that the following clerical members of the Trinidad, &c., staff (none of whom has less than 5 years' service) will be left without employment :—

Nocoor Chunder Pal. Botoo Krishna Mookerjee. Mohadeb Chunder Pal. Lalit Mohan Basu.

Kartic Chunder Banerjee. Rajendra Nath Chatterjee. Hari Pada Chakrabutty.

The loss of their appointments will prove, we fear, a serious calamity to most of these employés, and we recommend their case very earnestly to the Secretary of State for generous consideration. Under the existing ordinances of the Colonies they have served none of them can claim a pension, but their periods of continuous service range from twenty-one years in the case of the Chief Cashier, Nocoor Chunder Pal, to six years in the case of Hari Pada Chakrabutty; their records are good in every instance; and their services are now being dispensed with at very sudden notice and for no fault of their own. These clerks arc, and have always been, whole-time servants of the Emigration Department in India; we believe that their respective records of service will be found to compare not unfavourably with those of their colleagues in the Immi- gration Departments in the Colonies, whose appointments, we understand, are pen- sionable; and, having in view the exceptional circumstances which have led to the termination of their services, we cannot but think that the Governments of the Colonies concerned will, when the position is laid before them, regard it as an obligation of common justice to accord them the same privileges in regard to pension or retiring gratuities as they would have enjoyed had their service been performed in the Colonies. As a matter of mere policy, to put the question on its lowest ground, we submit that it would be a mistake to inaugurate the amalgamation of the Colonial Agencies in India by any act which might seem to the employés themselves, to their friends, or to the general public to suggest indifference to the claims of a body of servants who have performed their duties loyally throughout their period of service.