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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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C.O.885

21 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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9. Staff at Madras.—As regards the Madras establishment we are strongly of opinion that it should be staffed entirely by natives of that Presidency. Bengali clerks, ignorant alike of the language and local conditions, would be quite unsuited for appointments under the Madras Agency, and we recommend that its personnel be selected by the officer who will be in charge either from Mr. Conran's present staff or, if

necessary, from other local sources. The number of clerks and menial servants to be employed will depend on whether the present Fiji depôt is retained or Messrs. Parry and Company's ex-Natal depôt leased, and no estimate of expenditure as regards salaries, &c., can consequently be made at present. We are in communica- tion with both Messrs. Parry and Conran on this subject, and a supplementary report will be submitted later.

10. Office Accommodation (Calcutta).-If the recommendations made in our paragraph 8 above and by Mr. Gibbes in paragraph 5 of his letter of the 22nd January last are adopted, no additional office accommodation will be required for the combined Agency's staff at Calcutta, nor will the question of house-allowance for the Assistant Agent arise, as he will reside in the house already built on Mr. Farrington's property. We recommend, however, that a carriage allowance of Rs. 60 per mensem be sanctioned for this officer in view of his having to live at a distance of four miles from Calcutta, and of the expense (apart from the incon- venience) that he will be put to whenever he has occasion to visit European shops or places of amusement-Garden Reach being altogether devoid of any such amenities. 11. Depôt Accommodation (Calcutta).-The matters referred to in paragraphs 14 and 15 of your letter are covered to a large extent by our paragraph 2 above, and were also discussed in detail in Mr. Gibbes's letter of the 22nd January.* convinced that the maintenance of two separate depôts at Calcutta will be indis- We are pensable so long as different conditions of service obtain in the various West Indian Colonies and Fiji: and in view of the Secretary of State's recent decision that Fiji cannot be relieved of the obligation to provide a full return passage to emigrants after ten years' residence, and also of the concession just granted by Jamaica (Act 33 of 1912) in the matter of task-work-a precedent which we imagine it is unlikely that the other Colonies will follow-the prospect of such unification is, obviously, remote.

12. Madras Agency: Scope of Utility-Since Mr. Marsden's letter of the 18th July last was written, the British Guiana Government has decided to draw a con- siderable percentage of this year's requisition of emigrants from Madras, and it must be anticipated that future requisitions for this Colony, as was the case with Fiji, will comprise a certain proportion of Madrasis. This being so, the suggestion that the Madras Agency should be devoted exclusively to Fiji recruiting purposes need not be further discussed at present, and the scheme of amalgamation should proceed on the assumption that the Madras Agency will be available in future to subserve the interests not only of British Guiana and Fiji, but of any Colony which may desire to import Madrasi labour.

13. Financial Arrangements.-The subject of the general financial arrange- ments to be adopted for the amalgamated Agency can be conveniently discussed in connection with the proposal contained in paragraph 2 of Sir Sydney Olivier's letter, No. 345, of the 20th September, 1912, to pool all expenses, and Mr. Marsden's suggestion in paragraph 4 of his letter to you of the 22nd November. § We con- sider that no departure is called for from the present system of financing the Agency by means of bills of exchange drawn by the Emigration Agent in favour of the Secretary of State for India on the Crown Agents for the Colonies. Nor do we suggest any modification of the amounts at present sanctioned for the Agency's requirements, viz. :---

(1) £1,000 to open the recruiting season for each Colony;

(2) Capitation fees up to a maximum of £7 for every statute adult embarked. We propose, however, that although these bills of exchange shall continue to be drawn against each Colony during the currency of its recruiting season, the proceeds shall be paid into one general Emigration Account, which will be avail- able for all the purposes of the amalgamated Agency. At the close of each year (either calendar or financial, as may be decided) the total expenditure incurred during the twelve months would then be distributed among the four Colonies concerned in proportion to the number of emigrants despatched or awaiting despatch to the Colonies, and a debit and credit adjustment made accordingly. We think that the

‡ No. 74.

{ No. 83.

• No. 107.

↑ No. 58.

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above arrangement should comprise the Madras establishment as well as those at Calcutta and Faizabad, and it will very materially simplify the work of the Calcutta Agent if he is authorised by all the Colonies to suplement from Madras at his discretion any shortage of labour that may occur in the northern recruiting districts. In our opinion the pooling of all expenses incurred in the collection, mainten- ance, and despatch of emigrants throughout the year is the only arrangement that would work out equitably for all the Colonies concerned for it is clearly unfair that any individual Colony should be penalised by the fact that its coolies have to be recruited at a time of year when labour is scarcest, and rates of commission are consequently higher, whether owing to crop conditions or to some special competition on the part of Assam, Surinam, &c., &c. an appreciable difference in the cost of recruiting labourers in Madras and in the It is probable, too, that there may be northern districts respectively, and this, again, would operate unfairly in the case of Colonies drawing a larger number of emigrants from the dearer area.

14.

Return ships to be treated separately. In computing the percentage of fixed expenses to be borne by Trinidad, Fiji, and Jamaica, respectively, in connection with their joint Agency, it has been the custom hitherto to include in the calculation the number of emigrants who have returned from each Colony during the previous three years as well as those despatched from India: this was quite a fair procedure inasmuch as it applied only to the fixed (recurrent) items of expenditure, such as rent, salaries, &c., and did not include fluctuating expenses, such as recruiting fees, feeding in depôt, disposal of pauper and invalid return emigrants, &c., which were debited separately to each Colony concerned. If, however, our recommendation to pool all expenditure incurred in collecting and despatching emigrants is adopted it will be necessary to exclude return ships from the arrangement, and deal with each one as a special and separate charge on the Colony concerned, meeting its expenses as hitherto from the £1,000 allowed for the purpose. The necessity for this becomes apparent when it is remembered that the cost to the Calcutta Agency of handling a return emigrant is, roughly, £1 only whereas the cost of handling an out-going emigrant up to the time of his embarkation is at present little less than £6. If, therefore, the proportion to be paid by each Colony under the new scheme were based on a calculation which included return and out-going emigrants on an equal footing, the Colony repatriating the largest number of emigrants in any one year would be proportionately a financial sufferer, inasmuch as it would be charged sum for each returu emigrant which would be largely in excess of the amount actually incurred.

Charges hitherto met by the Crown Agents, such as passage money for emigrants. passage money and gratuities of surgeons and compounders, cost of blankets, &c., will continue to be defrayed by them and apportioned to each Colony. Should any part of an Agent's salary be drawn at home, instructions as to the amount to be debited to each Colony would be sent to the Crown Agents from Calcutta as soon as the annual proportion had been ascertained.

15. Recruiting seasons. In connection with the above proposals, we wish it to be clearly understood that, although arrangements will be made to ensure, as far as is possible, that emigrants shall arrive in each Colony at the season most convenient to the planters, no guarantee can be given that recruiting for any one. Colony will be opened, or that the despatch of its steamers will take place, on (even approximately) the same date each year. solely on the supply of labour available--a factor which varies literally from month These are matters which will depend to month and it is clear that the Emigration Agents can exercise little, if any, control in regard to it. When emigrants are scarce, owing to especially keen compe- tition in the labour market, we can (as hitherto) hold our own in some degree by raising our rates of recruiting commission: but scarcity of labour in India is mainly the result of good harvests, and when no emigrants are procurable we cannot create them.

We think it well to emphasise this point because there appears to be an impression in certain of our Colonies that an unlimited supply of first-class labourers is always available here, and that, if any cause for complaint arises with regard to either the quantity or quality of the emigrants received, the fault lies solely with the Emigration Agent who despatched them.

16. We note that the question of recruiting emigrants for Dutch Guiana through the instrumentality of the British Agency is engaging the attention of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and that no immediate decision in the matter is probable.