CO129-141 - Public Offices - 1869 — Page 398

In the meantime, Lobserve that the trains to most of the southern States are at this moment crowded

with negroes from the more Northern ones, who seem either to have been alarmed by the reported intention of importing Coolies, or to have been attracted by the pressing demand for labour.

Mr Loopmanschap has also made his proposals public in S. Carolina, where another man

name

is a native

of the of Joseph, likewise a Resident at San Francisco, is- Competing with him. Mr. Joseph

of S. Carolina, and offers to furnish any number of such labourers for $5 on arrivel a head, and $20 additional : a head after the termination of a year of labour to be deducted from their wages.

The latter asserts that

the

395

the Chinese will work for $8 a month and subsistence, and will

havel across

across the ocean and the

Continent at their own expense

for the purpose of obtaining- employment at such a rate.

But it does not seem that in

S. Carolina any of the planters have yet been tempted to make the experiment of trying Chinese labour, and from the remaining

Southern States I have not been able to obtain any information

precise

as yet.

yet. I am inclined to think however, that the matter is in

to incur

abeyance for the moment, and that the Planters are unwi Ming the first outlay, which in Mr Koopmanschap's proposal ient inconsiderable, until public opinion. be more positively expressed upon the expediency of the importation of Coolies, and until any intended) Legislation upon the matter may have

I have &

been carried out.

Edw. Thornton

EX.