CO129-503-7 Chinese labour- recruitment for work in coal mines in Sarawak 17-9-1926 - 14-2-1928 — Page 8

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"Chinese Free Labour Ordinance, 1923" (11713/24

Dominions, New Zealand and Samoa) are bound to

serve for a term. Chinese for Ocean Island are

recruited under agreement for 3 years (1167/26

W. Pacific). So far as I know, there is no

accurate definition of "indentured" as distinguished

from "free" labour, but the conditions both in

Samoa and on Ocean Island would have been

reckoned as "indenture" in our controversies with

India ten years ago. Broadly speaking I should

say that if this proposed Sarawak agreement is an

"indenture" then so are the conditions in Samoa

and on Ocean Island.

We need not ask Governor about the

South Seas as we have the facts, but we might ask

what is covered by "elsewhere."

We have therefore permitted the recruit-

ment of labour on long term agreements through

Hong Kong. But this has been only in the case of

British Administrations which are as completely

under the control of British Governments and of

public opinion as Samoa and the Phosphate Commis-

sion. It is a very different matter to extend

the principle to Sarawak, where there is only a

rudimentary administration, where the courts are

not at all satisfactory from our point of view,

where there is very little pressure of public

opinion on the Government and where we have very

little