THE LABOR PROBLEM IN THE TROPICS. 487 



grants' dwellings in regard to ventilation, size, and water supply; and 

 no immigrants are sent to any estate until these houses have been in- 

 spected and passed as satisfactory. The planter must also furnish 

 on the estate free hospital accommodation and medical attendance, 

 and in addition provide free education for the children of indentured 

 immigrants. 



The medical officers are Government servants, and the colony is 

 divided into districts, each of which has its own doctor, who is com- 

 pelled by law to visit each estate in his district at least once in forty- 

 eight hours and examine and prescribe for all immigrants presenting 

 themselves at the hospital. 



The planter is further bound to pay a minimum daily wage of 

 twenty -four cents to each man and sixteen cents to each woman. 

 This appears at first sight a very small sum, but when it is taken 

 into account that a coolie can live well on eight cents a day it will be 

 seen that the wage is three times the living expense, a rate very rarely 

 paid to agricultural laborers in any part of the world. 



That the coolies do, in fact, save considerable sums of money will 

 be seen when the statistics of the immigration department are 

 examined. These records show that during the years 1870 to 1896 

 38,793 immigrants returned to India after completing their terms 

 of indenture, and that they carried back with them to their native 

 land over $2,800,000. At the end of 1896 there were over five thou- 

 sand East Indian depositors in the British Guiana Government Sav- 

 ings Bank and the Post-Office Savings Bank, with a total sum of more 

 than $450,000 to their credit. 



At the end of five years the indentured coolie becomes absolutely 

 free. He may cease work, or, if he prefer it, remain on the estates 

 as a free laborer. The whole colony is open to him, and he may 

 engage in any trade or profession for which he may be fitted. If 

 he remains for five years longer in the colony, even though he be 

 idle during the whole of that time, he becomes entitled to a grant of 

 land from the Government. The law in this respect has been recently 

 changed. All coolies who came to the colony prior to 1898 have the 

 choice at the end of ten years of a free grant of land or an assisted 

 passage back to their native place. 



It may be objected by those persons who are unacquainted with 

 the system that all this sounds very well on paper, but that the 

 opportunities for fraud and oppression must be very frequent, and, 

 human nature being what it is, very frequently taken advantage of, 

 to the injury of the coolies' interests. Such charges have, in fact, 

 been made from time to time, but they have, on investigation, proved 

 to be unfounded, or, at the worst, highly exaggerated. The treatment 

 of the indentured immigrants in British Guiana was the subject of 



