76 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[July 2, 1883. 



one asking to see them. Punishment for illegal ab- 

 sence is much swifter, surer and sevtror. Employers 

 are liable to heavy tines for talking on a coo'lie unless 

 thoy us proper diligence to ascertain wh"(lier the coolie 

 IS under engagement or not, i. e., examine his papers 

 — Why should not this rule be enacted in Mauritius. " 



Mr. Shand, having dwelt on the worries to which the 

 coolies were subject, by the well-meant interference of 

 Governmeut, does not forget those of the planter. After 

 shomng how much better matters are managed in Natal, 

 he went ou to say : — 



■' The number of small worries a Mauritian Planter 

 is exposed to would astonish a Nutal Planter. Some 

 of the vexations were very well shewn up in a 

 series of articles which appeared in the Cernimi lately 

 signed ' Trifoudlard.' More than half of the time 

 of a 'Oomptable' upon au estate is taken updoing 

 clerical work for Governmeut, mikiug out returns, etc. 



"Planters have also to do police duty. Whenever au 

 entjageil laborer is liberatea from prison, for whatso- 

 ever offence it may be that he has been condemned, 

 it does not matter, the planter receives an elaborate 

 printed form from Govt-rnm-nt calling upnn him to 

 take delivery of the man, or else he wiU be sent up 

 to the estate under police escort, the planter paying 

 for the Valuable servic s the police render l)im, by 

 bringing luck some incorrigible deserter. If the plant- 

 er sends a Sirdar, what authority can he have over 

 a man who will not return to the estate ? As soon 

 as the prison doors are opened the man can go where 

 he chooses, and he laughs at the idea of being con- 

 ducted back to his e.state by a Sirdar when it is 

 the duty of the police to do so. 



"My object in citing one of the numerous instances 

 when pla.Ti rs are worried is to show that Government 

 does nothing to help planters. Ou the contrary, it d"es 

 all it can to harass tliem :md their engaged laborrrs. 



" To come to the question of the supply of labor at 

 present available in M^iuritius. I have no liesitution 

 in saying it is not sufiicienc. The extent of land in 

 cultivation including Indian gardens, for which labor 

 is requisite, is much larger than is popularly ,-upposed. 

 The supply of labor does not meet tbe demand. A 

 man working two days can make enough money to 

 keep him for a week. Such being the case, we "have 

 no right to expect he will work harder. 



" This is simply and exemi^litication ot a well known 

 principle of social economy — Government cannot reduce 

 the rate ot wages or make men work haidei- by law. 

 It mu<t assist the planters by doing all it can to facil- 

 itate imuTgration. Ou several occasions I have advo- 

 cated tins, and when giving evidence before the Pur- 

 chase Coniinission with regard to the Terrain Bonne- 

 tin, I said that it would be neces.-ary very soon to im- 

 port a large number of coolies to keep wages down 

 to a proper limit and that the cimseijufuoe would be 

 that the price of land in the Colony would go on gradually 

 increasing as the men leaving estates would require 

 to be located somewhere. Tuere is plenty of room for 

 many more laborers and there is little danger from a 

 sanitary point of view, provided Governmeut does its 

 iluty and enacts stringent Sanitary Regulations for the 

 Indian villages, similar to those in foreo on sugar es- 

 ates. B-j-itdes, almost every estate camp h.as a large 

 number of huts empty ami many thousand new la- 

 borers could be absorbed by the estates wiihont any 

 danger, as hospitals etc., exist for many more than are 

 actually engaged. " 



This introduction of more Indians where already over 

 a couple of hundi-eds of thousands of Indians exist, is 

 a very delicate one, and one which, if they had the 

 mental and political status of the white labourers and 

 mechanics of Victoria, the coolies might respoud to by 

 sajiug: "What right have you to introduce more men 

 for the avowed purpose of reducing our rates of wages, 

 while your own mouthpieuj, Mr. Shand, states ex. 



I plicitly : 'If the rate of wages is too low, planters 

 j must increase it, if they expect to compete with other 

 I lab .ur importing colonies'?" The Govenmeut officers, 

 1 however, who in a crowa colony are the natural pro- 

 I tectors of the labouring classes, had agi-eed that the 



introduction of fresh blood was really necessary. Mr. 



Shand wound up by pioposlng: — 



"1st. That several thousand new labourers are .absol- 

 ub'ly necessary for Mauritius to briug up the supply 

 of labor to the demand. 



" 2iid. Th»t owing to some cause or other our Im- 

 mi;;ration agents eeem inoiipahle of procuring coolies. 



"3rd. That the punishment for illegal absence is not 

 sufficiently severe. 



"4th. That day laborers should be obliged to show 

 that they .are not.eugaged on some estate, before being 

 allowed to work as day laborers. 



"5th. That Government should extend the Estate 

 Camp Samt iry H.-gulations to all Indian villages and 

 to huts in which Indians live. 



"6th. I'hat day laborers should pay a small tax to 

 de ray Ihe cost and maintenance of village hospitals 

 which should be erected in each districl for their use. 



" 7th. That a latr ne service should be insisted upon 

 in each Indian village. " 



We certainly see no hardship in the imposition of a 

 slight tax on Indians settled in villages for the sup- 

 port of hospitals to which they could resort iu illness, 

 nor in a law compelling them to observe tlie rirst rtdes 

 of cleanliness and health. But if, either ou estates or 

 in then' villages, Indian coolies are really induced to 

 resort regularly to latrines instead of spreading filth 

 over the largest possible area they can reach, then we 

 hope om' Mauritius neighbours will reveal to us the 

 sec et of theu' success, so enabling us to enforce a 

 similar law here. The Indian coolies have many good 

 qualities for which let them get due credit ; hut then- 

 best friends woidd vio ate truth and outrage conscience, 

 were they to say that the TamUs. at least Avere models 

 of cleanliness in persons and in habits. We have heard 

 them called, in violation of all parliamentary nde " nasty, 

 dirty beasts," and, like the celebrated Gumpanc', we "could 

 make no reply." The acting Governor of Mauritius in 

 giving his assent to the dispatch of a special agent to 

 India mth reference to requisitions spread over three 

 years for 6,000 or 7.000 coolies of which only 500 had 

 been received, was careful to state that he did so with- 

 out compromising the future policy of Government based 

 on density of population and othiT cu'cumstances. The 

 Secretai-y of State had, in truth, sancti.med the re- 

 quisitions in question, as also the lowering of the pro- 

 portion of females to males Besides the extracts from 

 Mr. Shand's paper on the labour question, we take over 

 a few paragraphs from the Commercial O.izetle, reserving 

 for next issue a notice of the able and interesting 

 speech with which Mr. Napier Broome closed his con- 

 nection with Mauritius, the inhabitants of which colony 

 expressed regret at losing him and his clever and amiable 

 wife. Lady B.arker. 



CAR.DAMOM CULTIVATION ' IN INDIA 

 AND CEYLON. 

 The following notice of Owen's well-known pam. 

 phlet on " Cardamom Cultivation " (published at this 

 office) is from " Aberdoneusis " a Ceylon planter 

 settled in Mysore \>hure he has the opportuuity of 

 watching the culti\ation of cardamoms on a scale 

 not yet approached in Ceylon. We believe there is 

 no one clearing of cardamoms in this island ex- 

 ceeding 50, or perhaps 30, acres in extent ; 

 ■whereas in India we have heard of 500 and even 

 1000 acres ou one plantation. It is obvious thercfon- 



