213 



cost of production of which is very large, are the 

 proper people, and can well afford, to provide for all 

 the necessities of their position. But the class of 

 people who emigrate from any country, except as 

 before mentioned under the pressure of peculiar cir- 

 cumstances are the poor. In the outset at least, 

 all their expenses must he defrayed, and howsoever 

 lucrative the business, trade, or cultivation for which 

 their labour may be required, should these expenses 

 or advances be defrayed by producers or capitalists 

 they must be given some security that they will re- 

 cover their advances, or at least that they shall be 

 the people who will reap the benefit of their outlay. 

 Hence the necessity for a Contract law. But here 

 ag-ain we are met by a greater difficulty, for how- 

 ever string-ent may be the laws framed, no really 

 good security can ever be given to capitalists, living 

 in a free country, that after having" paid all the ex- 

 penses of importing- labour, their labourers will con- 

 tinue to work for them. And this is obvious, be- 

 cause the wages of labour, like the prices of all thing's, 

 are regulated not by contracts, but by the circum- 

 stances of markets. The plan of contracts for labour 

 in like cases, has been tried over and over ag-ain, and 

 in every instance and latest in the province of As- 

 sam it has been found, as above shown, to be 

 wholly inoperative, for this very simple reason, 

 that the trouble, the delay and expense, of enforcing 1 

 labour contracts, has always far exceeded the g*ain to 

 be anticipated from a successful civil suit. From 



