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f< The question as regards India, it appears to me, is one, 

 not of price, as many suppose, but one purely of progress ; 

 and the anomaly, is not that while we are crying out for 

 labour in front, we are permitting it to stream out of the 

 country in rear ; but that while the law of the land restricts 

 the liberty of the subject in regard to emigration even to 

 British and Indian Colonies (Vide the Act of 1839,) we 

 are daily forging new Acts to legalize the transport of 

 labour to countries over the laws of which we have no 

 control, and in which we cannot consequently guarantee 

 our Indian subjects proper protection ; and that while 

 Colonial and foreign Governments give their developers 

 every possible assistance in obtaining this labour, for three 

 whole years, the late Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal 

 systematically refused to afford the same aid to Englishmen 

 engaged in developing the resources of the province he was 

 paid for administering, and maintained that Government 

 had no concern whatever in the matter. 



" It is unnecessary that I should allude to the results of 

 this, to me, seemingly mistaken policy. You are well 

 aware that they have been an amount of oppression, cruelty, 

 disease and death it is painful to call to mind. 



" It would be ridiculous to argue that the system of 

 Government now maintaining in England, would have been 

 suitable for the people of England two centuries back, and 

 I need not endeavour to demonstrate, that those who would 

 attempt to apply it, in its full integrity, to India in its 

 present stage of development, could hardly expect the 

 happiest results. I know that this is not allowed generally 

 in England, and I am aware that it is only partially ad- 

 mitted in India. Still I conceive that it is only because 

 it is believed that the people of India are not yet sufficiently 

 intelligent and enlightened, to know and understand what 

 is best for their own interests, and with a view to protect 

 them from being crimped and kidnapped for the benefit of 

 others, that the law of 1839 prohibiting emigration, is still 



