6O2 MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS 



B. The ordinance regulating the labour conditions 

 as between employers and employed who have made 

 labour contracts on a basis differing from that provided 

 in the coolie ordinance. 



Both kinds of ordinances apply only to those labourers 

 who are engaged by the employer and who do not 

 belong to the native population of the Government 

 division in which the estate is situated. Labour contracts 

 which are made with persons belonging to such popu- 

 lation, and labour contracts which have for their object 

 not the labour itself but the produce thereof, as well as 

 contracts which only relate to the performance of odd 

 services, do not fall within the scope of these ordinances, 

 and are subject to the common law. 



A. Coolie Ordinances. 



(1) Object of these Regulations. The coolie ordinances 

 owe their origin partly to the necessity of giving to 

 the employers in the Outer Possessions security of 

 tenure, i.e., to ensure that during a certain period they 

 would have at their disposal such labour as they were 

 obliged to import from outside, and partly to offer to 

 those engaged in a land which was foreign to them, the 

 necessary protection and assurance of good treatment 

 on the part of the employer. 1 



In virtue of the coolie ordinances, which agree in 

 their main substance, written contracts may be made with 

 labourers not belonging to the native (original) population 

 of the Government division in which the estate is situated, 

 on behalf of agricultural, mining and other estates in the 

 Outer Possessions on the basis of, and subject to, all 

 the consequences of the said ordinances. 



(2) Labour Contracts. These may not be made for a 

 period exceeding three consecutive years, and must con- 

 form to certain specified conditions and be drawn up 

 according to a prescribed form. 



1 The Coolie Ordinance for the East Coast of Sumatra, which 

 applies to seven of the sixteen districts of the Outer Possessions 

 where coolie ordinances are in force, is published in the Official 

 Gazette, i88g, No. 138. 



