ig8 THE RUBBER INDUSTRY 



maintains the weekly coolie service from India to the 

 Straits. 



The Immigration Committee pay from the Fund 

 passage money from India and trainage in India, as 

 explained below, and also maintain native agents (at pre- 

 sent eleven in number) in India at various places, whose 

 duties are to assist kanganies, help in forwarding their 

 coolies, and arrange the payment of their train fares. 



Whenever the balance to the credit of the Fund 

 after paying the above expenses justifies such a course, 

 a recruiting allowance is paid to employers in respect 

 of each coolie imported by them from India under the 

 Committee's licences. At one time an allowance of 

 3 dollars per head was paid, and this was subsequently 

 increased to 4! dollars. The number of coolies imported 

 in the summer of 1910 was, however, so large, and the 

 bills for steamer tickets consequently so high, that the 

 Immigration Fund became temporarily depleted. As 

 the assessment on the increasing number of Tamils 

 now in the country is received, the Fund will again 

 have a balance to dispose of, but at the time of writing 

 (November, 1910) it has been necessary to suspend for 

 the present the payment of recruiting allowances. 

 The allowances will, however, be renewed as soon as 

 possible. 



It will be seen that practically all the money col- 

 lected from employers in the form of assessment goes 

 back directly or indirectly to those employers who 

 import labour, the only portion that does not do so 

 being the small amount paid in connection with the 

 native agents appointed at various places in India. 



