CHINESE IMMIGRANTS. 379 



their inability to understand, or to make themselves understood 

 by their employers. Hence, incapable of making known any 

 objections they would think reasonable, or any wish they might 

 form, or of asking redress for any real or imaginary wrong they 

 might have suffered, they, on many occasions and doubtless 

 through ignorance resisted the just claims of their employers. 

 Some of the indolent among them would simulate illness in order 

 to escape the necessity of labour, and yet would exact, or expect 

 the full allowance of food to which they were entitled in health. 

 If I may judge of the Chinese from the few hundreds introduced 

 lately, I must say they are proud, stubborn, and deceitful, bearing 

 rebuke with impatience, and prone to revenge and suicide ; they 

 are also much addicted to stealing. On the other hand, they work 

 hard, steadily, and well ; in fact, they understand the tillage of the 

 soil better than any other class of labourers we ever had, and they 

 avail themselves of the smallest spot allowed them, on estates, to 

 cultivate provisions. They are highly praised by some of the 

 planters, as even the lest class of labourers, and are easily accli- 

 matised, though not so readily as the coolies. It cannot be denied 

 that the first importation of the Chinese did not, at the outset, at 

 least, succeed well, not being, I think, carefully selected : and we 

 had, during the first months of their introduction, a repetition of the 

 same difficulties which attended the initiation of the first imported 

 coolies. These, however, were soon overcome by a rigid enforce- 

 ment of the Immigration Ordinance, and the strict surveillance of 

 the government ; an interpreter has also arrived lately. 



I have already stated my opinion regarding the best mode of 

 conducting immigration into these islands ; I have also stated 

 from what sources we must look for labourers. Immigration 

 from India and China has already been advantageously syste- 

 matised, and there only requires to be organised that from the 

 United States. This, in my opinion, cannot be done except by 

 the intervention of the government, through its ambassador at 

 Washington ; and by the appointment of agents who would act in 

 behalf of such of the colonies as may require immigrants, make 

 arrangements with the different states, and superintend all 

 matters connected with the acquisition of an industrial population 

 from the Union. 



But, from whatever source we obtain immigrants, I am of 

 opinion that the risk and expenses of their introduction ought to 



