26 Timehri. 



ways to prevent idleness and vagrancy. There was a long struggle before 

 the indenture system could be introduced under Government control. 



A survey of the conditions points to mistakes on the part of both 

 planters and labourers. The position was bad for both, but an annual 

 engagements such as was once common in England would probably have 

 been useful. In a progressive world we see that conditions suitable for 

 one stage will not fit others. Annual hirings, have become obsolete in 

 England but they were good in their time ; we can say much the same 

 of apprenticeships. Because the English labourer has got beyond the 

 " mop" or hiring fair, it does not follow that this was bad. The negro 

 was unfit to be left alone and was probably suited for annual engage- 

 ments under fair conditions. That he can carry out engagements is seen 

 now in the gold, balata and timber industries ; these are workable though 

 6ome trouble comes through absconding after taking advances. 



There is an important point which affects every member of a com- 

 munity, i.e., duty. We all know that children have no innate desire to 

 perform tasks that are not congenial. We have to coerce them to some 

 extent and this is what the old planter did with his labourers. The great 

 question is how far can this coercion of man by man be carried, and what 

 means can be used. We are coerced b}' the power of circumstances and 

 by the State, but the latter appears to me very unsatisfactory. It is 

 necessary that we obey the laws but many laws are enforced in ways 

 neither useful for the offender nor for the community. The freed man 

 was left alone after emancipation until he became a slave to idleness and 

 when the villages were put in order he protested against taxes. There 

 should have been some coereion from the first, and it might have been 

 carried out then without such friction as afterwards resulted. The intel- 

 ligent members of the community saw the necessity for a vagrancy law 

 and one was actually passed here immediately after the emancipation 

 only to be disallowed by the British Government. "The friends " of the 

 negro would not allow anything to be dune for his good for fear he wonld 

 be coerced. 



In 1842 a petition to the Combined Court was drawn up and signed 

 by merchants and others. It is a depressing document but probably not 

 much exaggerated ; it reads : 



" Your petitioners all deeply interested in the welfare of the colony 

 . . . request . . . serious attention ... to the alarming and 

 critical situation of this colony, once justly termed magnificent and 

 flourishing, but now presenting a scene of the greatest distress, em- 

 barassment and decay." 



After going into details the Court was asked, first, for a careful 

 revision of the colony's expenditure, second, a reduction in every 

 department of the Public Service ; and third, for immigration on an 

 extensive scale. 



