Labour and Colonisation — The Plantation System. 33 



I was struck some years ago by hearing a coolie man speak of his 

 experiences at Hopetown on the Demerara river. I gave him a passage 

 to town in my bateau from the Chinese Settlement and he was quite 

 pleased at the result of his three months' work for he could buy a cow. 

 A verbal agreement had been made with one Chinaman, but when this 

 man had no work for the East Indian he passed him on to another. The 

 result was that regular work with consequent pay was assured and all 

 parties were satisfied. The coolie had a bundle of silver tied up ; I 

 enjoyed his conversation, and the pe^p he gave me into the economy of 

 the Chinese. 



Snppose we get immigration without indenture the present 

 office might be kept up on more economic lines as a Labour 

 Bureau and Registration Office. There must be some supervision to 

 prevent vagrancy, and coercion for the good of the labourer as well as the 

 community. This coercion, however, must not savour of police surveil- 

 lance, in fact, although idleness is contrary to all the best interests 

 of the community, it should not be punishable by imprisonment. The 

 natural consequence of idleness is hunger and discomfort ; we should not, 

 however, let any one be actually starved, for humanity will not permit this. 

 At the same time no one should be sent to jail for a misdemeanor such as 

 the breach of an agreement. The slave system was better in that respect 

 for only in extreme cases were the Africans punished by the law. I have 

 seen cases of shameful oppression, where men have had their characters 

 spoiled by mistakes or blunders that might have been made by anyone. 

 They were sent to jail and for life might be called jail-birds. I should 

 like to see labour put on a proper footing without the magistrate. In my 

 childhood most boys were apprenticed but rarely indeed were they 

 charged before a magistrate in spite of the fact that there were penal 

 clauses in the indenture. Of course there are differences because the 

 father was bound also by the agreement. 



When we compare the slavery system with that of the coolie inden- 

 ture we see that the former hardly came under the law while the latter 

 was hampered too much by police and magistrates. No apprentice boy 

 ever carried a pass, or was asked to account for his movements. 

 Apprentices ran away at times but they were rarely hounded down by the 

 police. Even runaway slaves were hardly treated worse than some 

 coolies. In this respect public opinion ha<i changed here within my 

 memory, but we must abolish every outward sign of tyranny when we 

 have agreements. Absence from work is not in the nature of a criminal 

 offence, and in the case of apprentices the penalty >vas simply a lengthen- 

 ing of the service. 



People may perhaps say that if sufficient M-ages are offered labour can 

 always be obtained, but what is this sufficiency? \Shere labour is in 

 excess of the demand prices are low, otherwise they rule high. A demand 

 that would mean loss might be perhaps satisfied in an emergency, but 

 emergency prices could never be the rule. If we pay too much we are 



