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"That this Association approve that every locally recruited 

 Tamil coolie shall be assessed at the rate of $20— and that the sum 

 be irrecoverable from the cooly, and that the amount so obtained be 

 used firstly, to pay for the proper administration of the scheme, and 

 secondly to p^y a bonus for every cooly imported from India, and 

 that this Resolution be put bef ore the Planters' Association of Malaya 

 at their next Meeting, and that a copy be sent to the other District 

 Associations." 



I enclose a copy of Mr. Mansergh's speech with reference to 

 same, and be much obliged if this could be read at the next Meeting 

 of the Planters' Association of Malaya. 



Yours faithfully, 



(Sd.) J. G. HUBBACK, 



Honorary Secretary. 

 Seremban, 4th December, 1910, 



Gentlemen, 



You yourselves, no doubt, have fully recognized that the present 

 position of the planter who recruit his own labour from India is fast 

 becoming untenable. The recruiting planter who organizes his 

 recruiters at the cost of a good deal of money and trouble, import his 

 labour only to find that other planters, contractors and Government 

 Departments, perhaps by raising pay or promises of shorter hours of 

 work, are continually inducing coolies to give him notice. A planter 

 who has a recruiting staff in India does not, I think, land his coolies 

 in this country under $15 a head, and for this he may get one months 

 work out of a coolie, anyhow very often only two or three. How is 

 this to be stopped? There is of course a cumbersome way of lending 

 coolies money and making them sign a kind of indenture paper but 

 anything to do with interfering with the personal freedom of a cooly 

 is I think wrong and undiplomatic. Besides the fault is not with the 

 coolie but with the employer—left alone and not dazzled by tales of 

 better pay etc : I feel certain that most coolies would stay on the 

 estates that imported them. I therefore suggest to you the following 

 scheme as a remedy: — that every locally recruited tamil coolie be 

 assessed at the sum of $20 and that this money be irrecoverable from 

 the coolie, that the money so obtained be used (1st) to pay for the 

 proper administration of the scheme, (2nd) to pay a bonus on every 

 coolie imported from India. I will point out how this will affect both 

 both planters and coolies. It will be seen that this scheme puts the recrui- 

 ting employers and the local recruiting man on the same footing both 

 now stand the chance of a coolie giving them notice and leaving very 

 soon after he has come to the estate, saddling the estate with his 

 assessment in one case and with the recruiting expenses in the other. 

 At present the local recruiter can afford to raise rates having no 

 advance account and nothing to lose if the coolie bolts, so when the 

 recruiting employer pays 35 cents the local recruiter can well afford 

 to pay 40 cents, and so on but if he has to pay $20 he will be in a 



