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worse position than the man who imports his labour by $5 for every 

 coolie and therefore in no position to raise rates over the man who 

 imports his own labour. It may be asked why make the assessment 

 $5 a head more than the cost of importing labour ; there are three 

 reasons — 



1. The man who imports from India goes to great trouble and in 



benefiting himself is no doubt benefiting the country and the 

 rubber industry in general and should be protected. 



2. The object of this scheme is to make the employers do their 



own importing. If you fix the assessment at the same rate 

 as the cost of importing, you will find employers saying, 

 " I am no worse off taking local coolies and I save myself all 

 the trouble and worry of recruiting." 



3. The larger the assessment on locally recruited coolies the 



large the bonus it will be possible to pay on coolies 

 imported from India, and consequently the bigger encour- 

 agement for all men to recruit. 



I think what I have said will shew you that the scheme will 

 benefit the recruiting employer. Let us see how it will 

 affect the coolie. We all know that the coolie is an absolute 

 child, easily persuaded into anything; a glass or two of gin, 

 a dollar or two in the hand, pleasant tales of short hours 

 work and high pay : and many of them will follow any of 

 the touts and crimps that infest the Keddais in all the towns 

 to wherever they like to take him. When the coolie comes 

 to himself he is told all sorts of tales of debts incurred and 

 more often than not a pronote is shown him as having 

 been signed by himself for money he probably never had. 

 If he is not induced to bolt he is persuaded by specious 

 promises to give his employer notice which I think the Tamil 

 coolie, if left to himself, very seldom does. In both cases 

 he gets into the hands of a very dangerous class of native 

 and one which should be suppressed. If the scheme I pro- 

 pose was enforced, the touts would find their occupation 

 gone. It would not pay the employer to pay touts commis- 

 sion and a heavy assessment for coolies the majority whom 

 would not stay long when he could import cheaply for 

 without a doubt the coolies who are picked up this way 

 are never really satisfactory. I think therefore it may be 

 said that the coolie as a body will benefit by the scheme. 



I would now like to point out what may be considered objections 

 to the scheme. 



I. There is the case of a coolie wanting to leave an estate to join 

 relatives on another. The estate that took him on would have to pay 

 $20 for him. This happens so rarely, and I consider that the benefits 

 of the scheme are so large that any employer would rather pay $20 

 than have any exceptions made to the rule. 



