February i, 1892.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
557 
COOLIES FOR ASSAM. 
We have already commented on the great and bitter 
cry of the Assam planter that the supply of labour is 
daily growing not only more scanty in amount but 
inferior in quality. This is a matter which not only j 
affects the great tea industry, and, indirectly, tho 
Government and population of Assam ; the question I 
is also interesting to us who live in Northern and 
Western India. Assam affords an ample outlet for 
our surplus population ; it behoves us to inquire with 
some minuteness why our landless labourers are 
beginning to look askance on tea garden work, and 
can only bo persuaded to emigrate by the unholy 
persuasions of the arl-ati and the crimp. The present 
system of recruiting is admittedly open to serious 
abuse of a kind which it is extremely difficult to check. 
And now we are told that this evil system has not 
even tho recommendation of success, and that the 
supply of coolies is rapidly falling off. To what 
causes is the unpopularity of tea garden labour due '? 
It can hardly be said that the drain has been so 
severe as to have taken off all the people who are so 
poor as to need a refuge in temporary exile. A | 
good deal has iseen said in some quarters about the j 
expense and length of the journey to Assam. It has j 
been hinted that when once Assam is connected with | 
the rest of India by railway the labour question will 
solve itself. This seems somewhat doubtful. Every 
cold weather swarms of men go to Assam from Nepal, 
from these Proviiicee and from Tirhoot, to work on 
the Government roads, or to sell drovea of plough 
cattle or buffaloes. Most of those march by land, or, 
taking rail to Dhubri, walk the rest of the way. Even 
those who indulge ia the luxury of a railway and 
steamer journey to Dhubri can make their w&y from 
Chapra or Muzaffarpur to Dibrngarh at a cost of from 
1112 to 1114. The journey will occnpy lass than three 
woeka. Those of them who do earthwork on the roads 
reap a handsome harvest, Tho rate for earthwork paid 
by the Public Works Department in Assam is liberal, 
I14-8 or R5 per 1,000 cubic feet, we understand. A 
road-working coolie can easily do his 2,500 cubic feet 
in a month, and in the six months of the dry weather 
may easily lay by his 1150 or E60. Of this he will 
spend some 1112 on the return journey, and the rest, 
in so short a period as six months, is pure gain. Herel 
is an annual exodns which is purely voluntary. It is 
supervised by no Government agency. It ia unattended 
by the wiles and oppressions of arkaiis, and as an 
iuatanoe ot successful and useful migration well deserves 
record. It proves that the natives of W. W. India will 
gladly travel to Aesam at their own risk and expense, 
so that the labour they have to perform is done in the 
cold weather, and is suiBciently well paid to leave a 
margin for saviog. 
But the planter wants his ooolies to labour 
all the year through ; and chiefly in the rainy 
months, which are especially trying to unaccli- 
matiscd inhabitants of drier parts of India. 
Even if wages as high as those earned by road menders 
were to be h»d on tea gardens (and in the case of old 
and trained ooolies wages as good, or nearly as good as 
there may be earned) it is probable that coolies 
from Upper India are not easily persuaded to remain 
in Assam throughout Buccessive rainy seasons, until 
they are acclimatised and really useful. Hence the 
enormous expense of exporting labour, and the great 
annual loss by desertion aud non renewal of coolie 
pgreemonts to which we have already drawn attention. 
Whoreforo the arkati steps in, and by blandishments, 
promieeB and other persuatious inveigles the coolie to 
Dljubri and there induces him to enter into an 
agreement to labour for five years. The 1 result in 
many cases is entirely for the coolie's benefit. Often 
he saves money during the term of his agreement, aud 
on its expiry settles down to cultivation in a little 
clearing in griss junglo, a much more prosporoas 
and contoutfd being than he was in his native abode. 
But while a voluntary migration automatically selects 
tlio best men who are frugal, abstemions and hard- 
working, tho aiicoti finds his victims chiefly among 
the waifs and strays of rural life. He picks up 
dtuu kartls and loal'oru among tho men aud women of 
6y 
loose life among recruits of the other sex. It 
is small wonder that the impatient planter 
complains that tho expense of importing such 
labour is never recouped, and finds the Labour 
Law iteelf ineffectual as a means of getting an 
honest, day's work out of his labourers. It is perhaps 
astonishing that the average rate of wage paid to tea 
garden labour should be so high as it is. The present 
system of recruitment then is attended by many 
inevitable dissppointraents and dangers. It is extremely 
expensive, and it must not be forgotten that the La- 
hour Law itself cannot be administered without ex- 
pense. The difficulty is to suggest a remedy. That 
arkatis and recruiters should make a profit by sup. 
plying ooolies is itself a great evil. How are planters 
to replace the arkati by som6 less suspicious agency ? 
Can the Government do anything to aid them in the 
enterprise'!' It is to the interest of Government to 
supply easy means of migratioii from the overstooked 
provinces of India ; it is to its interest that the tea 
industry should flourish and reclaim the waste plaoea 
of Assam, and that time expired coolies rhonld open 
out its jungles. At present Government takes upon 
itself to look after the welfare of the labourers on 
tea gardens, and inspectors of labourers are legally em- 
powered to see that tasks are not excessive and that 
all labourers are provided with the means of earning 
a sufficient livelihood. Can it not go further and 
take np the business of an Emigration Agency ? 
Before it could do so, it would be necessary to make 
sure that the conditions of labour in Assam were, or 
oould bo made, always and invariably better than in 
the districts of recruitment. It would probably be necea- 
sary to strengthen the staff of inspectors, aud to raise 
the statute minimum of wages. Registration oflioes 
would be opened, at whioh coolies should bind them- 
selves to labour in Assam for a term of years. The 
ceolies miffht then be forwarded to Assam in charge 
of Government officials and despatched to the dilferent 
gardens through the inspectors concerned. Any garden 
in which coolies were ill-treated or ill-paid might be 
refused a further supply of labour. The bare expenses 
of travel might be advanced by Government and re- 
couped, as are other such advances, under Act I. of 
1882, It may be said that such a scheme ia £n unwar- 
ranted interference with privaSe enterprise. But no 
one except the arkatii themselves, oertaiuly not the 
coolie or his employer, is likely to resent an interfer- 
ence with the arkati's bufciness. If Government were 
once assured that tea garden life in Assam was really 
a change for the better for emigrants from other parts 
of India, it could easily and by the most legitimate 
means make these advantagea known. It could assure 
tho intending emigrant that he would be oarefully 
looked after, and that if he were ill-treated or ill-paid 
he would be given the option of returning to his home 
or settling on his own account in Assam, 
The suggestion hns many obvious drawbacks, whioh 
we will leave it to others to discuss. Planters themselves 
admit that the a/la/i is a crying evil, and must be pat 
down at all riskn . It is clear that Assam ia not yet 
ripe for free migration, and would probably not 
be not so even if the future railway were an 
existing fact. Attempts to organise superior ageociea 
to compete with the arkatis seem destined to 
fail. The aj'Jcati's methods, if objeotionable, areecono- 
mioal. It is quite poe-'ible, however, that the arkati is 
a maligned individual, and that natural aeleotion has 
evolved the fittest person for the task of recruiting 
coolies. Even iu that case the suggestion will have 
doue no harm if it te-nds to whitewash a misunderstood 
and necessary individual. But it is a tenebrous sub- 
ject, especially to minds unacquainted with Assam, and 
the man who throws real light upon it will be a public 
benefactor. 
One other suggestion occurs to us, which we beg not 
be taken entirely iu jest. There may yet arise a Cook 
era Gage who will personally conduct coolie tourists 
to tho Tom Tiddler's ground of Assam, But that pre- 
supposes a linppy time when ooolies shall be as anxious 
to travel cheaply and expeditiously to Aflsam, as pil- 
grima who seek Mecca. Why does not a Cook arise, 
and sweep tho mob of arkatis off tho osrtli. Kumour 
