AQRi6ULTUftI3t. 
a3 regards minors. This prevents abuse, because 
unlike Mauritius, &c., the coolies are not protected 
by special Government regulations, but, being so 
near, tliey are supposed to come and go voluntarily. 
The kanganies receive advances of money from 
the Ceylon planters, and they go over and recruit in 
the villages and collect gangs of coolies at about 
(roughly) a pound a head. But since coffee failed, 
and tea arose in its stead, there has been far too 
little recruiting in India. Coolies now-a-days prefer 
to remain in a country vrhere they have more 
freedom and license, far from the restraining in- 
fluences of caste, priests, and family ties, where money 
is more plentiful, and life more exciting and lively. 
The Tamil Coolie when he first lands in Ceylon suffers 
from a revulsion of feeling when he finds the coiUeur-de- 
rose promises of the kangany fade away into real life. 
But gradually he gets used to tiie new order of 
things and grows contented— even happy. Then there 
has grown up what I may call a " creole " class 
of coolie. What I mean by a Creole class are 
those coolies born of Indian parents, but born and 
bred in Ceylon, who have not seen the country of 
their fathers, and who only know the country of 
their birth. These coolies form themselves into gangs 
and go from estate to estate trying to get larger 
advances, and they at last get so indebted to their 
kanganies, that they are virtually enslaved to them. 
Planters have unfortunately been obliged to play 
into those kanganies' hands and the rate of advances 
has gone up, and the security of a settled labour 
force has been shaken by those restless gangs who 
try to obtain higher advances. But, notwitiistanding, 
these drawbacks, Ceylon stands in a unique position 
as regards facility of labour. In Southern India, 
of course, they obtain labour in the country itself, 
but one disadvantage arises from being too near the 
homes of the labourers for this renders the labourer 
too independent, because he is within "measurable 
distance " of his home, and can go and come — malijre 
the convenience or control of the planter. But in 
Ceylon, though the coolie is supposed to be a free 
agent, and is really so as regards the planter, yet is 
not so as regards his kangani, or proprietor of the 
gang ; and in any case the existence of the sea being Ije- 
tween him and his liome, greatly strengthens the hands 
of the planter in Ceylon, as compared to Southern 
India. The labour is drawn from an immense country 
in Southern India, which is thickly populated with 
Tamil-speaking people. But there are other tracts 
where " Maliyalum " and " Telugu " are spoken, and 
then Mysore, where Canarese is spoken, which would 
yield immense labour-gangs for our colonies. 
Now I am coming gradually round to this question of 
Queensland requirements. The Cinhalese are not 
very suitable for plantation work ; though, since tea- 
cultivation has so greatly increased, very many 
Cinhalese who have suffered from the coffee failure, — 
partly because they gi'ew it, but chiefly because they 
stole it from plantations, and cannot now steal it since 
coffee plantations have been superseded by tea-gardens 
— very many Cinhalese have begun to work, and giving 
gi-eat satisfaction. But the fact of their being so 
near their villages, like the case of the Indian coolie, 
renders them unreliable, unsettled, and independent. 
Mr. St. George Caulfeild did much to influence 
Queensland against Indian labourers by importing the 
scum of the Colombo Jail and "Sea Street" bullies. 
Many of these rascals were wrecked in the " Quetta" 
going home lately, and are giving trouble in the neigh- 
bourliood of the wreck. These Cinhalese scoundrels 
gave Queensland an unfavom-able impression of 
Indian labourers. But the unsophisticated Tamil, or, if 
you like, the sophisticated— this is a very different 
being. The Hindustani or Bengali labourer is very 
largely sent to the West Indies under Government Pro- 
tection. Now lioro is avast field of availablo labour, 
and in (Juoeuslaud you have a vast unopened 
tropical country, rich with undeveloped wealth, ready 
to grow products which this Southern Empire has 
to got from outside her bounds. Cotton, collee, tea, 
chocolate, rice, maize, coconuts, tobacco, spices, cVrc, 
all these tropical riches are, as it were, latQUi iu 
your soil and clinuito, and who bars tho way ? The 
ftog-ia-tho-mauger whU^ laibQiuei- whg canuot work 
"imself, and grudges his coloured brother a " show." 
The white man has all the rest of the country ; but 
here a hard and fast line must be drawn as the white 
and black cannot work alongside each other, liut 
before we go farther with the question of labour I 
must point out that "mining" must be prohibited 
where plantations are established because a rush of 
miners will ruin any tropical planter. I am new to 
this country, and am not very sure of my ground, 
hvX I understand tliat the Government reserves all 
right to minerals ; and, should valuable minerals be 
discovered, miners are admitted to take up allotments 
or " claims." If that is allowed in Northern Queens- 
land then capitalists could never be expected to open 
up the country in tropical agrioulture, and would not 
dream of importing Indian labour. 
My idea is, let there be full compensation made 
to planters in the event of a miners' rush ; or let 
the planter benefit by the chance of minerals being 
found on his property, and protect him in the 
possession of it. Then Government could appoint 
immigration agents and commence negotiations 
with the Indian Government. The three 
causes that rendered Sir Samuel Griffith a de- 
termined opponent to coloured labour, seem to a 
tropical planter very weak, narrow and unworthy of 
a gre.it politician. No wonder that his mind has 
at last shaken off the shackles, and has risen above 
such a narrow horizon. And now let us see what 
reasons have roused him. He finds that the sugar- 
cane can he cultivated by white families and sold 
to the manufacturers at reasonable prices, yet there 
are not enough of Europeans to carry this out 
everywhere, and the planters are really in great 
straits for labour, and mills have therefore to be 
closed. Now the Government step in and tries to 
save an industry that it has done its best to strangle. 
Sir Samuel Griffith appears to favour Polynesian to 
Asiatic labour. I know nothing of Polynesian labour 
except what I have read and heard. Fiji's ex- 
perience, and also the past experience of Queens- 
land does not lead me into the belief that those 
scattered islands of the East, where kidnapping and 
reprisals in the shape of murders of boats' crews 
are the best recruiting grounds for Queensland. 
Turn to the other side. You approach an Empire, 
whose civilization is the oldest in the world, whose 
present Government is a model to the rest of 
Governments, whose teeming millions of industrious 
races are ready to go and work — not on the selfish 
principle of the heathen Chinee, — an alien of the 
Empire — but as fellow-subjects of the Crown. They 
are docile, intelligent, and obedient. You have a 
glorious tropical country that has been strangled 
by the close proximity of the white labourer. Had 
there been a stretch of sea between Queensland 
and the rest of Australia, it would long ago have 
settled matters ia accordance with the peculiar and 
special circumstances and position, regardless of the 
jealous and selfish hootings of her sister colonies. 
(Signed) W. A. Tytler. 
THE AMSTERDAM CINCHONA 
AUCTIONS. 
{Telegram from our Correspondent,) 
Amsterdam, February 25th. 
At today's cinchona auctions 4,780 packages of 
J ava bark, representing about 510,000 oz. sulphate of 
quinine, were offered for sale. With fair competition, 
4,0(i7 packages sold at an average unit of (IJ cents, 
(equal to l^d to IJd per lb.), being about equal to' 
that obtained at Tuesday's London auctions, and 
the same as that at the Amsterdam auctions of Jan- 
uary 21st. Considering the heavy qiiantity of bark 
offered, this is very satisfactory. The following prices 
were paid :— Manufacturiwg iWks in chips, i)rokea 
quill and long quill f\ojn 15 to ;W cents, (equal 2jd 
to fiid per lb); ditto root, 15 to TO cents. (ec»i»al to 
m \o 55d per lb.) ; druggists' barks, in chips, 
bi'okon quill and long quill, from 6, to tiO cents, 
(equal to Id to lOJd per lb.1 ditto root from K; to 
51 ceuts. (equal to 2^^ to lOd per lb.). Xlje prunyij 
