396 
Mr. Jarvis, asks whether it would not be possible to arrange for 
a bonus scheme by which a coolie if he worked on an estate for two 
or three years would have his passage paid home again. 
The Chairman said he knew several places where that was done 
but he did not think they could get legislation on that point. It was 
more a matter for individual arrangement. 
Mr. Gibson says the matter was a serious one and was growing 
in importance every day. It was not only the unhealthy but the 
healthy estates which suffered. They got their coolies over from 
India and as a rule they were an unhealthy lot, suffering from 
cholera, small-pox and other diseases. There were a certain number 
in the planting industry, not associated with their association, who 
quietly kept in the background and after they had got their coolies 
fit and healthy anct skilled to tap, their efficiency made them valuable, 
they immediately left the estate and got into a kampong or some 
Chinese place where the planters did not recruit, and there instead of 
getting their ordinary 30 cents, they were paid 35 or 40 cents. They 
hunted round for the coolie, after paying their registration fee, and 
after finding the coolie brought them before a magistrate, and, as the 
Chairman had said, some would not recognise that a coolie who had 
left his employer without giving a month’s notice had committed an 
offence. The magistrate would simply order the coolies back to the 
estate, they took them back, and the next morning they would find 
the coolies had gone again. The Enactment was not adequate 
to meet the case and there should be something introduced to 
prevent the coolies leaving in that way. He moved that the Labor 
Enactment be amended so as to make it a criminal offence for a free 
laborer to leave his emyloyer without giving a month’s notice. 
Mr. Jarvis asks, whether it was not a criminal offence already, 
for coolies to leave without notice. 
The Chairman says that was just the point in dispute. The 
interpretation of the law was uncertain amongst various magistrates. 
What they wanted was a law so that all the magistrates could be of 
one mind on the subject. 
Mr. Bailey seconds the motion and mentions that in Ceylon if a 
coolie left without a month’s notice he got three months in gaol. 
The motion is carried and the Secretary is instructed to consult 
with the Association’s solicitor. 
7. LONDON RUBBER EXHIBITION. 
The Secretary lays on the table conditions for Silver Shield 
presented by The India Rubber Journal and reads the following 
correspondence 
A. Staines Mandtrs, Esq., 
London. 6 th July, igio. 
Dear Sir, — In reply to your letters of January ;oth and 
February 24th, we agree to bespeak 2806 sc. ft. of space at the 
