52 
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 3 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 ail 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, 
