, 1873-02-05
D 3 A Z T
OF INTERPRETATIONS FOR THE
SUGAR ESTATES OF ST. CROIX.
CTV1M Vouchers attached Meret0.)
(Continued.)

The plurality of this Commission (aiI the
Members with exception only of Sarauw) las
from the very first concurred in maintaining the
Labour-R equations as binding rules for the re-
lation between employer and employed, which
therefore no private agreement could set aside,
not even there, where they touch on points that
in the nature of things ought perhaps rather to
be arranged by Usage or Custom, than be made
the subject OF legislative action. The defence
Of this plan, we seek, as will be borne in mind
from the foregoing remarks from a Majority,
not as from other sides has been represented as
the only argument in favor of it, in the fact,
that the Regulations were to form Il transition
from slave-Iabour-by this time we should
have got over that but in the very nature
and Importance of the relation itself as a uni
form occupatiOnl in consequence of which 1t
does not appear that the Legislature, whose
scope of action must be defined not by abstract
notions, but according to the necessities and
requirements OF the individual Community
does not 90 beyond its province when taking
this relation into its hands, and keeping it uu-
der lis control, so as to establish and maintain
a legal state, which at the same time affords
security for the healthy development of the
vital interests of this Island and establishes the
position of the main populatiOn,-a security
that could not be gained by Usages fixed by q
Council or Delegates from among the Planters.
This Majority entertains also the hope that
they have rightly understood the Governments
Letter in considering it to contain the acknOw-
Judgement that it is not the Governments
intention to diYest the neutrality-suspicious. OF
this their leading character.
From this, then, it very naturally follows
that We in principle maintain the necessity OF
having to a certain degree fixed rules for the
term Of service Il Year,, for the working days
and WOrklng-hOurs IN which respect 1t IS under
all circumstances considered necessary that
binding rules must be established and where too
they can be ~given-without thereby limiting
the employers opportunity OF obtaining the
best possible roturus from his labourerS, to any
greater extent than can be counterbalanced by
other advantages, and more especially without
in any way binding or restricting the labourer
or depriving him of the opportunity of deriving
the best possible returns of his working-capa-
biIities, as long as he will remain in his posi-
ton.
We furthermore maintain the principle Of
providing homes on the Estates for the labour-
ers and of attaching them to the Estates (by
free dwellings, provision grounds, a portion Of
the pay in provisions in natura, care in cases of
inirmity, sickness or during infancy; while,
in regard to the money-wages,-the point on
which almost all the objections against The Re-
g%ulations are hingel,-it is proposed that liberty
be given to make agreements, retaining, how
ever, as hitherto, a fixed rate (the one now eX-
isting) for a days wages, as a rule in all cases
where not otherwise agreed, and on which the
labourer can fall back if a separate agreement
among the planters relative to the free-pay-
ment should at any time exercise a pressure on
him and we retain furthermore several enact
ments on details that have remained in prac-
tice, aud which could not without inconvenience
be allowed to be in one way on one estate, and
in a different way on another, and which, be-
sides, from the view we take of the Labour-Re-
g~ulatiOns and their character, are in their place
there.
After these Introductory Remarks we will
now proceed to examine the individual enact
ments in the Draft, in the framing of which we
have endeaVored on the whole in point of form
to keep as near to the Provisional Ordinance of
1849 as the changes we propose will admit, at
the same time wherever a given enactment can
gain in perspicuity or even in point of form by
an altered reduction, we have chosen such.
ad 5 l (the term of contract, yearly con-
t~racts.)
In the Governments Letter it is aoknow-
lodged Sc that the yearlyicontract, being founded
in the nature of the cultivation and generally
c. 14-IL 1S-~--