The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1877-08-25
(From the Colonial StandGrd.)
COOLTE

country requires q Wise, equitable system OF
immigration, for without an increased con-
tinuous supply of imported labour it will not
be possible to carry on the cultivation of the
great staples. The truth of this assertion is
patent to every dispassionate unprejudiced mind
and in spite OF the c~easeless Glamour and sense
less opposition of such active institutions as
the Anti-Slavery Society, we have hope that
immigration instead of being discontinued
will be renewed and conducted on wiser prin-
ciples and under a broader and more intelligent
system. We recently directed attention to an
article in the " Anti-Slavery Reporter which
not only dealt with immigration to Jamaica
as an arrangement whose doom was sealed,
but actually had the efrontery to draw up a
plan whereby the work of destruction was to
be accomplished. The Anti-Slavery Society
cannot forget ancient preiudices and hatreds,
and is disposed to look upon the West India
Bashi-Bazouk, who ought to be exterminated.
The Society in its reforming zeal surpasses Mr..
Gladstone, who was content to advise thos the
Turk should be sent across the frontier, but
the Anti-Slavery Society in putting an end
to immigration, binds the planter hand and foot,
puts him in a sack and throws him into the
Bosphorous. We should like to know how
our English mentors would receive suggestions
and remonstrances from us as to how they
are to obtain and engage their employees, and
what a shame it is for them to condemn little
children to the unnatural servitude of mills
and factories at an age when they should be
running about and rioting in all the gladness
and freedom of you'll and innocence.
The Anti-Slavery Society, however, represents
an energetic and fussy section of English society,
which makes its influence felt on the Govern
ment of the day, whether that Government is
Conservative or Liberal, and it is therefore pru-
dent to take some notice of the objections
which It persistently urges against the impor-
tation of labourers into the West India Colonies.
These objections may be divided into two classes
the one relating to the immigrant himself.
and the other having reference to the so-called
protection of the native labourer. The con-
dition of the coolie, it is alleged by these far
seeing philanthropists, is only a modified form
of slavery, and his presence in a British Colony
is an insult, injury, and injustice to the indus
trious inhabitants. 1t is not necessary to in
form our local readers how groundless and I'M
warranted such a conception of the situation
is, but it is dificult-if not impossible, to con-
vince our English censors that they are in error.
AS regards the coolie immigrant, there is not
a labourer perhaps in any part of the world
whose interest is better protected and whose
comforts are more firmly secured by express
legal ~enactments, and an extensive staff Of
responsible officials. He has the advantage
over the ordinary emigrant that, when he leaves
his own land, his work and wages are both
guaranteed for a specified number of years, the
best medical attendance is supplied to him, a
costly bureau of agents is maintained to inquire
into his every complaint, and when his inden-
tured service expires his passage money is paid
to enable bin to return to the place of his birth,
and live comfortably on the savings that he
has made in the land of his temporary sojourn.
In coming to Jamaica the coolie who has left
one of those swarming districts of India, where
the mouths are ahcays too many for the food
provided, and where frequently pale-faced
famine stalks through the starving villages with
a retinue of countless crimes and woes, comes
to what is in comparison a paradise of plenty
"a veritable Ell Dorado which gives that which
lie to him wealth and fortune.
The notion of the injured native is equally
unfounded and preposterous. To show that be
has suffered by the unfair competition in the
labour market to which he is said to have been
exposed by imported man power, it will be
necessary to prove that the rate of wages has
been lowered, and that applicants for work have
to be turned away by independent, over-sup-
piled employers. Now, so far from the rate
of wages being diminished, the labourers on
estates cannot be induced to work as a rule
for more than four days in the week, and that
only for a few hours a day, while the proportion
of the inhabitants who ought to belong to the
labouring class is becoming rapidly less. 1t is
possible to account for this latter fact in two
| ways. Among the honest, deserving peasantry
there is a natural and pariseworthy desire to
obtain a home and settlement of their own,
and their ambition consequently is to purchase
q small freShold, the cultivation of which en-
cages most of their time and labour. We do
not find fault with these men for selecting their
own mode of making a livelihood but rather
encourage them in a course which tends to
augment that which is the best security and
safeguard of social morality and progress
namely, a steady, and Industrious middle
class. Surely no one can deny that this class
must be benefited by the importation of coolies
and other immigrants, for the increase of popu-
lation increases consumption, and the increased
consumption enhances the value of the various
articles of produce raised by the small settlers.
There is no doubt, besides, that the decrease
of native labourers has gone side by side with
the great increase of native criminals. Vagrancy
and it's concomitant evils of idleness and theft.
have not only acted as a check on the industri-
GUS efforts of the humber classes, but they are
robbing the labour-market of the thews and
sinews that they shut up in jails and peniten-