ted by his talents and his virtues.

I am well aware that some benevolent persons, to whom humanity owes
much, regard Coolie immigration to the West Indies with some
jealousy, fearing, and not unnaturally, that it may degenerate into
a sort of slave-trade. I think that if they will study the last
immigration ordinance enacted by the Governor of Trinidad, June 24,
1870, and the report of the Agent-General of Immigrants for the year
ending September 30, 1869, their fears will be set at rest as far as
this colony is concerned. Of other colonies I say nothing, simply
because I know nothing: save that, if there are defects and abuses
elsewhere, the remedy is simple: namely, to adopt the system of
Trinidad, and work it as it is worked there.

After he has served his five years' apprenticeship, the Coolie has
two courses before him. Either he can re-indenture himself to an
employer, for not more than twelve months, which as a rule he does;
or he can seek employment where he likes. At the end of a
continuous residence of ten years in all, and at any period after
that, he is entitled to a free passage back to Hindostan; or he may
exchange his right to a free passage for a Government grant of ten
acres of land. He has meanwhile, if he has been thrifty, grown
rich. His wife walks about, at least on high-days, bedizened with
jewels: nay, you may see her, even on work-days, hoeing in the
cane-piece with heavy silver bangles hanging down over her little
brown feet: and what wealth she does not carry on her arms, ankles,
neck, and nostril, her husband has in the savings' bank. The ship
Arima, as an instance,: took back 320 Coolies last year, of whom
seven died on the voyage. These people carried with them 65,585
dollars; and one man, Heerah, handed over 6000 dollars for
transmission through the Treasury, and was known to have about him
4000 more. This man, originally allotted to an estate, had, after
serving out his industrial contract, resided in the neighbouring
village of Savannah Grande as a shopkeeper and money-lender for the
last ten years. Most of this money, doubtless, had been squeezed
out of other Coolies by means not unknown to Europeans, as well as
to Hindoos: but it must have been there to be squeezed out. And
the new 'feeding ordinance' will, it is to be hoped, pare the claws
of Hindoo and Chinese usurers.

The newly offered grant of Government land has, as yet, been