ically it was often imperfect, and its
artistic treatment was never of a high order. But Cookworthy deserves to
be remembered for his discovery of those abundant supplies of English
clay and rocks which form the foundation of English porcelain and fine
earthenware (see CERAMICS).

COOLGARDIE, a municipal town in Western Australia, 310 m. by rail E. by
N. of Perth, and 528 m. by rail N.E. of Albany. Pop. (1901) 4249. Its
gold-fields were discovered in 1891 and are among the richest in the
colony. Lignite, copper, graphite and silver are also found. Toorak and
Montana are small residential suburbs. A remarkable engineering work by
which a full supply of water was brought to the town from Fremantle (a
distance exceeding 330 m. direct) was completed in 1903.

COOLIE, or COOLY (from Koli or Kuli, an aboriginal race of western
India; or perhaps from Tamil _k[=u]li_, hire, i.e. one hired), a term
generally applied to Asiatic labourers belonging to the unskilled class
as opposed to the artisan, and employed in a special sense to designate
those natives of India and China who leave their country under contracts
of service to work as labourers abroad. After the abolition of slavery
much difficulty was found in obtaining cheap labour for tropical
plantations. The emancipated black was unwilling to engage in field
labour, while the white man was physically incapable of so doing.
Recourse was had to the overpeopled empires of China and India, as the
most likely sources from which to obtain that supply of workers upon
which the very existence of some colonies, notably in the West Indies,
depended.

Chinese coolies.

The first public recognition of the coolie traffic was in 1844, when the
British colony of Guiana made provision for the encouragement of Chinese
immigration. About the same time both Peru and Cuba began to look to
China as likely to furnish an efficient substitute for the negro
bondsman. Agents armed with consular commissions from Peru appeared in
Chinese ports, where they collected and sent away shiploads of coolies.
Each one was bound to serve the Peruvian planter to whom he might be
assigned for seven or eight years, at fixed wages, generally about 17s.
a month, food, clothes and lodging being provided. From 1847 to 1854
coolie emigration went on briskly without attracting much notice, but it
gradually came to light that circumstances of great cruelty attended the
trade. The transport ships were ba