ordinates is minutely regulated.
Every precaution is taken to let the emigrant know the exact terms on
which he is hired, and to ensure good treatment in the interval between
registration and embarkation. Coolies are shipped for the most part from
Calcutta and Madras, but of recent years large numbers bound for Mombasa
and the Seychelles left from Bombay and Karachi. Both the coolies
themselves and the depot are medically inspected. Only those physically
fit are allowed to embark. The vessels for their conveyance are licensed
and inspected by the local government. The terms on which emigrants are
recruited are settled beforehand by convention with the colonies
concerned, and are embodied in ordinances passed by the local
legislatures. They vary in detail, but their main provisions relate to
the rights and obligations of the emigrants, including the grant of a
return passage on the expiry of a specified period, usually ten years.
The British colonies to which coolies were exported in the decade
1891-1901 were British Guiana, Trinidad, St Lucia, Jamaica, Mauritius,
the Seychelles Islands, Fiji, East Africa and Natal; the only
non-British country was Dutch Guiana. Emigration to the French colonies,
including Reunion has been forbidden by the government of India since
1886, but there still remain in those colonies some of the former
emigrants, and the questions of their treatment and repatriation have
frequently formed the subject of representations to the French
authorities.

The British colonies.

The number of Indian coolies resident in the various British colonies in
1900 was 625,000, of which the largest numbers were 265,000 in Mauritius
and 125,000 in British Guiana. There were still 13,800 in Reunion. The
regulations governing coolie labour in British Guiana may be taken as
typical for the British colonies generally. They are contained in the
Labour Ordinance of 1873, which was amended by the ordinances of 1875,
1876, 1886 and 1887. Under these ordinances an immigration agent-general
is appointed, to whom medical officers and recruiting agents are
responsible, and the emigrants are allotted by him to the separate
estates. They regulate the hours of work, the rate of wages, and the
general treatment of the coolies, the nature of house and hospital
accommodation, the terms of re-enlistment and the conditions of marriage
amongst the coolies themselves. The coolies returning from the British
colonies to India in 19