§ MR. RICHARDasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether, with reference to the evils which, according to the report of our Consul in French Guiana attend the system of Coolie immigration from India to that Colony, it is the intention of the Government to continue to sanction the immigration in question; and, whether the remonstrances on the subject which, in the noble Lord's letter to the Aborigines 1717 Protection Society of December 24th last, he stated Lord Derby had addressed to the French Minister for Foreign Affairs on November 1st have been answered; and, if so, will he state the purport of the answer?
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTON, in reply, said, a reply from the French Foreign Minister was received on the 17th of December, 1875, in which the Duke Decazes stated that the observations of the Indian Government upon the condition of coolies in French Guiana applied to a state of things which did not now exist, and he forwarded a copy of a circular issued by the local Government of Cayenne on the 16th of September, 1874. This correspondence was sent to the Government of India. The question of suspending emigration rests with the Government of India; but in all probability, before taking so grave a step, it will await the Report of 1875 of Mr. Consul Wooldridge, now due, upon the treatment of Indian coolies in that colony for the year 1875.