§ MR. STEWART MACLIVERasked the President of the Board of Trade, If 937 he is aware that emigrants at the Emigration Depôt at Plymouth are frequently detained many days, occasionally weeks, before embarking, and are restricted from leaving the establishment (except on Sundays) to provide requisites for the voyage; and, whether he can intervene to alter the present arrangements?
§ MR. J. HOLMS (for Mr. CHAMBERLAIN)The Emigration Depôt at Plymouth is a depot in which emigrants, with free or assisted passages for the Australian and New Zealand ports, are collected before embarking. I am informed that the emigrants usually arrive on Monday and embark on the following Wednesday or Thursday. They are only permitted to leave the depôt on showing good cause to the Colonial Government despatching officer—this restriction having been found necessary to keep the emigrants from risks of infection and from bad company. It appears, however, that the emigrants are not kept indoors, but have ample open space for exercise; and the time that intervenes between their arrival and embarkation is occupied in medical examination, verification of the people, and examination of luggage, &c. The rules applicable to these emigrants are not made by the Board of Trade, but by or with the sanction of the agent for the respective Colonies to which they are about to proceed. It is, I believe, a part of the contract into which the emigrants enter that they shall be at the depôt at a certain date; and no complaint has reached the Board of Trade as to their treatment.