MAJOR SEELYI beg to ask the Secretary of State for India if he can state what is the amount of civil rights and freedom from restriction insisted upon by the Indian Government in any contract made with its subjects before permitting them to leave India under indenture.
§ MR. BRODRICKI am afraid that I can only refer the hon. Member to the various colonial Ordinances dealing with the regulation of Indian labour which have been passed with the knowledge and subject to the criticism of the Indian Government, who are bound, in the words of the Indian Emigration Act of 1883, to satisfy themselves that the Government of the coolie-importing country "has made such laws and other provisions as the Governor-General in Council thinks sufficient for the protection of emigrants to that country during their residence therein."