§ MR. VERNEY (Buckinghamshire, N.)I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether upwards of 1,400 Chinese coolies on the Rand have applied for assistance from the Imperial Government to enable them to go home, and only 552 have so far been repatriated; whether eighty applicants withdrew their applications; and, if so, whether he can say when those who still wish to go will be repatriated, and at whose instigation and what were the reasons `why the eighty applications were withdrawn.
§ MR. CHURCHILLFive hundred and fifty two coolies had been repatriated at the expense of His Majesty's Government up to the end of October. Since that date certain additional applications have been approved, the number of which is believed to be approximately 200, and the approved applicants will be repatriated at an early date. No statistics are yet available as to the total number of applications, or as to the grounds for the withdrawal or refusal of such applications in certain cases. But applications are known to have been refused in some cases because the applicants proved to be undesirables and therefore proper subjects for repatriation at the expense of the mine owners; and in others, because they were found to be in possession of funds sufficient to enable them to pay for their own repatriation under Clause XIVof the contract of service.