§ CAPTAIN CRAIG (Down, E.)I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Chinese coolies serving in the Transvaal mines have to give reasons in support of their request to be repatriated under the terms of the repatriation notices posted in the mines; and, if so, how many have demanded to be repatriated on the specific grounds that they considered the conditions of indentured labour under which they worked to be tantamount to slavery, for the period since the posting of the notices to present date.
§ THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Colonel SEELY,) Liverpool, AbercrombyIf the hon. Member will refer to page 190 of Cd. 3025 he will learn the conditions which a labourer was required to satisfy before his application for repatriation at the expense of the Home Government could be granted. The Secretary of State left it to the Transvaal Government to decide whether these conditions were fulfilled or not. Up to 31st December last the applications of 829 coolies had been acceded to by the Transvaal Government, but the Secretary of State has no information as to the terms in which those applications were couched. They were never sent home to this country; and they are understood to have been in Chinese. The transmission and translalation of such a large number of petitions would involve so much labour to the Transvaal authorities and so much expense to this country that my noble friend does not feel justified in asking for the information desired by the hon and gallant Member.
§ CAPTAIN CRAIGMay I take it that this Answer can be boiled down into a negative?
[No Answer was returned.]