and ten years old.

This plan has been found necessary, in order to protect the Coolies
both from themselves and from each other. They themselves prefer
receiving the whole of their wages in cash. With that fondness for
mere hard money which marks a half-educated Oriental, they will, as
a rule, hoard their wages; and stint themselves of food, injuring
their powers of work, and even endangering their own lives; as is
proved by the broad fact that the death-rate among them has much
decreased, especially during the first year of residence, since the
plan of giving them rations has been at work. The newcomers need,
too, protection from their own countrymen. Old Coolies who have
served their time and saved money find it convenient to turn rice-
sellers or money-lenders. They have powerful connections on many
estates; they first advance money or luxuries to a newcomer, and
when he is once entrapped, they sell him the necessaries of life at
famine prices. Thus the practical effect of rations has been to
lessen the number of those little roadside shops, which were a curse
to Trinidad, and are still a curse to the English workman.
Moreover--for all men are not perfect, even in Trinidad--the Coolie
required protection, in certain cases, against a covetous and short-
sighted employer, who might fancy it to be his interest to let the
man idle during his first year, while weak, and so save up an arrear
of 'lost days' to be added at the end of the five years, when he was
a strong skilled labourer. An employer will have, of course, far
less temptation to do this, while, as now, he is bound to feed the
Coolie for the first two years. Meanwhile, be it remembered, the
very fact that such a policy was tempting, goes to prove that the
average Coolie grew, during his five years' apprenticeship, a
stronger, and not a weaker, man.