found is yet; and, for a generation or two to come, 'cash-payment
seems likely to be the only nexus between man and man.' Because
that is the meanest and weakest of all bonds, it must be watched
jealously and severely by any Government worthy of the name; for to
leave it to be taken care of by the mere brute tendencies of supply
and demand, and the so-called necessities of the labour market, is
simply to leave the poor man who cannot wait to be blockaded and
starved out by the rich who can. Therefore all Colonial Governments
are but doing their plain duty in keeping a clear eye and a strong
hand on this whole immigration movement; and in fencing it round, as
in Trinidad, with such regulations as shall make it most difficult
for a Coolie to be seriously or permanently wronged without direct
infraction of the law, and connivance of Government officers; which
last supposition is, in the case of Trinidad, absurd, as long as Dr.
Mitchell, whom I am proud to call my friend, holds a post for which
he is equally fitted by his talents and his virtues.

I am well aware that some benevolent persons, to whom humanity owes
much, regard Coolie immigration to the West Indies with some
jealousy, fearing, and not unnaturally, that it may degenerate into
a sort of slave-trade. I think that if they will study the last
immigration ordinance enacted by the Governor of Trinidad, June 24,
1870, and the report of the Agent-General of Immigrants for the year
ending September 30, 1869, their fears will be set at rest as far as
this colony is concerned. Of other colonies I say nothing, simply
because I know nothing: save that, if there are defects and abuses
elsewhere, the remedy is simple: namely, to adopt the system of
Trinidad, and work it as it is worked there.

After he has served his five years' apprenticeship, the Coolie has