Enclosure 4, in No. 1. (No. 176.) Sir, Windward Islands, Barbados, 19 September 1857. I HAVE had under my consideration your Despatch of the 1st ultimo, No. 97, Legislative, transmitting copies of three Acts passed by the Council and Assembly of St. Vincent, and respectively intituled, " An Act to amend the Export Tax Act, 1856, and for laying an additional tax on produce to provide a fund for Immigration purposes." "An Act to appropriate a portion of the General Revenue for Immigration purposes;" and "An Act to authorise the raising of Loans of Money for Immigration purposes, and to secure and provide for the repayment of such Loans," together with the usual reports of the Attorney General thereon. 2. These Acts depend in a great degree on one another, and also on the General Immigration Act, which forms the subject of another Despatch of even date with this. 3. I regret very much that it is not in my power to authorise you to assent to these Bills, but I find that an important principle is involved in them, on which I have formei a decided opinion. 4. That opinion is, that those for whose benefit immigration is carried on should bear the expense of it. I am well aware that a different principle has been sanctioned in other Colonies ou former occasions, but I consider that all legislation on the subject of immigration has been, in a great degree, experimental, and that the injustice of compelling the labouring classes to pay for the importation of labour to compete with their own, has been of late years fully recognised. I feel that an increased responsibility devolves upon the Executive with reference to questions in which the labouring classes are interested, owing to the fact that they are wholly unrepresented in the Legislatures of the West India Colonies. 5. I willingly admit the liberality manifested by the Legislature of St. Vincent with reference to the provision made for the public debt, which obviously would have been a legitimate charge on the general revenue. 6. I should, therefore, have no objection, if an immigration fund were established, to be raised as in St. Lucia, by an export tax upon sugar, rum, and molasses, that the general revenue should be charged with a payment towards that fund of an amount equal to that of the public debt. 7. To carry out my views on this subject, it would be necessary to amend all the aboverecited Acts. The loan should be raised on the special security of the export tax, or if, for convenience' sake, made chargeable on the public revenue, it should be provided that it should be repaid from the immigration fund. 8. The Export Tax Act is objectionable, because it levies a tax upon articles such as arrowroot, charcoal, cotton, and firewood, for the benefit of the immigration fund. I would likewise suggest that it would be more advisable that sugar should be taxed by the 100 lbs. instead of by the hogshead. 9. The appropriation from the general revenue towards the immigration fund is likewise objectionable, for the reasons which I have already stated. His Honor the Administrator. I have, &c. (signed) F. Hincks. ST. VINCENT. Encl. 4, (No. 118.) Sir, Enclosure 5, in No. 1. Government House, St. Vincent, 9 October 1857. I ENCLOSE a copy of the Message which I sent to the Legislature on the 6th instant, in consequence of your Excellency's Instruction, No. 175, of the 19th ultimo, on the subject of the Immigration Act. 2 I have not received the amended Bill, which has been passed in accordance with the message, but it has been officially communicated to me by both Council and Asseinbly that they have adopted its recommendations. out. 3. You will observe that all the principles laid down in your Despatch have been carried If there has been any departure from the exact proportions in which you suggested that the employer should be called upon to contribute to the expense of intr ducing the immig anf, I have only to observe that the scale which I recommended was adopted after a lengthened conference with the Executive Council, and that they considered that its equity was not likely to be impeached when it was borne in mind that whatever the proportion in which the planter individually was to pay for his labourer, you required that the remainder should be borne by him collectively. 4. I request that your Excellency will instruct me as to whether I am to assent to the Bill. His Excellency the Governor in Chief, I am, &c. (signed) J. Walker. Encl. 5, in No. 1. Sub-Enclosure. Barbados. ST. VINCENT. Sub-Enclosure to Enclosure in No. 1. The Administrator of the Government to the Honourable the President and Members of THE Administrator of the Government lays before your Honourable Board a Despatch of which he was the bearer from Barbados, relative to the measure lately passed by the Legislature of St. Vincent, for the encouragement of immigration. The spirit in which the Governor in Chief has made his suggestions for your reconsideration of this measure, will no doubt secure for them from your Honourable Board the most favourable attention. The first objection which his Excellency has taken is to the duration of the contract, which had been extended from three to five years, as was believed to have been sanctioned in the case of the Chinese. The limitation of the contract to a term of three years is made a sine quâ non to the allowance of the Act; but the provision which the Governor General leaves it to you to enact for securing the industrial residence of the immigrant for an additional two years, is such as ought to afford a tolerable guarantee for a continuance of his services. The principles upon which the Governor General considers that the employer should contribute to the expense of introducing the immigrant are also well worthy of your attention. The Administrator of the Government will sketch out as briefly and as plainly as possible `the mode in which he would propose that you should act upon them. He would recommend that all immigration, whether public or private, should be put on the same footing; that the party to whom the labourer is first indentured should pay to the public, at whose expense he has been brought into the Colony, a sum equal to one half of the bounty money fixed by the Governor and Council; and that if the immigrant should not, after the expiration of three years, re-indenture himself to his original employer, the latter should receive back from the immigration fund two-fifths of his original payment, the immigrant paying to the Colony the fixed sum of 2 l. 10 s. for each or either of the two years during which he may not be under contract. Supposing, for example, that the bounty fixed for an immigrant's introduction were 50 dollars, the party to whom he is first indentured would have to pay to the public fund at once 25 dollars. If the immigrant should not re-indenture himself for another two years, his original employer would receive back 10 dollars, or five dollars, as the case may be, while there would be a payment from the immigrant or from his new employer, to the Colony of 25 dollars, or 12 dollars. Thus every immigrant would cost the employer five dollars per annum; to the public his annual charge would also be five dollars, if he carried out an industrial residence of five years. If he worked for four years, his annual expense to the public would be four dollars and a half, and if for three years only, it would amount to somewhat less than four dollars. The recommendation of the Governor General that the payments by the employer should be made at once in money, is one also which it will doubtless appear to you to be advisable to adopt. It will save a great deal of difficulty and embarrassment on all sides. Nor does the Administrator of the Government anticipate any objection on the part of your Honourable Board to the Governor in Chief's suggestion, that in the case of an immigrant's re-indenture for the further period of five years, the employer should pay a contribution to the immigration fund, equal to what he paid for the first five years' service of the same immigrant. I HAVE the honour to forward a message which I sent on the 6th instant, to the Legislature on the subject of the objections which you had taken to the three Acts for raising money for immigration purposes. 2. Bills have been passed in precise accordance with the recommendations contained in the message, and will be forwarded to your Excellency as soon as they can be copied. 3. In support of the view which I expressed respecting the taxation of arrowroot as an article of export, I enclose the produce return of the Island for 1856, from which your Excellency will learn the number of estates in the several parishes on which nothing scarcely scarcely is grown except arrowroot. The column professing to return the number of ST. VINCENT. labourers on each property is worth nothing as statistical information, for the Act under which the returns are sent into the Treasury was passed during the apprenticeship system and required a statement of the number of "apprenticed" labourers on each property. 4. Union Island and Carionan export nothing but cotton; and there is no cocoa grown and exported by the labouring population. 5. Your Excellency is most probably aware that almost every estate in the Island has its own shipping place. Few proprietors have weighing beams, and it would have been therefore impossible to have enacted that the sugar should be taxed by weight. In Barbados, and in most other places where an export duty was raised, the sugar has been taxed by the truss of the hogshead. 6. I hope that your Excellency will now feel yourself at liberty to authorise me to assent to these Bills. 7. Before putting aside your present Despatch, I feel somewhat at a loss as to whether it is my duty to take any notice of two positions which you have advanced, and in which I do not concur. But as my silence respecting them might be interpreted into assent, I think there can be no harm, if, whilst avoiding any public discussion on the subject, I take this opportunity of frankly and respectfully stating to your Excellency my opinion; firstly, that the planters are not the only class who are likely to derive benefit from a wholesome immigration. The huckster and the dry goods merchant will reap as much from the immigrants' dealings as from those of the creole labourer; and secondly, that the labouring classes are just as much represented in the St. Vincent Legislature as in the Parliament of England, and that they could not have a much greater extension of the franchise here without extinguishing altogether the franchise of the upper and middle classes of the Island. But whilst giving vent to this opinion I trust that you will not consider me insensible to the exceptional condition of society which exists in these Islands, and which makes it the duty of the Government to watch over the interests of the humblest classes with even more vigilance than in other countries. His Excellency the Governor in Chief, I have, &c. (signed) Jas. Walker. Enclosure 7, in No. 1. (No. 16.) The Administrator of the Government to the Honourable the President and Members of THE Administrator of the Government has to inform your Honourable Board, that the Governor in Chief has expressed very great regret that it has not been in his power to assent to the three money bills which were lately passed by the Legislature to provide for the expenses of immigration. His Excellency has formed a decided opinion that those for whose benefit immigration is carried on should bear its expense; and although on former occasions in other Colonies a different principle has been sanctioned, yet, on the ground that all legislation on this subject has been hitherto in a great measure experimental, his Excellency is convinced that the principle which he has enunciated is the one that ought to be adopted. His Excellency, however, bearing in mind the liberality manifested by the Legislature in the provision made for the public debt last year (which would have formed a legitimate charge on the general revenue) has no objection that the immigration fund should receive from the revenue an amount not greater than the debt, provided that a tax is laid on the principal articles of exported produce in support of the fund. To carry out the views of his Excellency, your Honourable Board will perceive that the three Acts referred to will require to be amended to a certain extent. The alteration which would be necessary in the "Immigration Fund Act," has already been adverted to, and with regard to the "Amended Export Tax Act," his Excellency expresses an objection to a tax being laid upon arrowroot, cocoa, cotton, charcoal, and firewood. This is evidently on the assumption that these articles are only produced by small growers, who being the cultivators of the soil themselves do not require immigration. But in this Colony many of these products are raised in large quantities, and by a class to whom immigration would prove a valuable boon, and the administrator of the Government would suggest to your Honourable Board that the Bill should be amended by omitting charcoal and firewood. The measure by adopting this course will be rendered more perfect, as it would be completely assimilated with the original measure which was passed by your Honourable Board during the past Session. The Administrator of the Government, in conclusion, desires to express his confidence that your Honourable Board will give to these measures your most earnest attention, and feels assured that you will have due regard to the objections of his Excellency the Governor in Chief, and to the importance of the subject brought under your notice. Government House, 6 October 1857. (signed) Jas. Walker. Encl. 7, in No. 1. |