INDENTURED INDIANS IN FIJI.
(To THE Eerroa or sue Srecraroa."1
Sra,—Your correspondent, the author of The New Pacific, writing from Sydney about the Indians in Fiji, mentions the shortage of Indian women under the system of indentured labour. In the new settlement scheme recently proposed by Government " the emigration of whole families will be encouraged, and particularly of families containing young unmarried girls who may become in the colonies the wives of other immigrants." Under the old system, for every hundred Indian men entering Fiji, only forty women were introduced. This inequality of the sexes leads, in many cases, to quarrelling, fighting, to prostitution, and e101110- times to murder. The London Times, in its issue of the 1st ult.. was far from correct in stating that " for any actual harm that it wee doing, the system of indentured Indian labour for . . Fiji might well have been allowed to go on." I may add that I have studied this question In Fiji and India. It has been suggested that the old system was abolished for purely political reasons. One of the leading Indian publicists, Pandit Medals Mohan Afalaviya, stated last year in the Imperial Legislative Council that " humanitarian and political considerations demanded total abolition [of the indenture system], and the former more eo than the latter." And on the same occasion Lord Hardin. admitted "that the ultimate force %Melt drives to his death a coolie depressed by home sickness, jealousy, domestic unhappiness or any other cause, is the feeling of being bound to serve for a fixed period, and amidst aurroundings which it is out of Ids power to change." He confessed that it was a " source of great satisfaction to him" to be able to announce that "the indentured system is now doomed."—I am, Sir, &c., C. Panties Cora, Wesleyan Miniet,r.
10 Emma Place, Stonehouse, Plymouth.
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