We have been assured again and again by the Colonial
Secretary that every effort would be made to render the terms of their service perfectly clear to the indentured labourers before they signed their contracts and left China. But it cannot be said that these pledges are borne out by the Chinese advertisement which has been used as a bait to obtain labourers in Shantung and Chihli. A correspondent sends us a copy of the China Times (published in Tientsin) of March 29th, con- taining this advertisement, and the translation which appears in the North China Daily News of April 5th. From this it appears that, (1) except for the brief statement that he is "to work on the gold mines," there is nothing to draw the labourer's attention to the fact that he is to work ten hours a day underground in the deep levels; (2) there is no hint that during his three years' stay in the Transvaal he will be kept in a compound, from which he will not be allowed to stray ; (3) there is no indication that he will have no opportunity of bettering his position ; (4) nothing is said about the fines, penalties, or imprisonments to which the labourer will be subject if he leaves the compound in which he is confined, or if he helps any one else to escape, or if at the end of his term he refuses to be repatriated ; (5) the rate of wages, instead of being expressed in dollars, is given in pounds, a term with which the Chinese are unfamiliar, and which it is possible they will believe to mean pounds of silver.
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