tead of 90 days, the term of the voyage, would average
upwards of 70 per cent. The rate of mortality on shipments of Chinese
bound to British Guiana, varied from 14 per cent. to 50. . . . . On
shipments of Chinese bound to Havanna, on board British vessels, the
death-rate fluctuated between 20 per cent. and 60. Yet, sir, immigration
is said, by its advocates, to be now conducted on an improved system. .
. . . We come now to the treatment of the coolie, as soon as he is
discharged from the ship. There is no official evidence, that I am yet
aware of, to show what abuses of authority he is subjected to, but the
Jamaica Immigration Bill, now awaiting the sanction of Her Majesty's
Government, proves that the imported laborer is, during his term of
service, subject to conditions quite incompatible with a system of free
labor, and the same remark applies to other colonies. That the
immigrants are liable to ill usage and neglect, may be gathered from the
reports of travelers who have seen them in every stage of destitution
and misery; and that they are peculiarly affected by the kind of service
they contract to render, and by climate, is sufficiently proved by the
awful mortality during industrial residence, which we are assured the
Immigration Agent General's returns for Jamaica show to be equal to 50
per cent. Sir E. B. Lytton admits it to be 33 per cent. But if we accept
his correction--which I confess I am not prepared to do without knowing
upon what evidence he makes it--I maintain that even this death-rate
establishes the startling fact, that coolie labor in Jamaica is
proportionately more destructive to human life than slave labor in
Cuba."

On the question of the influence that the coolie immigration exerts upon
the emancipated blacks in the West Indies, the Editor of the _London
Economist_ very justly remarks:

"Bringing with them depraved heathen habits, and the detestable
traditions of the worst forms of idolatry, and always looking forward to
their return as the epoch when they will renew their heathen worship and
find themselves again among heathen standards of action,--they are
almost proof against the best influences which can be brought to bear
upon them, and, what is worse, they are not only proof against the good,
but missionaries for evil. They are closely associated in their labor
with a race that is just emerging out of barbarism with the fostering
care of Christianity, and we need not say that their socia