🚀 go-pugleaf

same time the extreme difficulty of controlling the 'depot and
    broker system,' or even of providing an efficient substitute for
    it, must be freely admitted. The system of Government contracts
    and inspection of immigrants has already done something toward
    ameliorating the condition of the coolie, and guarding him against
    illegal detention after his arrival at Singapore or Penang. Much
    more, however, remains to be done before the coolie trade will
    cease to be a reproach to the Straits Settlements, and it is
    doubtful whether any satisfactory reforms will be accomplished
    until the Chinese Government is moved in the matter with a view to
    checking the evil at the fountain head. Failing this, it would be
    worth considering whether the system of "unpaid passengers" might
    not advantageously be abolished, especially as this class of
    immigrant represents only 11 per cent of the total immigration,
    and more than one-third of the labor contracts last year were
    voluntarily signed by "paid passengers." It seems probable that if
    the "unpaid passenger" system were abolished, and the market thus
    thrown open to free competition, a much larger number of "paid
    passengers" would offer for contracts. But, even if this plan
    should appear to involve too great a risk of diminishing the flow
    of Chinese coolies to Singapore, it surely would not too severely
    tax the ingenuity of the Straits Government to devise a system of
    State-aided immigration, closely resembling that which has for
    many years been working in Canada, and more in accord with the
    dictates of ordinary humanity and English ideas of the liberty of
    the subject.

    Among the Chinese at Singapore