.{oo well .provided for by Government to engage in fo l^bpriotis
an employ.
The amount of the funds belonging to the Reformed Church
in Cape Town, in the year 1798, was, Rd. 110,842 1,2 or
22,168 /. 8r, 8 d., and the fubfiftence granted to the poor was
Rd. 556*4 2 or u 1.12 /. 1.7J. The fnnds of the Lutheran Church
were Rd. 74,148 2 2 or 14,829/. 13X. 2d., and the relief granted
to the poor Rd. 972 2 2 or 194/. gs. id .
I m p r o v e m e n t s s u g g e s t e d .
Before any confiderable degree of improvement can be exr
pe£ted in thofe parts of tire country, not very diftant from the
Cape, it will be neceflary, by fome means or other, to increafe
the quantity and; to reduce the prefent enormous price of labour.
The moft effe&ual way, perhaps, of doing this, would
be the introduction of Chinefe. Were about ten thoufand of
this induftrious race of men diftributed over the Cape diftriCt,
and thpfe divifions of Stellenbofch and Drakenftein which lie
on the Cape fide of the mountains, the face of the country
would exhibit a very diiferent appearance in the courfe of a few
years ; the markets would be better and more reafonably fupplied,
and an abundance o f furplus produce acquired for exportation.
It is not here meant that thefe Chinefe ihould be placed under
the farmers \ a fituation in which they might probably become,
Him. the poor Hottentots, rather a load-and an encumbrance on
the
the colony, than a benefit to it. The pooreft peafant in China,
if a free than, acquires notions of property. After paying a
certain proportion of his produce to the-State, which is limited
and defined, the reft is entirely his own ; and though the Emperor
is confidered as the foie proprietary of the foil, the land
is never taken from him fo long as he continues to pay his
proportion of produce to Government.
I ihould propofe then, that all the pieces of ground intervening
between the large farms and other wafte lands ihould
be granted to the Chinefe on payment of a moderate rent
after the firft feven years. The Britiih Government would find
no difficulty in prevailing upon that, or a greater, number of
thefe people to leave China; nor is the Government of that
country fo very ftrict or folicitous in preventing its fubjefts
from leaving their native land as is ufually fuppofed. The
maxims of. the State forbad it at a time when it was more
politic to prevent emigrations than now, when an abundant
population, occafionally above' the level of the means c f fubfiftence,
fubjebts thoufands to periih at home for want of the ne-
ceflaries of life. Emigrations take place every year to Manilla,-
Batavia, Prince of Wales’ Illand, and to other parts of the
eaftern world.
In the diftant parts of the colony, where there is wafte land'
in the greateft abundance, it would be advifeable to hold, out'
the fame encouragement to the Hottentots ast they have* met
with from the Hernhuters at Bavian’s Kloof, a meafure.'thit'
1 would