Foreigners could of course have had no success whatever in such man-hunting schemes without the interested co-operation of the natives. How this was obtained may be gathered from such reports as that of Mr W. M. Cooper, acting consul at Swatow, one of the principal entrepots.
Nowhere [he says] is population more dense than in the plains of the Han. There is a constant tendency, where the struggle for existence is so keen, and no drain exists as that caused by recruiting for an army, towards the formation of a scum of bad characters, whom their idleness or ill-deeds drive to prey on the more industrious. These, frequently discarded by their families, are seen by the official and the village elder on their way to the coolie-house with a sense of relief and satisfaction; and not seldom is the coolie-broker aided in his object of obtaining men by persons of this class, and frequently by the relations of the men themselves. Thus the trade is allowed to take root with the concurrence of the heads of the people, who not only rid themselves by means of it of a nuisance and a burden, but make money by the transaction; and a connection is formed which the broker, in his thirst for dollars, becoming gradually hardened and more ruthless, is not slow to avail himself of in carrying out, with greater boldness, evil designs on his victim.
But if the atrocities incident to the capture and embarkation cried aloud for a remedy, the brutalities of the middle passage were no less heinous; and though the light could not easily penetrate the scenes enacted in the distant mines and plantations which were the ultimate destination of the coolies, enough was known to show that their lot in Spanish-American and other countries and colonies was far from enviable.
To efface this blot on civilisation was the first object which engaged the attention of Sir Rutherford Alcock in Peking. The Chinese Government itself had remained for many years callous to the cruelties perpetrated on its subjects; but this was in keeping with its tolerant habit, its blindness to things disagreeable, and its constitutional aversion to overt action of any kind. The Peking authorities seem, however, to have been at last aroused by the interest in the question evinced by foreign Governments, and in 1866 the Chinese Ministers were induced to join the foreign Powers in devising means to ameliorate the condition of the emigrants. The suggestions of Prince Kung were practical and well directed towards a solution of the problem.