THE KANAKA LABOUR TRAFFIC.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIII, Issue 117, 18 May 1892, Page 4

THE KANAKA LABOUR TRAFFIC.

A- REVIVAL OF THE SLAVE .TRADE. . ■

The revival of the Kanaka labour tralfic by the colony of Queensland concerns all Australasia. The; sugar-planters of Queensland are again at liberty to obtain recruits irom tha South Sea Islands, and a

fierce discussion is in progress as to the wisdom of the Legislature of that colony sanctioning the re-introduction of a cheaplabour system which in the pasb has been accompanied by flagrant abuses. The political I situation in Queensland on this question is peculiar. ~ The members of tho Government were each returned by the people pledged to oppose tho revival of coloured labour, but in violation of these promises they forced through the Black Labour Bill which is now the law of the land, and the political somersault of tho Fromier in favour of Kanaka labour carried the day for the ■planters. The traffic in coloured labour between the South Sea Islands and the Queensland ports will be in full swing again almost immediately, and already a number of trading vessels ha ye sailed from Australia for the New Hebrides, Solomon Islands and other Island groups, for the purpose of recruiting Kanaka.'!, duly licensed under the provisions of the Pacific Islands Labourers Extension Act. ! It will be as "well to mention here the circumstances attendant on the inauguration of the' black labour traffic in the Western Pacific. The enormities perpetrated'by the early *andalwood traders in the South Seas, at Fiji, the New Hebrides, and elsewhere, were later on exceeded, if that wero possible, by the men engaged in the labour trade. In the year 1860, Dr. Seemann • was sent by the British Colonial Office to report on the: capabilities of the Fiji Islands for the cultivation of cotton, and he reported so favourably that many plantations' were speedily formed and worked by enterprising colonists, not only in the Fijis and the colony of Queensland, but also in some of the New Hebrides Group. In Queensland the first ■cotton plantation was commenced near Brisbane, in. 1863, by Captain li. Towns, and in 1866-ho raised 183,6301b of cotton. These undertakings led to an extraordinary demand for labour, the supply of which became a most lucrative business. The great demand1 for cheap labour gave rise ■' to that traffic which became some twenty, years ago so notorious. The trade was so remunerative that the practice of carrying away the Islanders without their consent) prevailed to a most lamentable extent. I In the year 1867 it became known that 382 South Sea Islanders had come acrosa to Queensland in labour vessels, tho greater part of them being under engagement to work for three years, and thab only 78 of thorn ever returned to their* island homes, the remaining three hundred leaving their bones on the cotton and sugar plantations. The following year the New Hebrides Mission presented a petition to the Government of Queensland, denouncing the labour traffic, and asserting thab many Islanders had been forcibly taken away. The result of this was the passing of the Polynesian Labourers Act by .the Queensland Legislature, which provided for the registration of labourers, their proper support and maintenance, and their rriturn to their homes at the expiration of their terms of engagement. It was feared, however, on good ground?, that these couditior.* wore | little attended to. The British Govern-..1 menb at last took the nutcUsr up^ and a Bill to prevent the ki(inap).im,'.. of natives in the South Seas was passed in 1872.:' Thw, however, did not prevent terrible atrocities being perpetrated in connection with the labour traffic, and the reeulti was the of, the £acific fc>y British

warships and the apprehension and trial of many white villainau One of the moat blood-curdling atrocities on record was that perpetrated in the early " seventies on board the Carl brig, of Melbourne, which kidnapped by design and force A large number ol South Sea Isianders. On their becoming. " mutinous" the officers and crew shot them down wholesale, killing about fifty and throwing the wounded overboard. Happily, such terrible doings are long deeds of the past, and their revival is practically impossible ; but it is, the connection of the Kanaka labour traffic with questionable and murderous practices that has won for it such an unenviable appellation as that of the "slave trade." ' ; The mortality of the South Sea Islander, and the terrible rapidity with;which he dies out in the uncongenial, climate and m direct consequence of the severe toil to which he is subjected on the Queensland plantations, are perhaps the most potent arguments... that can be - used; by the opponents of the Kanaka labour traffic. The stock cry of : the Queensland sugarplanter is that the Kanaka is-the best suited to the labour on the plantations in that burning colony, and that, ho, does not mind the work. The best answer to this is a glance at the mortality table* It is said that if the Kanaka died.on his native islands half as fast as he,'dies on • the Queensland, plantation?, hi? ,dark : skinned race would have been extinct, long ere this. On one Queensland plantation'hot bo long ago, out of 78 Kanakas, 23 died in ten months. In this connection a Sydney journal,') in a recent outspoken article on the labour traffic, eaid: — "Two doctors sent up by the Queensland Government to investigate matters reported:— The Kanaka plantation in Maryborough district might also be looked upon as an adult male one, and yet in the year 1079 the mortality was, 74 per 1,000, while on the Yengarie, Yarra Yarra, and Irrawarra, the plantations belonging to R. Cran and Co., the mortality in the five-and-a-quarter years ending 31st March, 1880, was 92 per 1,000, and for the year •1879, 107 per 1,000, and for the three months ending 31st March,. 1880, 100 per 1,000." During the census period . 1886-1891, out' of 10,000 Kanakas in Queensland (8,000 on sugar plantations), the death bill was 2,577, or over one-fourth of them. In' his. latest report the Registrar-General of Queensland, writing on the Kanaka deathrate, said :—" This notable high death-rate of Polynesians may. be: accounted for in several ways, :some of which caus.es, no dpubt, lead to consumption, 'the disease most prevalent amongst people of this race.' The inbreeding for long periods ot certain tribes' on the Islands produces a race which seema peculiarly liable to contract phthi3is, so that the change of climate from the humid atmosphere provailing in the islands of the South Seas to the drier air of this continent, and the great differenco in diet, etc., all tend to predispose a naturally weak constitution to a disease most fatal amongst them." A Queensland clergyman denounces the la.bourotcade as immoral, on. .the ground that it violates, the fundamental law of human.society. '' The recruiter," he says* " takes the youth, the flower of the island, in tho proportion of thirteen men .to one woman. This proportion is : based on .the fact that we have in this district (Bundaberg) 2,883 Kanakas, 2,680 male 3. and 203 females; that is to say,.tbe.re are no less than 2,477 men. without wive*." , ;.:,

In the face of these facts if is.useless to contond that the South Sea Islander is by nature adapted for toil on the Queensland sugar plftntation.3. The Kanakas do not become reconciled to their new surroundings or thrive in them—in fact, after serving the purpose of their employers,: a very large proportion- of bhein die outafcancsi Tho mortality amongst them is easily understood,. if .only^a titfte, of,, what,, has method of capture and treatment at sea, and their conditions of. life on tho sugar plantations, be true. Looked at merely from a humanitarian . standpoint, the Kanaka labour traffic • stands condemned,as utterly bad.-.-.From a labour point of view, it is ho better; ■ It is easy to understand the preference of ,the planter for the Kanaka as against the white labourer, or even coolies, for it;, is stated that ; planters ..in Queensland can get Kanaka labour tor 2s 6d a week, and 'this for, a.period of three years, the -servant being bound as strictly to.the master as if he were-owned by him body and soul.—•« It is interesting in this connection to note a recent utterance in the Presbyterian Church of Victoria on the Kanaka labour trade. The Rev. J. Alexander, Rpecial deputy of the commission to the New Hebrides mission in 1891, said the labour traffic was a fraud on the natives. The majority of the natives carried away had no idea where they were being carried to, nor did they understand the terms of the agreements entered into. Whilst it was a good thing to teach tho natives to work, the present labour traffic was not the way to teach them. He.had Been returned natives who wero infinitely worse than the savages around them, and in addition had all the impudence of the white larrikin. This is a severe indictment, but ib does not appear to exaggerate the true condition of the traffic. Even our -French neighbours—whose own share in the labour traffic between the Islands and New Caledonia has been as bad as our own, if net worse—are waxing.strong in their opinions of the trade. The Paris "Temps," commentin£ on the revival of the Kanaka lalxiur in Queensland, taunt 3 England with tolerating the most serious scandal sullying the reputation of mankind in modern times. Bishop Selwyn considers that serious 1 abuses exist1-, though they are capable of removal. Dr. . Codnngton, of England, is of. opinion that no kind treatment by Queensland plantation-owners can compensate for the wrong done to the Islanders. Popular opinion—outside of Queensland itself—is decidedly averse to the revival of the traffic, on more grounds than one, and the Queensland Government have a very stiff task before them if they intend to carry on, the trade without abuses. It is at present probably an abuse of words, as Bishop Selwyn says, to call the system slavery, .and the traffic may possibly be made to benefit the Islanders, though it is difficult to see how. It will, however, .be peculiarly interesting to. the whole of the colonies, as well as to the outside world, to watch the revived labour business1, and to note whether the flagrant abuses in connection .with it are to bo wholly removed, as the Queensland Government so sanguinely predict.