A BLACK-LABOUR PROBLEM.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 12461, 26 March 1906, Page 6

A BLACK-LABOUR PROBLEM.

By the terms of the Pacific Islands Labourers Act, the employment of Island labour on the Queensland sugar plantations comes to an end at the close of this year- AH Polynesians in the State must be sent back to their islands by the 31st of December, and no more may. be imported. There are come 6000 of these Kanakas, as they are termed, in Queensland to-day, and the deportation of such a number create* difficulties for which the Queensland Government hopee to find a solution by the appointment of a Royal Commission. Mr Kidston, the Premier, states, according to c cable message in Saturday's issue, that if the labourers are sent back in & body to the leknds, a famine will probably result. It ie just possible that if eomo of them are sent back to- their original inlands tbo consequences will be even

more tragic. The Bishop of Melanesia has repeatedly declared that' tho condition of many South So* Islands is suca cc to render it probable that deported Kanakas would 'be murdered on arrival, in which case one may assume with some confidence that the murderers and their friends would be m greater danger of suffering from surfeit than from famine. There ere many Meknesians in Queensland, and even if, upon being landed on their original Islands, they escaped becoming the " piecee-de-resistanee " of cannibal banquets, their position would bo a most unenviable "one. Dr. Fredsham, Bishop of North Queensland, saye that nwuiy ,of them : argue something "ike this:—"Where can I go when the Government sends mc away? I have been too long in Australia. My relations are dead, and I have forgotten my people. There b no school in my native village or on my island, and my people are wild yet." More than one returning Melaneeian, on reaching his island, hae realised hie . danger so strongly that he has refused to leave tho labour vessel, and the danger that | he feared with such good reason, will be all the greater in the case of those who, while in Queensland, have married natives of other islands. The hardshipof deportation will naturally p'rees still more heavily upon those Melaneenans who havo become Christianised during their residence in Queensland. To obviate the danger and hardship to which returning Kanakas would be subject if landed on tlieir nafive islands,' Bishop Frodsham suggests that they should,be j allowed to go to a place in one of the Solomon group where there aro already a hundred native Christianis, and abundance of good land and water. A small pioneer party should be sent there next month so as to plant crops, and thus provide food for-the main body following at the end of the year. The cost of such a party would be lee» than £250, and this sum, Dr. Frodsham thinks, should bo paid by the Queensland Government:* The responsibility undoubtedly reste upon the Government of seeing that tho restrictive legislation of which the Kanakas are to bo the victime is carried out with ac mudh humanity as possible. On most grounds, if not all, the advantago of a "White Australia" as against a particoloured one admits of no argument. But Polynesian labour nas been of great benefit to Queensland's great industry in the pact, and for its own credit and its reputation for humanity the Government tmust see that in deporting the labourers it does not forcibly cons'gn I ! them to degradation or death.