LIFE IN THE NEW HEBRIDES

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 22, 26 July 1920, Page 2

LIFE IN THE NEW HEBRIDES

NATIVES TREATED AS SLAVES.

.(PROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.)

SYDNEY, 14th July. From time to time there is an outcry against the conditions of life in the New Hebrides, where the joint control by the British and French—the Condominium, as it is called—is far from being a satisfactory arrangement. Generally, however, life there is not so bad as it is painted. It is believed that the Condominium problem will be settled in the final adjustment, between Britain and France, of post-war tarritorial matters. ■

But, if most-people are inclined to let the Condominium well- alone, one cannot ignore the evidence of an independent person like Mr. Frank Mackie, a planter at Epi, in the New Hebrides, who, ia the course ofr-a private letter to a friend in Dubbo, N.S.W., says: "The black boys are called plantation labourers, but slaves -would be nearer the mark. Their usual wage is 5s per week, and their rations a half-pound of rice and two biscuits per day. Where I am the- boys are treated, better than that. They are paid 7s 6d per week and get 21b of sweet potatoes or yams, ljlb of sugar, 21b of bread, tea, and very often meat. °

"We were horrified at the outrages committed by the Germans on the Belgians and French., but these outrages were insignificant compared with what one sees here. On most plantations the slaves are treated as cruelly as the slaves in America were, as depicted in 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.'

"Last week a boy came to me to have wounds dressed which had been inflicted by a white man. The boy had been aocused of permitting pigs to enter a, cornfield and destroy a • crop, though the poor lad's pigs had not been out their enclosure, Notwithstanding this, the pigs were shoi, and thirteen whites held the boy-while a man assaulted him. There were deep flesh wounds on his face, and he was injured internally. "These matters are reported; to the Governmant, but nothing is done. The blacks hate the white man. They look upon him as an oppressor, as he certainly is. The blacks are an intelligent race, eager to learn, arid if they had the opportunity they would develop into usefui men."