PUBLIC EXECUTIONS

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 222, 20 August 1931, Page 2

PUBLIC EXECUTIONS

NEW HEBRIDEAN CHINESE. BRITISH RESIDENTS INDIGNANT. AUCKLAND, Aug. 19. Great indignation - prevails among British residents of the New Hebrides over the public execution of six Chinese at Vila last month, according to officers and passengers on the Melanesian Mission steamer Southern Cross, which returned to-day from a cruise in the mission field. The executions, were carried out by the French authorities with a guillotine brought, from Noumea. It is stated that protests have been sent to the British and French Foreign Offices by the Acting-Britisli Resident Commissioner, Air R. Blandy. “Fourteen Chinese were arrested for the murder of a French planter named Chevalier,” said Mr Arthur Grove, who arrived by the steamer after eight years’ residence in New Hebrides. “Six of the men were sentenced by the French court to death, four to imprisonment for life, and four to terms ranging from seven to twelve years. “Under the condominium a crime against a Frenchman is tried by the French court, and a crime against a British subject by the British court and where the subjects of both nations are concerned by a joint court. “To carry out the death sentence the French authorities brought from Noumea a guillotine, and set it up outside Vila, exactly opposite the French hospital, which contained many patients, both women and children. The condemned men were chained in a rorv and w r ere beheaded by a Japanese executioner brought from Noumea. “I was unfortunate enough to witness the spectacle, which was too barbarous and ghastly to be described in words,” said Air Grove. “There w r ere several hundred people present, including natives, and the entire French population. I thought it inconceivable that such an atrocity could be performed in a civilised community.

“British people in Vila have entered a strong protest against the public character of the execution and its barbarous details. It has had an exceedingly harmful effect on the prestige of the white people and the British suffer with the French.

“Nothing, to my mind, could demonstrate more emphatically the failure of the condominium,” Mr Grove said. “The French Administration is entirely foreign to our ideas and is driving the British out of the islands. When I went there in 1923 all the big planters were British; now there are only 18 British subjects in Vila. The French are pouring into the islands from Noumea and French officials outnumber British officials by five to one. In my opinion a mandate should be granted to New Zealand, as soon as possible: failing that, Britain will undoubtedly lose all control of the group.” Officers of the Southern Cross stated that when the mission steamer arrived at Vila on her return voyage to New Zealand on August 8 they found the British community highly incensed with the French authorities over the executions.

“We were told,” said one officer, “that the executions were witnessed by hundreds of people, including a large number of French women and children. It was intended to be a vindication of the law, but the manner in which it was carried out made it simply a brutal spectacle for the idle. The British people in Vila state that the guillotine was brought secretly from Noumea in charge of four gendarmes. Had they known of the intentions of the French authorities they would have protested sooner.”