INDENTURED LABOUR.

Free Lance, Volume XIX, Issue 1013, 26 November 1919, Page 10

INDENTURED LABOUR.

The Samoan Bogey.

ANY stick—or brickbat — is good enough as a political weapon just now with the labour extremists in their anxiety to replace sane, loyal Government by the rule of a_ revolutionary "rag, tag and bobtail." To listen to some of these gentry waxing warm in their attacks up to indentured, labour, one might imagine that Mr Massey and Sir James Allen wished to flood the Dominion straight-away with

Hindu or Chinese coolies, slaves in all but the name. As a matter of fact, all this wild talk about the iniquities which have taken place under indentured labour in South Africa, in Queensland, in Brazil and elsewhere, is entirely beside the question so far as the labour problem in Samoa is concerned. Sir James Allen's explanation of the actual position, given last week, was distinct and straightforward.

Neither he nor Mr Massey, nor any other New Zealand statesmen, likes indentured labour. But when we took over Samoa we took over the German plantations, and to carry them on we had to- adopt the then existing labour system. The Samoans won't work on the plantations, but Chinese immigrants will, and not only that, have, in the past, at least, been fairly satisfied with the conditions under which they labour. It may be that those conditions are not altogether such as democratic New approve of, but if they are faulty they can be amended, and in any case it is simply a fabrication to describe them as constituting a system of slavery. Both Mr Massey and Sir James Allen have promised that next year a special commission from New "Zealand shall conduct an investigation into the labour system in force in Samoa, and that such reforms as are found necessary shall be instituted. With such an assurance any reasonably minded person would be satisfied. Meanwhile, how-/ ever, the public are not likely to get very excited about indentured labour in Samoa. They are far more interested in go-slow " labour" In the Dominion..