MELANESIAN MISSION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13938, 21 December 1908, Page 4

MELANESIAN MISSION.

THE RETURNED KANAKAS. RUM AND RUIN. [FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] London, November 6. Bishop Wilson, of Melanesia, gave the annual meeting of the mission to-day an interesting narrative of the repatriation of the Queensland kanakas during past year. In his annual report he says : " The year 1907 will be memorable for the return from Queensland of the Melanesian labourers, or kanakas, to their homes, and the cessation of the Queensland labour traffic. The first duty of the mission during the year was to such of these nine thousand ' returns' as belonged to our diocese, and every effort was made to fit them into their new surroundings; to avert the evil 6 that were to be feared when so many half-civilised natives came back from a land where the arm of the law was strong to one where it was weak; and to reap the benefit of large numbers of Christian boys from mission schools in Australia, who might give valuable help to existing Christian centres, or open up new ones in heathen places. In a few months Mesrs. Burns, Philp, and Co. steamers finished their work, and the face of -the islands was temporarily changed. Everywhere were seen men and women in European clothes, the men with thick boots, black hats, and blue-serge clothing, the women with gorgeous head decorations and dainty shoes, very unsuitable for reef-walking. English' was heard wherever one went. Questions were rife throughout Melanesia as to-the price the white men had given for their land in the islands; the Brisbane land fetched :o much a foot; had they here received as much? If not, let them measure it as they had seen men measuring land in their late home, and if the white man refused to increase his price tenor a hundredfold, let the Governor be written to. Money was very plentiful, and a few sticks of tobacco for a day's work, or half-a-crown a week for a boat's crew, was no longer sufficient. Daily prayers in church did not meet with the approval of the Queenslanders, nor did prayer in their own languages. Even boys from church schools in Queensland were- anxious at first to build churches where they could use the English prayer-book instead of their own. As usual, nearly all the ' returns' were ill for some months after landing, owing to the change of food and climate. SETTLING DOWN AGAIN. " But there were many truly earnest Christians among them who, though they may not teach in the schools, will make their influence felt in the villages by their lives. In Mala, where the heathen element is very strong and the bushmen dangerous, the Christians who returned broke up almost at once what was to have been a large settlement for Christian ' kanakas,' because of the pressure of the heathen bushmen, and scattered, settling mostly mission villages. In all other islands the Christian ' returns' suffered no risks on account of their faith, but settled quietly in their, homes, building houses, making gardens," taking to themselves wives, and joining in worship on Sundays. I did not hear of ill usage offered to the kanakas anywhere. Nor, strange to say, did I hear one kanaka regret having returned, or say one word against the white men for deporting him. The deportation was a most popular event in the islands. "It was natural that men with such a flow of English,' such clothes and boots, such knowledge of 'white' manners and customs, and such command of 1 money should have felt to be rather overpowering by their simple, stay-at-home friends, and for a time they were the most important people in their islands. 'I came across two men in the banks who were sadly vexing our teachers by claiming to have been ordained in Queensland, and therefore as having the right to officiate. One of them pointed to his long black coat, and two letters in long envelopes as proofs of his orders. The coat he said was a cassock, but the people said it was a mackintosh. The letters he would not allow them to see, nor would he let me until I had been with him some time. Then he brought them to me; one turned out to be an official letter from an immigration agent saying where bis brother might be found, and the other was a receipt for incometax! LIQUOR IN THE ISLANDS. "The Anglo-French convention for the New Hebrides was not signed until the end of the year, and pending its signature the sale of liquor to the natives in the southern islands of that group was greater than ever. Our island of Opa was, according to Commander D'Oyly,' the ho. 1 .- bed of the gin trade, and liquor was poured into it from all sources.' 'The settlers,' he wrote in his report, ' who are almost all- French, make their living by the sale of gin and firearms to the natives.' Besides the liquor imported here, there were said to be three stills for the local manufacture of grog. In Ambrym, close by, I was told by the Presbyterian missionary, Dr. Bowie, that on May 18 there were landed at one trader's store 160 cases,of this poison, and 200 cases more within the next two months. Patients with delirium tremens and other complaints due to alcoholic poisoning were constantly being dealt with at the New Hebrides Hospital, and accidents and deaths by gunshot wounds, caused by drunken natives, were very common. Happily, except in Opa, our natives escaped this abominable traffic. We saw no grog, grog-drinking, nor drunken men in any of our islands. It seemed to be confined to those further south in the group, where white settlers are more numerous, and the islands more easily reached by small vessels." FORCIBLE CIVILISING. There is a pregnant little passage in the report of the Rev. A. J. Hopkins, of North, Mala. "The island," he says, "is in a very bad state, and would be much worse but for two flying visits from H.M.S. Cambrian in July, and H.M.S. Torch in September. The Cambrian gave the Atta people their long-promised lesson, by bombarding the islet of Sureina, and the bush behind. Very little damage was done, but, unhappily, a, child in a bush village, innocent of any offence, was killed by a piece from a shell that burst near the village. So far, the lesson has quietened all the district affected by the bombardment; of course; there was big talk of revenge at first, but that soon died down. The Cambrian also fired some shells into the bush behind Fiu, and trouble there has been relaxed since, though by no means at an end. The Torch's action was chiefly at Mala, at tlie Queensland Kanaka Mission School, which has suffered very severely of late. She just stopped for a few minutes in passing here, Norefou, to see if there was any fresh trouble. It is.a great pity that no man-of-war can give more than a few hours to Mala, as two or three days are required to secure the arrest of a bushman. For example, James Ivo's murderer is still at large, a visible encouragement to all around him to evil a few hours probably, one or two days almost certainly, would secure his arrest."