INDENTURED LABOUR.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 14103, 22 April 1920, Page 5

INDENTURED LABOUR.

WESTPORT CITIZENS’ RESOLUTION. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WESTPORT, Wednesday. Mr 11. E. Holland, MP. for Buller, delivered an address on the Parliamentary. trip to Samoa 'before a fairly layge gatherings in the ' Theatre Royal to-night. At the conclusion it was unanimously resolved: ((That this meeting of .Westport citizens, endorses the action of- 'M Holland, M.P. for; Bailor, in making independent investigations in Samoa and Fiji, and also places on record 'its) hearty approval of the policy of thb New Zealand Labour Party in • opposing the continuance of indentured Chinese or other coolie labour in Western . Samoa,” MR ISITT’S VIEWS. Mr L. ;M. isitt, M.P., gave an address on indentured labour in Samoa at the meeting of the Council of the Churches 'at Christchurch on; Monday night, Mr Isitt, in the course of his remarks,--said that lie was not prepared now to take up the position that lie had taken, in the House when he first spoke on the subject, and when he said that he regarded indentured labour with, suspicion aiid dislike, and that indentured labour should be tolerated only until free labour could take its place. The speaker said that planters and missionaries agreed that what was wanted was that the term of indenture should be made a rigid one—tlie missionaries said three years, the planters said from three to five years; it wa's also necessary to make the permit provisions a reality. The whole sex trouble would be finished if the Chinese authorities would give the Chinese coolies permission to take their wives with them to Samoa. He had returned convinced that, as regards free labour and inteutlired labour, he would stand by indentured labour every time. Mr isitt was questioned at considerable length. The principal point raised against him was that taken by the Rev. J. J. North, who contended that Mr Isitt had not established the necessity fov the perpetuation of the plantations ,or- that they were essential to the prosperity and happiness of the Samoans. The Rev. W. Carey, a descendant of Dr. W. Carey, the distinguished Baptist missionary, who is a missionary in India, spoke on similar lines to those of Mr North.