Wellington Independent. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1871.

Wellington Independent, Volume XXVI, Issue 3352, 22 November 1871, Page 2

Wellington Independent. WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 1871.

We hear from Australia that a man-of-war has been despatched from Sydney to tho scene of Bishop Palteson's murder, for the purpose of " avenging his death." Wo sincerely hope it is not true. Such a course would be equally unworthy of the occasion, and discreditable to our Christian civilisation. The good Bishop himself, when predicting the probability of such an event, deprecated the infliction of punishment on ignorant savages exasperated by the acts of manstealers. The legacy of mercy which the Bishop by anticipation invoked for his murderers ought to be respected. The punishment due for his death should be inflicted not on the savages who committed tho cruel act, but on the Ross Lewins and Captain Hayeses whose piratical deeds evoked the spirit of bloody retribution. Ii will afford little satisfaction to know that the villages of Nukapu have been shelled, and a number of their inhabitants been killed by a broadside. The first wrong was undoubtedly on our side : if tho penalty has been paid by the innocent instead of the guilty, it does not justify us in further infliction of wrong on those whom we were the first to injure. There can be little doubt of the cause which led directly to the murder. Captain Palmer, late of H.M.S. Rosario, so well known in our harbor, and himself so greatly esteemed among us, on his return to England published a most interesting volume on the ■' Kidnapping in the South Seas." Ju this volume, after describing a number of cases of which he had heard during her cruise among the islands, he says, " I have given some specimens of the way in which things are managed ; but the traders have resorted to a clever dodge for filling their vessfcls, which, however, can only be practised once at the same part ot the island. These proceedings are somewhat as follows : A vessel painted white like the mission schooner, and about the time the Bishop is going his rounds, appears in sight off the island. A boat is sent on shore with the most respectable looking of the white individuals on board, having a white choker on, blue spectacles, a book that may pass for a bible under his arm, and an umbrella over his head. The news quickly spreads. ' Bishop come to see us ;' and down they crowd to the beach. The boat nears the shore ; ah, this is not the Bishop, but a strange missionary, tie speaks a little of the language, however, and says the Bishop is on board the scliooner, but had a bad accident the other day at sea, falling down and breaking his leg, so he cannot stop long, but must go to Sydney to the doctor. He wants to see his dear friends on board before he goes, ns he cannot come ashore to them. They are indeed sorry to hear the Bishop has broken his leg. Several send their wives home for cocoa nuts, yams, and bananas, while they themselves go off to see him. The strange missionary will stroll along the shore, and do a little bit of geology before he goes on board. Soon the canoes are flying over the water, and fifty to sixty natives are on their way to see their kind friend the Bishop, whose name in these islands is never alluded

to but with love, admiration, and respect. On reaching the vessel, which has drawn out a little from the shore, they are welcomed on board, and allowed to go about where they like, for only three or four can be admitted to the small cabin at a time, as the good Bishop must have plenty of air, and it is very close down below. The first comers go down the companion, and at the bottom are received, not by the Bishop, but by some of the crew, who, with pistols pointed at their heads, pass them into the vessel's hold through an aperture in the bulkhead, where their hands are tied behind them, and they are left to ruminate on the advantages of civilization, and the blessings which follow in its train. By the time the hold is full, the strange missionary is seen pulling from the shore for the schooner, which on his arrival stands out to sea, cutting the canoes adrift. Although I do not pretend to say that the above transaction was the actual modus opemndi, I have the authority of Bishop Patteson as to the fact of its being committed, in which his supposed broken leg and attendant consequences were made to figure." Is it to be wondered that when Bishop Patteson was starting on his last cruise he made his will, and left instructions with his companion at Norfolk Island, Mr Codrington, what was to be done in case of his decease ? The lamented death of the Bishop will, no doubt, excite great and renewed interest in England on the subject of the " Deportation of South Sea Islanders." It is one which has already been pretty fully brought under public notice. In addition to Captain Palmer's volume before referred to, we have before us two Parliamentary blue books on the subject, containing nearly 300 folio pages. The whole of the facts of the case are there pretty well brought out, and probably all that can be known about it is exhaustively treated by those best qualified to give information. The result may be stated in a few words. Ist. There is a rapidly growing demand for labor in Queensland, New Caledonia, the Fiji islands, and some other places in the Southern Pacific. The industry for which it is required is chiefly that of cotton growing; it must be very cheap labor, and of a chai'ncter suitable to a tropical climate. The oborigines of the several groups of islands with which the Pacific is studded from the Line to Australia, some slightly civilised by missionary teaching, some in heathen wildness, are suitable material, and have been found more or less available. 2nd. In some islands there is a great desire to emigrate, and a perfect readi ness to enter into engagements for a term of years to work for wages for planters, in Queensland or the Fijis. In others the feeling is the reverse, an<l the natives stand in the greatest dread of being carried away from their island homes. 3rd. The consequence is that for some years past there has grown up a trade between the islands and the places where labor is wanted. Some of this has been carried on. in a comparatively open, fair and humane manner, and precautions have been taken more or less, at the places to which the laborers are carried to prevent any irregularities in the way of kidnapping or other illusage. But alongside of this respectable immigration, if we may so call it, has sprung up a trade of quite another character — infamous kidnapping carried .on by monsters in human form, capable of every crime, and probably having committed every crime the opportunity for which has fallen in their way. It is the pirates and manstealers of this class to whom Captain Palmer refers in the passages we have quoted ; and it was no doubt some atrocious act of some unscrupulous wretch of the sort for which this retaliation was inflicted on the Bishop and his companions. Unfortunately there is no law at present under which such iniquitious practices as this kidnapping can be punished. Captain Palmer made a noble effort to prosecute at Sydney the owners of a vessel which beyond all doubt was engaged in the trade, and which he had seized in the very act. But the lawyers were too many for him, and backed by public opinion in a city where too many are probably interested in the traffic, they easily found the means of extricating their clients from the dock and laughing the gallant captain to scorn. And so it will be so long as such cases can only be dealt with by due form of law. The remedy is that which has been successful elsewhere Declare kidnapping to be piracy on the high seas ; make any captain bearing her Majesty's Commission the judge of the facts of the case ; and let the punishment be the yard arm, and a halter there and then. The dapper lawyer, with lavender kid gloves urc! shining cane, who got the Daphne out of trouble would find his quibbles and his bounce of small avail in such a court as a captain's cabin. We have no space to follow the victims of these practices, or their voluuteer brethren, to the plantations of Queensland and the Fijis ; but the careful perusal of the Blue Books referred to leaves, we confess, an unpleasant taste of slavery in the mouth. Notwithstanding the temporary character of the engagement to the planter, generally three years; notwithstanding the assurances given by Queensland Commissioners of the humane manner in which the laborers are treated on the plantations ; these are only facts which cannot be got over. For instance, Consul Marsh, who has evidently no prejudice against the system, admits that the usual punishment in the Fiji is " flogging." Now the ide of "flogging" is, in our mind, quite incompatible with any relations but with those of slaves and slave masters. No man who has liberty to go will stay to be flogged. It can only be done in a state of bondage. To our apprehension it settles the question. A state of employment under which " the usual punishment" is flogging, canonly be a etate of slavery.

Another fact in connection with this subject is not satisfactor3'. It is that all the arguments used by the Queensland and Fiji planters in favor of their system of engaged labor are suspiciously identical with the arguments used by the slaveowners of the United Stales in the days when slavery was at its height. They are just as forcible in defence of the latter as in defence of the former ; and yet all who have studied the subject know what horrors existed behind the screen of this plausible logic. When wo hear the same logic urged in the same plausible way by Queensland or Fiji planters, we fancy we " smell a rat," and imagine that there may be something unrevealed that wo ure not aware of. There is something about slavery so repulsive to the British mind that we are suspicious of any social system which is in the least degree tainted with it. Homer has told us that a man loses half his virtue the rlay he becomes a slave ; to which Archbishop Whately has added that he loses all his virtue the day he becomes a slaveowner. The virtue of truth is probably one of the first to be trodden out by the foot of slavery, whether in the breast of the slave or his owner, and we think that a very strict scrutiny (not conducted by members of the Queensland Legislature nor by Fiji planters), into the condition of the imported labor of those countries is clue to the interests of humanity. The other members of the Australasian group have a right to know whether so baneful an institution as slavery is being insidiously introduced among them. Fortunately if it be so, it cannot long be hid ; and the force of public opinion, if no more powerful remedy, will, we trust, check the growth of the evil. Nor can it be of long duration. The supply of such labor is limited, and whether voluntary or compelled, we should be sorry to invest in any industry which is dependent upon it.