INDENTURED LABOUR.

White Ribbon, Volume 26, Issue 312, 18 June 1921, Page 4

INDENTURED LABOUR.

(Tto the Editor.) Madam, I propose now to reply to the rest of Mr C. K N. Maekie’s question re indentured labour. The difference between question one and question two is so slight that I answer it in the same way, by saying that I do believe that any firm is in the light in compelling “respect for an indenture contract," and by asking Mr Mackie if he has received news to the effect that the last consignment of indentured Chinese labourers are now complaining that they did not understand the "true conditions of either the work or the indenture." I answer question three by simply an affirmation and asking a question. The affirmation is that I would not indenture my wife or my daughter *o a Samoan planter, and the question is. “Has any Chinaman indentured his wife or his daughter,” Surely Mr Mackie ought to be above asking childish, frivolous, pointless questions such as this. I answer question four by saying that if I could better myself by inden luring myself as the Chinese do, I would certainly do it. 1 answer question five by asking if Mr Mackie really believes the work of the indentured labourer is "totally unfit for” #hite men. It strikes me that many a white man can be proved to do more strenuous physical labour than the Chinese in Samoa do, and do it too in the tropics. What does Mr Mackie know of this work? Does he know w hat they have to do? T answer question six by asserting it to )x> frivolous and pointless, inasmuch as it asserts to be true that which is utterly untrue. He asserts that these

labourers ;nv «-< »i 111 -1 t<i | to remain it llieir work “irrcspeetivc of their ph>sieal fitness." Where does this emanate from? Is it manufactured bv Mr Mackie? I answer question seven by say in." that it is not the part of the onlooker to determine whether a wage is adequate or not. These labourers, when they signed their contract, thought the wages offered, together with all the other things offered, were quite adequate. They were not compelled to sign the contract; it was a voluntary act. I answer question eight by saying that “mere material gain, howevei lucrative.” does not justify “the degradation of human life.” But again I ask a question: Is. there in Samoa any “degradation of human life” resulting from the introduction of this last linlt h of indentured labourers? Or is there likely to be? I close by affirming what I have affirmed before, that the London Missionary Society’s missionaries (note they are missionaries) have expressed the opinion that indentured labour is a no eessity in Samoa, and, properly supervised, need not result in any apple ciable “degradation of human life." The present contract is a two years’ one, and not a three years’ one, as Mi Mackie wrongly asserts. —1 am. etc., B.P.Q.K Knitangata, 28 May. 1921.