VIII.-The Labour Question.

As the Samoans will not work, it is only by means of imported labour that the resources of Samoa can be developed at present. In the future, when the people have parted with their lands, and there is a settled Government strong enough to uphold the rights of property, I have not the slightest doubt that the natives of these islands will prove most active and docile labourers. They seem naturally quick and restless, and have not that settled air of contented idleness which marks other natives. Meanwhile, the most of the work on the plantations is done by Polynesian labour imported from the Gilbert, Kingsmill, and New Hebrides Groups. There are in all about 700 of these "bondsmen" employed on Upolu; and at the time of my visit the German Plantation Company were in trouble over a cargo of 140 New Hebrides "boys" who were alleged to have been partly kidnapped and partly brought to Samoa under false pretences. Some of them who could speak English stated that they were engaged for three years to serve on English plantations in Queensland, and only found on arrival at Apia that they had been bound to serve five years on German plantations on Upolu. The "labour traffic," as conducted under most stringent page 34 regulations, appears very little removed from the old system of slavery, with all its horrors; and while the genius of Commerce is calling aloud, "Let the Island trade be developed," the spirit of Humanity makes bold reply, "Let the Island trade perish if it cannot be developed save at the cost of murder and outrage—of the blood, and groans, and tears of our fellow men!" The modus operandi in the case under notice was as follows :—The French New Hebrides Company having contracted to supply a thousand labourers for German plantations in Samoa, employed a certain Captain Proctor (an American with a "Bully Hayes" reputation) to collect the boys. With a well-aimed schooner and crew, Proctor went to one of the New Hebrides Islands, engaged as many natives as he could on the pretence of faking them to Queensland, and made up his quota by sending his crew ashore "blackbirding"—this being a pleasant euphemism for the most blackguardly and cowardly practice of knocking the luckless natives senseless with clubs, binding them securely, and dragging them unwilling slaves on board the schooner. A body of natives having attempted rescue or retaliation, Proctor fired on them repeatedly from a big gun which was on the schooner's deck, killing and wounding a number of them. Such was the story told to the British Consul at Apia by some of the unfortunate boys, and it was corroborated in some important particulars by a Tahitian sailor who formed one of the crew. It appears to me that voluntary labour, Chinese or Coolie—perhaps even Portuguese or Italian—might be obtained for these Islands, in any number desired, and thus the brutal and brutalising labour traffic might be abolished. At the same time I must confess that the imported labourers I saw at work appeared quite comfortable; they were not in any way "driven;" and I have independent testimony that they all improve in physique and strength after a short stay on the plantations.