THE QUEENSLAND SLAVE TRADE.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Sin,—Long before this reaches you, the English papers will, I Cope, have republished the fall details of the two voyages of the Carl. I do not wish to dwell at length upon them, or to exagge- rate the moral they point. That a hundred natives should have been killed, many of them in cold-blood, during one piratical ex- pedition, and that an Imperial cruiser, overhauling the guilty ship, -should have failed to discover any traces of the massacre, are facts which carry their own comment with them. But as a colonist, to whom it is above all things important that my country should be kept pure from bloodshed or slavery, I wish to call the attention of your readers to some collateral facts of importance.
1. Forcible kidnapping is not the worst crime of the slave trade in the Southern seas. In some islands the chiefs will only exchange slaves for human heads. Ships trading with these islands are accustomed to carry some Tatum natives with them, who behead the unserviceable captives, throwing their trunks into the sea.
2. Family life is being quite broken up in the Southern Archi- pelago. I have heard of one instance where a planter, finding that his slaves were dull for want of women, sent and kidnapped the whole female population of a small island. In another case, visitors to an Wand found that no men had been left there. In the best cases, islanders going back after several years' absence are likely to find their wives taken by other men ; and this is known to be an occasion of civil feuds.
3. In Queensland, where the planters are controlled by Govern- ment or public opinion, the imported labourers are in general treated well. But in the Fiji Islands the planters wield an irresponsible authority, and living in the midst of slaves, were obliged to keep them down with a strong hand. Discipline is maintained by the pistol- or the whip.
4. Although the Queensland form of slavery is mild, public opinion in Qmensland allows the most outrageous treatment of the aborigines. They are shot down freely on stations in the interior, and I have heard of a man showing fifty-six notches on his gun, every one of which recorded a homicide. " I was offered an island the other day," said a Queensland planter to my informant, but I could not bring myself to clear off [i.e., shoot down] the whole native population."—" And did anyone take it on .that condi- tiop?"—" Oh, yes ! it was too good a property to go begging long." The Queensland Government tried only the other day to bring a man who had shot a native to justice, but the jury would not convict. Even in Western Australia it is considered a great triumph that a white man has been found guilty of manslaughter for shooting and killing a native who was running away from him.
5. The English Government has just authorised Commodore Stirling to fit out six schooners for the suppression of kidnapping. This measure will probably be sufficient, if foreign Powers do not allow their flags to be misused. But the simplest remedy would unquestionably be for England to take the Protectorate of the Fiji Islands. The proposal to shift that duty on to an Australian colony is preposterous. We can manage self-government well enough, as the white labourers who want work will protect us from any wholesale importation of slaves. But our legislation for a distant colony would be dictated or influenced by interested parties ; and even if we made good laws, we have no cruisers or troops to enforce them. Remember that all the blackguardism of Australia and California takes refuge in those barbarous com- munities, and will certainly fight hard to defend its illegitimate gains. It is significant that one of the worst outbreaks in Fiji was provoked by the barbarity of two planters from the Southern States of the Union. Slavery in the islands is no accident, it is the deliberate purpose of the whole white community.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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