The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. MONDAY, MAY 20, 1895. THE ISLAND SLAVE TRADE.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 271, 20 May 1895, Page 2

The Feilding Star, Oroua & Kiwitea Counties Gazette. Published Daily. MONDAY, MAY 20, 1895. THE ISLAND SLAVE TRADE.

-*- Since the slave tnulo in the South •"•"■<■ a Is hinds was authorised by law under tlie euphemistic designation of '' labor traffic," we have condemned it as a crime against humanity, and a disp-race to the nation which permits it. Other indppendcrt journals have taken up the tale and assi.stei to draw general attention to the trade, but. the commercial influence of those connected therewith either c'ireetlv or indirectly lias been too str.no- for any real g-ood to be done. We are grieved to admit also that public opinion has not been expressed as in favor of any active interference, Reports have been n ado by alleged exports that the untutored savage prefers 1 eing transplanted from his sea-^.'irt home under the equator to the malarial sugar plantations of Queensland. We do not believe a word of this. It is not in reason to expect a Iran accustomed to the un fettered indolent existence of a South Sea Islander, to prefr-r being- driven like the beasts that perish, to work for a miserable pittance represent! d by a lew worthless gewgaws, or useless firearms. He is neither mentally nor physically capable of doing; sustained work. One of two things generally happen.-- — he either dies in his tracks after a lew minutes illness, or if he is hardy enough to survive the term of his apprenticeship, he i> deported to his old horne — from whence he is as promptly stolen again. 'Ihey never .-.urvive a second Owing- to the excessive mortality in i las plantations, combined with the lact that, the strongest and /i.ort heal'.liy of the males have as a rule been sold into bondage, we learn now that a number of the islands have l.'eccmu depopulated altogether, while the inhabitants of oth"i\s arc diminishing so last as to ciiu.se serious alarm to tiie merchants — Germ in or lingiifc.li — who have established " trade "' stations on t no larger island?. Com iiierce comes first, and humanity afterwards with John Bull, and now that the harm is done we are told that in the House of Commons Mr Buxton, Parliamentary Secretary to the Colonial Olncc, said — in rep y to a question — " lh:;t Sir J. J hurston's despatches expressed the opinion that the labor traffic was depopulating some of the island;:, unrl Lord Rijmn intended to confer with >Sir John 'J burs ton on the subject." Rather late in the day in our opinion. lOmulaling the State of Maine the slave owners of which sold all their '' stock ' and then abolished slavery, England will after being the means of wiping a happy but indolent people off the face of the earth, tibolUh the " labor traih'c ''' in the South Seas. Verily li man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn."