COLOURED LABOUR.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4812, 18 February 1925, Page 4

COLOURED LABOUR.

PROBLEM TO BE FACED. . POSITION TO DAY. "v.c arc now entering upiu au. tia /u whu u coloured labour is h>. coming .-jeif-cxpressive. The liiuour troubles m tuc past liaii-veiituiy, or etc;, the past live years, nave been • serious enough m wiute hums ; but these lade inie insignificance when we pause to note the possibility of labour disturbances among the millions ot workers in Africa, Asia, and. elsewhere, remembering their illiteracy and 'narrowness of outlook.’ 'ihe above pronouncement wasmaue by tlie Rev. 2k. W. McMillan in the course of an address upon the coloured labour problem at a luncheon held by the ' Y.M.C.A. at ■ Wellington last week.

“Forty-seven million of the fiutyih'ree niillioii, square miles of habitable land surface of the world are under tlie dominance of the white races,” declared the speaker. “Of every seven people in. the British Empire six are coloured. We owe to coloured .labour, in tropical or sub-tropi-cal lands many of our commonest necessities of life, our rubber, tea, coffee, cocoa, sugar, fruits, cotton, soaps, rice, gold, etc. During the iast .two centuries in particular the utilisation of coloured labour by the dominating white races has seen a marked development. In the earlier stages the black man was forced to work as a slav e > . i ll wajr America created, her own coloured problem—tlie Negro. The scramble for Africa during the latter part of the Victorian era led to the opening up of vast territories. The white man in his feverish haste to procure raw materials from tropica), lands for his factories largely ignored the human factor. The Congo atrocities under King Leopold’s regime, when shiploads of rubber stained with human blood were removed from the country year by. year, are still fresh in oui’ memories. The Spaniards and the Dutch, Portuguese, Belgians, French, British, Germans,, or Americans—all have taken part in this race for wealth. Europeans have grown fabulously; rich, but at the expense of coloured labour. When the public opinion of the world would no longer'tolerate slavery the more respectable but still very questionable system o£ indentured labour was introduced.

NO LONGER MUTE AND DUMB.

• There have been hundreds of strikes in India since the end of the Great War,”, proceeded Mr McMillan. “The Indian strikes in Fiji less than four years ago necessitated the calling in of New Zealand naval and military ■ forces, and the expenditure of £50,000 by the colony. Only last April there were dangeroiifs labour riots among the Indians in British. Guiana. Africans, too, are complaining of a sense of injustice in regard to standards of labour and wages, land holding, a'nd the vote. This has brought about the growth in. the black peoples -for the first time in their history—of a sense of their own oneness as a race, whether they be aliens in America or still in their native land. "Tb,ere . are signs, everywhere that coloured labour- is no longer content to remain mute and dumb. Lt is becoming . a world movement, and it L stimulated by the example and tactics of white labour,, and by the world cry of self-determination. The African in the south has seen his land invaded and occupied by Europeans, whilst he with all his- aptness to learn handicrafts, is’ rigidly excluded from all skilled labour by the white man. A Registration Act has been introduced ■ ipto Kenya which registers in a central bureau the name, age, village, thumb-print, etc., of every native, together with his personal and industrial history, as giveii by all his past employee. There were over two thou,.sand convictions under the Act during the first year of its operation. A protest by the natives. was forcibly put down with serious bloodshed. INDUSTRIALISM IN INDIA. ; “is it any wonder that India smiles cynically when the Colonial Office ; supports the white population in Kenya in .a policy which excludes Indians, because our first duty is to ; -cprsider the ’ welfare and the rights of the African ?” asked the speaker. “The fact that the recent meetings of Indians in East Africa decided to accept the proffered seats in. the Legislative Council rather than, persist in non-co-operation very -likely means -that they are determined• to remind the honourable members of their duty. The growth of industrialism in India is causing dislocation in the life of-the people,; breaking up family life,, increasing vice . and overcrowding in the cities, and causing the collapse of economic order which has stood the test of many centuries. This

is one of the chief things striking fea i' into the heart of that great patriot, Mahatma Gandhi, especially when it includes the exploitation of

cheap labour in his land that England may grow rich. An instance maj be given of a jute firm in Calcutta whose shares before the war had slowly risen from £lOO to £l4's. At the outbreak of the war the cultivator was obtaining 17is per maunu for his jute; during the war the expenses of the cultivator probably doubles. Between 1914 and 1920 the jute shares in the company went up from 140 to 1160. The interest paid on the capital invested in the company rose from 15 per cent, before the war to 160 per cent.; but the price paid to the cultivator for his jute went down from 17s to 7s in 1920. The poor cultivator is an illiterate, ignorant peasant, with no faculty for organisation, wholly at the mercy of the jute broker or the speculator on the stock exchange. POSITION IN FIJI. “Tlie Indian labour problem in Fiji is part of a gigantic world problem," proceeded Mr McMillan. “Indian labourers wore brought across the seas under the [system of indentured labour and used in the massing of enormous profits. Since the abolition of that system about five years ago there has been a noticeable shortage of labour in the colony. The Deed Indian naturally prefers to be his own muster, and has settled on land leased from the Fijians. I’ianters or other employers are having to adjust themselves to the new conditions. The Colonial 'Sugar Refining Company, seeing on- the one hand the seiious competition of Java sugar with cheaper labour and a labour shortage in Fiji itself, is making efforts to adapt itself to new conditions, it has paid attention to the housing of its workers, and the detached cottages now in use are likely to foster cleaw family life. Many of these are situated in plots of land ' extending over two or three acres, for which a nominal rental is charged of one or two an acre 'per annum, and in this way a man receiving a minimum wage can grow a considerable amount of rice, maize, etc., and keep his own cattle. In a similar way approved Indians are being assisted to lease lands, and advances are being made of cash, cattle, fodder, implements, or manures on easy terms, recoverable at harvest time. In this way a fine piece of work is being done mutually beneficial to the company and the Indian grower. This evidence of trust and co-opera-tion -one the other is most encouraging. In contrast to the Fijian, the Indian is by temperament an industrious and skilful agriculturist, and .the development of small Indian farmsteads throughout the colony is a most hopeful sign of future peace and progress of these peoples. Where murmurings or complaints are heard they represent not so much sedition as the growing-pains of, a healthy,.developing community. Their requests are in line with the aspirations of labour right through: the white world. For example, education for children and the opportunity to develop and exorcise all the faculties given to each man by God.”,