THE SOUTH SEA SLAVE TRADE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VII, Issue 59, 8 March 1872, Page 2

THE SOUTH SEA SLAVE TRADE.

In an article upon the murder of Bishop Patteson, the London Daily News has the following : —

Perhaps, now that an eminent Englishman has fallen a victim to a crime originating too probably in the rapacious cupidity of the slave dealer, ifc may be thought that tbe time is come to do something to put an end to the outrages which are of weekly occurrence in the South Seas. We are not suggesting tbat any one power should either formally or virtually undertake the police of the Pacific Ocean, but surely it must be possible for the great maritime States of the world to come to some agreement which would make it dangerous for the very worst class of pirates to continue their depredations. These captains, who, under the pretence of trade and friendship, visit the islands and kidnap the inhabitants, do more harm to the cause of civilisation than the avowed slaver, for they make intercourse between the native and the European dangerous and difficult, by destroying confidence. The savage who would not fear to trust his life to the strength of his arm or the fleetness of his foot, finds himself betrayed by that very respect for a superior which should bave been to him a source of benefit and blessing. To give these children of the sea absolute immunity against the abuse of the law of the stronger, is more than we are called on to do ; but if the Governments of Great Britain, France, and the United States were to agree that the perpetrators of these oufcryges should be adequately punished when and wherever found in their territories, it would be possible very soon to make them desist from their, evil practices. If we may not aspire to be the guardians of those races of the earth which are still in their minority, we may at least take care that our own citizens shall not use the instrumentalities and agencies of civilisation to plunge them deeper into barbarism.

The Times on the same subject says : — A species of slave trade— if that can be called trade in which there is no pretence of bargains^ — has certainly been carried on in those parts. This is not the first

occasion on which the practice has been exposed and denounced. Natives were decoyed on board emigrant ships or ordinary traders, and then forcibly carried off to the labor market. An ostensible system of emigration only served to furnish opportunities of kidnapping, for it became hard to prove that any complainant or sufferer had not more or less consciously been a party to a voluntary compact. This much we know already, and the description, therefore, given by the Bishop of the state of things actually prevailing is only too credible.

Nevertheless, we should 'be deviating For remainder of news see fourth page.

from the line of policy prescribed by Bishop Patteson . himself if we decided hastily on the subject or without due inquiry. It is a subject liable above all others to exaggeration, and it may be observed that the Bishop does not condemn the system which was thus atrociously abused. He does not say that the transfer of labor from the South Sea Islands to Australia is to be deprecated, or that the practice would he disadvantageous to the natives themselves. We should infer, indeed, from his remarks that he would have been disposed to encourage it, if only it could have been placed under regulations providing against abuse. In point of fact, no harm is done, while much good may be effected by the removal of savages to a civilised land, where tbey may acquire the arts of industry, imbibe the principles of progress, and qualify themselves for the instruction of others on the return to their native country. We say nothing at present of the exigencies of Australia or of the necessity of imported labor to the interests of that colony. We are content to regard the question from the point of view which was doubtless taken by the Bishop, and to consider only the interests of the islanders themselves. In this light the case appears one not for repression, but for regulation. Bishop Patteson's own suggestions were both simple and practicable. He desired merely that "two men-of-war " might be stationed in those waters to exercise a right of search and prevent emigration from degenerating into slave trade. Rules should be prescribed for the engagement- transport, and treatment of volunteer laborers, and the vigilance of a British crusier or two would do the rest. It will probably occur to those conversant with the subject that the most judicious and stringent of regulations might fail to meet all the difficulties involved, but such a system would at any rate render impossible such proceedings as have now cost a valuable life, and it certainly seems that a ship or two might in these days be at least as usefully employed in the Pacific as on the coast of Asia.

If we contrast the details of this melancholy narrative with those of the stories told a century since, we shall find little reason to congratulate ourselves upon the superiority of our own age. In former times the murder of Europeans did but represent the instincts of untutored barbarism. The natural impulse of a savage is to look upon a stranger as an enemy, and a sentiment of hardly irrational alarm probably enters into the animosity expressed. The men who fell upon a boat's creW with clubs and arrows believed themselves to be acting in self-defence, but now we find savages once reclaimed from barbarism relapsing into their primi tive habits from actual experience of white men's cruelty. The islanders in question had once been friendly, communicative, and docile ; they became resentful and bloodthirsty under the infliction of wrongs at the hands of those whose duty it was to instruct and improve them. The murderers of Captain Cook had the excuse of ignorance and savagery ; the murderers of Bishop Patteson, if they had any excuse, had the excuse of a provocation which their victim had been one of the first to acknowledge and deplore.

A Mrs. Dickins has discovered a famous remedy for cases of severe burning or scalding, and like a true philanthropist has hastened to present it to the world. She wrote (says the Argus) to the committee of the Melbourne Hospital, informing them that an almost infallible remedy for such cases was to envelop the patient in common table salt, keeping it on for several hours after pain had ceased to be felt, lest the skin should peel off. The communication was referred, with a great deal of unnecessary gravity, to the medical staff to report upon. When slave-holders were in the habit of flogging their niggers and filling the sores with cayenne pepper, soft-hearted people raised a great outcry. What will be said if the wretched patients in the hospital with skins parched and cracked by the heat of fire or water, are to endure the excruciating agonies of being pickled in salt in this remorseless way ? The fate of Lot's wife would be happiness in comparison. Mrs. Dickins quietly observes in her letter — "All pain will cease to be felt after two or three hours of this treatment." We should think so.

Dr. CuionNG's new work, " The Cities of the,iNations Fell," is published, and his friends will probably be much interested in the following, which bears on the same subject : The Bangalore Herald says — " A prophecy is going the rounds, said to be delivered out of heaven only lately by the mouth of Mahomed himself, that in 1872 (this year) * the sun will rise in the west, ascend in the sky about the height of a lance from the horizon, and then set ; after that a storm will arise, it will rain fourteen days and nights ; frightful voices will be heard, from hearing which the unfaithful will die ; the letters of the

Koran will fade, and love and modesty will leave the face of the earth.' "

Resistance to Fire.— The flexibility or easiness found in American institutions manifests itself also in the individual character. Not a little of the surprising energy and spirit displayed by individuals after the fire, may be traced to the absence of that appreciation of the weight of circumstances which, like his liability to the laws, presses so heavily upon the Englishman. Mr. Joseph Medil!, for example, is one of the proprietors of lhe Chicago Tribune. It was thought that the Tribune office, a huge block of marble, might resist the fire ; the neighbouring journalists sent in their presses, and the staff teemed to have wailed for the flames as they would for an enemy's attack. Despite the strength of the building, however, the flames " lickeJ in," and Mr. Joseph Medill walked out, to purchase there and then a store at some distance and a couple of machines, with which, before his old office had grown cold, he was circulating Tribunes to the public. It is impossible not to admire such energy, and impossible not to suspect that one source of it was indifference ; that Mr. Medill did not really care as an Englishman would have done ; that his heart was not choking, and his brain bursting wiih a sense of defeat and pain, as an Englishman's would have been. There is something of " What does it signify ?" in it all, as there is in the Mayor's vigorous and benevolent leap through the laws. A merchant burryiDg back to Chicago to see what had become of house and home is said to have met a friend nnd asked him of their fate. '• House burned, wile safe at our fathers, papers all right," was the reply whereupon the merchaut replied, " Well, when a man has his wife and his papers, what more does he want." ' Heroic stoicism,' says the listener, and there ia heroism and stoicism too in the speech; and so also there is indifference in easiness, fluidity of feeling on points which would have touched an Englishman very deeply. The American cared about his wife and about his papers, but ahout his house and its associations and their sudden disappearance out of this life be did care at all.

Australian Wool in California. — A large sheep farmer in the South-east has received a communication from the manager of the Mission and Pacific Woollen Mills in San Francisco wiih reference to some samples of South Australian wools sent them. The document contains information with respect to the present aod future markets in California, which will be of interest to woolgrowers, and therefore we publish the following extract : — " When you wrote you did not seem to be aware that our Mr. M'Lennan was down purchasing wool on this mill's account. He has letters of credit to purchase one and a half million lbs., the half of which we intend to place on this market, the other part to use in our own trade. He is expected in New Zealand this month, and home end of January, therefore it is too late for you to get information from him. We have inspected the samples, and from our own experience of wool received from Australia this past eight months, and the state of the wool market here, we think your samples would certainly realise at least, after paying duty, insurance, freight, and commission on tbe greasy sample 30c. to 32c. gold (Is. 4d. sterling) and on the washed 65c. to 70c. gold (2s. lid. sterling) per lb. 1 regret I have not had time to show your samples to our friends, Messrs. Allan and Cameron, Granuetteville, Mass., a worsted manufactory, who use these fine (wools) Australian combing wools. Tomorrow I send him samples, and will advise you hy next steamer. I know these wools are the most valuable in this country, and he might possibly go a much higher figure than the above. Owing to a duty it is almost impossible to import other than greasy fleece, which is 10c. per lb., 11 per cent, ad valorem', washed, 20c, and 11 per cent, advalorem; scoured, 30c, and 11 per cent, ad valorem. For this reason, greasy fleece, owing to American competition, has been much higher in the London sales than their value, or in comparison with scoured and washed wools, and is likely to continue so one year; for we all expect large reductions of the duty; probably wholly these tariff duties will be wiped out by this Congress wbich has just met. The country universally demands the abrogation of ail duties upon raw material. The effect from tbe American demand in the markets of the world will be a still further advance in wool values, which will be cheaper to us of course (less duties), but will make the old country manufacturers squaring. I congratulate you Australian woolgrowers on the good time in store for you." — South Australian Advertiser, January 31.

Australasia's Future. — It is not speculating extravagantly to predict that Australia and New Zealand will, at no distant date, be extensive manufacturers of woollen goods. We have all the natural conditions that are requisite for

the production of the raw material, wool, even-as America has a soil and climate specially adapted to the growth of cotton. As industrial development progresses in America and the co-operative movement comes into full play, England will lose her place among nations as a great cotton manufacturing country, and the United States will become the chief home of that industry. In like manner, the conditions being as favorable, this country will in time locally utilise for manufacturing purposes a large proportion of the fleeces grown on the Australian continent. Woollen manufacture is not, as in the time of the Flemings, a secret art, nor is Australia compelled by Eng'and, as America was compelled in the early period of her history, to abstain from manufacturing wool into cloth. We have set the capitalist wheel in motion, and English machinists are as ready to supply us with the most approved plant as English workmen are willing to sell us the best skill, and we are free, therefore, to enter into a trade that played no small part in laving the foundation of British wealth and greatness. We have now two woollen factories at Geelong, a third is on the point of commencing active operations in Melbourne, and for a fourth Ballarat has raised the necessary capital to render the early establishment of the industry on that goldfield a certainty. The province of Otago in New Zealand has also in operation at Mosgiel a woollen factory that is supplying both islands with a large variety of articles of common use. Like the first Geelong factory, the New Zealand establishment was brought into existence by a Government bonus, the sum being £ 1500 for the first 500 yards of material produced from the mill. No colony has yet attempted to emulate the famous experiment of the Melbourne free traders, therefore there is no other failure to be recorded. The new Victorian companies will start with everything in their favour. The free traders boastfully declare that they would make the industry pay without a bonus, and under all disadvantages. They certainly subscribed the capital, and imported the necessary machinery, but by the time the latter arrived their courage oozed out at their fingers' ends, and, without so much as unpacking their consignments, they turned their back upon the speculation, and lei! to a company of wiser men the task of doing under protective laws that which they tacitly admitted they were themselves unable to perform with the blessing* of free trade — Melbourne Leader. ■ }