PLANTATION LIFE IN FIJI.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 257, 25 October 1873, Page 2

PLANTATION LIFE IN FIJI.

Some interesting letters on the subject of the Pacific Labor Trade have appeared in The Argus, from the special correspondent- of that journal, who has recently been investigating the matter at Fiji and , the South Seas. We extract from his fourth letter the following description of the life of the laborers on Fiji plantations; — The life of a plantation hand in Fiji is easily described.' He sleeps in a thatched reed house iike that of his master, and in mosquito curtains if he lives in a district where mosquitoes are troublesome. He gets two good meals of yams a-day, which is quite sufficient to keep him in health with the bread-fruit, cocoanut, bananas, and sugar-cane, he can help himself to from the bush. [Two regular meals a-day is a general rule, but Messrs Brewer and Joßke, who have a large and prospering sugar plantation in Sarva Harbor, . give three meals a-day, and so do some other planters.] At daylight he is turned out to work by the sound of a bell or native drum. At ten o'clock he has time allowed for breakfast, and if he is not on taskwork; he works again until nearly sundown, when he goes home to supper, prepared by those who have been told off as cooks, and he spends the evening in singing and dancing and telling stories. There is not a more gladsome sight than tbat of a large party of foreign laborers met together for an evening's amusement. The sounds of their merriment may often be heard several miles off. The better class of planters also do all they can to encourage their men in innocent sports, such as running and jumping, which they enter into with much zest. In many cases the men receive tasks in the morning, and

by little extra industry they then finish work at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, when they spend the remainder of the day in ' fishing or shooting witb a gun, which is never withheld from a well-conducted man. There is always a half-holiday on Saturday, the time is then similarly spent, l the result being a grand Sunday dinner; On Sundays a few of the men, if within reach of a neighbouring plantation, will always put on their gayest attire, and go ; visiting friends or relatives, with whom they compare notes as to the date of the termination of their several periods of servitude, and talk the gossip of the district. The married couples generally have separate houses, with their own cooking utensils, and there are little plots of ground apportioned : to the laborers, which they cultivate for their own use. On plantations like these, the hands, having had certain tasks allotted them, are often left to themselves' for days together. When the employer returns he finds that the work has been proceeding' '■■ as usual, and that perhaps an act of insubordination has been punished -by the colored overseer. A case of this kind occurred not very long ago. The owner returning to his plantation after some days' absence, found that his. foreign overseer had got a man in irons, and was keeping him there pending the arrival of his employer. On plantations of this character the men have full confidence that they will be returned on the* expiration of their period of servitude, and when the time for return home comes they part with their masters with every appearance of sinceregrief. On being paid off, many of the laborers are very particular 'that a gun shall form part of the payment. Some of them practice shooting constantly with the avowed object of being able to kill some particular enemy when they get home again. On arriving on a plantation, the first thing they do is to satisfy themselves that their employer understands the term for which they are to serve. If 'men are engaged for three years on a plantation next to one where men are engaged for five years, the short service men lose no opportunity of mentioning to their neighbors the advantage they have over them, for the wish to return home is never absent, however willing the laborer may have emigrated. The foreign laborers who arrive in Fiji are generally accompanied by a few women, some of whom become housekeepers to the planters. This is. a very objectionable feature of the traffic, and -one which it will be difficult to remove. The Fijian Government has issued, a Gazette regulation forbidding the transfer of women to bachelors* plantations ; but the regulation cannot be enforced everywhere. The same objectionable system prevails to some extent on the plantations in India and Ceylon. It is, in fact, one of the results which always follow upon the contact of a superior with an inferior race. The imported laborers are also liable to be abused in the matter of payment, owing tb the want of adequate Government supervision in Fiji. Numbers of them have been sent home with boxes full of rubbish, instead of the £9 worth of goods -they were entitled to ; and in , not a few instances captains of ships returning labor, on discovering how the poor creaturehave been duped, have paid them va. paijfc out of their own pockets, rather than face the difficulty of landing men emptyhanded—a difficulty which would at least prevent any of the friends or relatives of the ill-used laborers engaging. Between fifty and, sixty white men have, lost their lives in .this traffic during the last seven years. Many labor vessels have aailed away, and have never again been heard of. Others have come back with a couple of Polynesian sailors, and the report that all the other hands have been massacred. It is true that there have been instances of cruel treatment of laborers on the plantations, but ..these are. , exceptional cases. It is the interest of the employer to treat his men well, because he knows tbat he cannot otherwise be . a successful planter ; but the brutality of individual overseers cannot always be guarded against. Polynesians are sometime- inhumanly treated in. Fiji, anil 'it is 'as.! necessary that all plantations should be under strict Government supervision as that societies for the suppression of cruelty animals should exist in the most civilised communities. There are Legrees as well as St. Clairs in Fiji, but the former are the exceptions. There are many men who cannot be trusted with absolute or irresponsible power, either overLdumb animals or human beings; but it is impossible to believe tbat a body of: men such as seventenths of the Queensland and Fiji planters are composed of would be systematically cruel to their bondsmen. -There have, nevertheless, but one or two cases of a flagrant kind in Fiji. One planter told me that he had been obliged to dismiss an overseer who . had adopted _ the ' plan of prodding his men with a sharpened sapling or a burning stick. Another planter re- -->'-'- ' :.'.'■•;'• ". -' r '.Y '.'■'■• i:^ >j.>\<Uar,pi