NUMBERS OF THE LIVING AGE WANTED. The publishers are in want of Nos. 1179 and 1180 (dated respectively Jan. 5th and Jan. 12th, 1867) of THE LIVING AGE. To cubscribers, or others, who will do us the favor to send us either or both of those numbers, we will return an equivalent, either in our publications or in cash, until our wants are supplied. PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY BY FOR EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers. the LIVING AGE will be punctually for warded for a year, free of postage. But we do not prepay postage on less than a year, nor when we have to pay commission for forwarding the money; nor when we club THE LIVING AGE with another perfodical. An extra copy of THE LIVING AGE is sent gratis to any one getting up a club of Five New Subscribers Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & GAY. "Mother, set us down among the grasses! Mother, we are hungry!" they now cry; Watching the bright water as it passes, There they sit, between the sea and sky. Higher crawls the sea with deep intoning, Passing every flood-mark far or near'Tis the high tide!" cries the mother, moaning, "Coming only once in many a year!" Higher higher! lapping round the island Pale primroses sweet and newly born. Smaller grows the isle where they sit sobbing, On their names a man's strong voice doth cry, "God be praised!" the mother crieth, kneeling. "He hath heard our prayer and help is nigh." "Father!" cry the children, "this way, father! Here we are," aloud cry girl and boy Comes the boat-the children round it gather- While the pale stars glimmer in the blue. Round them in the tranquil evening weather All the scene seems strange as strange can be: Waves that wash green fields and knolls of heather, Lonely trees up-peeping from the sea. FINISHING THE WORK. EVER in life is a work to do, Knowledge hath still some more to know; Say not, e'en at thy latest date, Graces to nurture; snares to shun; This is a work which will ne'er be done. Only One, when he bowed the head, Where on the cross he for thee had bled, Rightly then, It is finished," said. 66 S From The British Quarterly Review. KIDNAPPING IN THE SOUTH SEAS.* NINE years ago religious society in England was startled to find that an energetic attempt was being made in South America to extend the system of slavery. Seven vessels, fitted with all the appliances of the slave-ships of former days, commanded by Spanish officers, and manned by mixed crews, had started from Callao, had visited numerous islands of the South Pacific, and had carried away hundreds of their simple inhabitants to work in the Peruvian mines. These vessels were fitted out by a well-known firm in Lima; and they had done their work with such success that before the humane Governments of the world could interfere, they had secured more than 2,000 persons, and disposed of them among the planters of Chili and Peru. The atrocious speculation, however, proved a failure. Loss and damage were suffered on every side. So crowded were many of the vessels that the captives died on the voyage. Even in Peru the mortality was excessive. The islanders, who had been born and trained amid the warm sea-breezes of the Pacific, ill-fed and ill-clad, could not bear the cold night winds which sweep down from the Cordilleras and dysentery and fever carried them off in large numbers. And when the indignation of the humane, and the official remonstrances of the French and English Governments, compelled the Peruvians to surrender their plunder, not forty per cent. of those who had lost their liberty were returned to their former homes. (1.) Further Correspondence relating to the Importation of South Sea Islanders into Queensland; in continuation of House of Commons Papers, Nos. 391 and 496, of 1868; and No. 408 of 1869; No. 468, House of Commons, August 17, 1871. (2.) Kidnapping in the South Seas. Narrative of a three months' Cruise in Her Majesty's ship Rosario. By Captain GEORGE PALMER, R.N. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. 1871. (8.) The Polynesian Labour Traffic and the Murder of Bishop Patteson. Proceedings of a Meeting in London, Dec. 13, 1871. William Tweedie, Strand. 1872. (4.) The Slave Trade in the New Hebrides. Pa pers read at the Annual Meeting of the New Hebrides Mission, held at theIsland of Aniwa, July, 1871. Edited by Rev. JOHN KAY, Coatbridge. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas. 1872. (4.) In Quest of Coolies. By JAMES L. A. HOPE. Henry S. King and Co. Again has that indignation been aroused by a new effort to perpetuate these cruelties. But this time the transgressors are Englishmen; the kidnapping vessels are owned and manned by Englishmen ; the lands to which the captives are carried are settled by Englishmen; and it is entirely for English profit that the system has been defended and carried on. Happily, therefore, the reproach falls upon the whole empire; and the cure of the evil lies in English hands. It was in the beginning of 1863 that Captain Towns a settler in Queensland, who owned an estate of 4,000 acres, in the neighbourhood of Brisbane, and who had employed South Sea Islanders on his little coasting vessels, conceived the plan of procuring natives from the islands as labourers for this estate. He accordingly despatched a vessel to seek for them. The effort was made openly; the vessel was properly fitted, fair wages were promised, and a circular letter was addressed to such missionaries as the vessel might fall in with, asking their kind co-operation, and engaging to give fair treatment to the people who might come. The vicious element also entered into the system from the first. A man named Ross Lewin, who had lived in various places in the South Seas for twenty years, and whose name is now identified with the worst scandals of the traffic and is execrated throughout the islands, was sent in the vessel as second mate and supercargo; and he was instructed to "get seventy, if you can;" but "even fifty will be worth while." No wonder that with such elastic instructions Ross Lewin obtained sixty-five labourers, and became superintendent on the estate. The islanders were, doubtless, nearly all volunteers; they were humanely treated; they were engaged for two or three years; and at the termination of their service were duly paid, and were assisted to return home. The example spread. Another house, and then another, sent for labourers. A competition sprang up, and by October, 1867, 984 labourers had been procured, of whom 400 were working at the northern ports, chiefly Bowen; and of whom no less than 225 had been brought in the previous the edie d 财 August by a singie vessel, the King Oscar. | agement of estates, or the removal and They were no longer procured for a par- transport of timber; but all heavy out ticular house, which fitted the vessel, and door labour is unsuited to their constitutook entire control. Masters of vessels tion, and fever and sunstroke can be its went out at their own risk; they found it only result. to their interest to go where they liked, and to manage as best they could. On their return the planters gladly divided the living freight; and the price paid, called " passage-money," was about £10 sterling. A few sharp-sighted men in Fiji heard of the plan, and speedily adopted it. And thus a system, at first well-intentioned and humane, was set going, under which rough English sailors, under mates and masters perhaps rougher still, found it a source of gain to fetch and carry, without inspection and without control, the simple and uncivilized natives of the Polynesian groups, and dispose of them to the men who would pay highest for the trouble involved in procuring them. From the first the Lords of the Admiralty disliked the system. The naval of ficers on the Australian station knew only too well the character and proceedings of the English sailors who traded about the colonial ports and the accessible stations of the South Seas. The Colonial Office felt doubtful, and suggested to the Queensland Government that it should interfere; and at length, on March 4, 1868, that Government passed a Labour Act, and placed the employment of the islanders, if not their importation, under some measure of control. The colony of Queensland, unlike New South Wales, Victoria, or New Zealand, has one special reason for desiring an immigration of the dark races rather than of whites. A large portion of the colony runs up. far into the tropics, whence that district has received the name of Capricornia. Though the air is fresh and bracing, and the land is canopied by a sky of brilliant blue, the climate is hot, the soil is rocky, thin, and poor; the sun is powerful, and it is impossible for the harder processes of agriculture to be carried on to any extent by the white races of temperate climes. As in Texas and Arizona, Englishmen may superintend the herding of sheep, cattle, and horses, the general man With the Fiji Islands the case is different. There the soil is rich and fertile, and cotton and sugar will grow almost without measure. The larger islands, Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, are entirely in possession of the native races; and for many years were given up to the wars, the violence, the utter cruelty and cannabalism, for which the fierce tribes of Fiji have been notorious. The victories of the Gospel, through the agency of the Wesleyan Mission, have wrought a great change, and have rendered intercourse with Europeans safe and profitable for both parties. Five years ago the pretty island of Ovalau, with its rich woods and turret-like hills, was found to be a safe as well as attractive place of residence, and a considerable number of whites resorted to the settlement. The worst class, as usual, in these English colonies, came first; happily the better men, with their families and little capital, soon followed; and the port of Levuka became quite a thriving town. Ere long a "rush" took place from Melbourne and New Zealand, and several hundred settlers landed in a few months, all anxious to secure the fruitful cotton lands. Finding some difficulty in getting the Fiji natives into their employ as labourers, the settlers took the hint from the planters of Peru and Queensland. But from the first the majority of these gentlemen repudiated any resort to violence; they determined to treat all native immigrants well, and in public meeting asked for the interference of her Majesty's Consul, Mr. Thurston, and accepted the regulations which he framed for their coolie traffic. It is a fact worthy of note that while the educated classes in England are in the main opposed to slavery, and are found to treat the dark races of the world with kindness and humanity, the common classes of Englishmen deal with them very roughly. In India none hold the natives in such contempt, and are so ready to strike them as English soldiers and seamen. The English mechanics who superintend native d 1 3 workmen in iron foundries, printing offi- To the west of Fiji and north-east of ces, and furniture factories, unable to ex- New Caledonia lies a group of important plain things in the Mahrati, Tamil, or Ben- islands, peopled by a peculiar medley of gali languages, at once call the workmen races. This is the great group called the stupid, and explain their meaning by kicks New Hebrides; it consists of eight large and blows. Throughout Polynesia no islands and more than thirty small ones, Englishmen were ever so hard upon the amongst which the island of Ambrym is native races as common sailors and those reckoned one of the most lovely in all the officers who had raised themselves from the South Pacific. The group is so unbefore the mast; and it was a most un- healthy that strangers cannot live in it happy thing that it was precisely into the with comfort. In some strange way unhands of this large class of men that the known to history, the people have been entire immigrant traffic fell, until it has thrown into this group from many quarended in piracy, kidnapping, and murder, ters, and seem to have had no connection and has brought reproach upon the Eng- with one another. No less than twenty lish name throughout the civilized world. separate languages are spoken in the In one or two localities special circum-group, and the learning of one of those stances were found to favour the wishes tongues is no help to the attainment of of the English planters in leading the na- any other. The whole population numtives to emigrate to a foreign soil. In the bers about 60,000 people, all belonging to French settlements under the Governor of the Papuan branch of the Polynesian New Caledonia, especially in the Loyalty tribes. To the north-east of this group lies Islands, the hand of the Government has a small cluster of islands of the same kind pressed very hard upon the people. On called the Banks Islands. To the northmany occasions the religious persecution west are the Solomon Archipelago, which of the Protestants by the priests and local curve round westward towards New Briauthorities, heavy taxation, restrictions tain and New Guinea. on personal liberty, and forced labour, It was to the New Hebrides groups that have irritated the people greatly. Was it the recruiting vessels turned for their supbto be wondered at that the young and ac-ply of labourers, and for a while the halftive were anxious to get away; and that taught heathen of Tanna, Erromanga, on many occasions they swam after an and Vate (Sandwich Island) were the obEnglish vessel before she could clear the ject of their special efforts. The Christian barrier reefs, and felt glad to be taken on population of the southern island, Aneitboard? Many such wanderers found their yum, would have nothing to do with them. way to Queensland. The people of Niue, As the year 1868 passed away, and the the "Savage Island" of Cook, had for sev-area visited by the recruiting vessels eral generations held no intercourse with widened, rumours became numerous that the outside world; but when they be- all which had been feared in respect to the came Christians, and heard of other lands, ill-treatment of the heathen islanders had a natural reaction from the exclusive sys- been more than realized. Now a missiontem laid their young men open to the same ary or a missionary's wife described in some desire for travel, and many of them found letter to an Australian friend some deed their way to Samoa and the plantations of of violence witnessed with his or her own Tahiti. But this voluntary emigration eyes; then some cook or sailor on board was limited, and was confined to the Chris- one of the vessels gave details of the visits tian islands. In the presence of English which he had paid to the islands, and the missionaries, captains and crews could only seizure of persons which he had seen; or offer various forms of gain to the natives, some Queensland newspaper described the as inducements to leave home. The out-proceedings of the police courts, and cry against Peru made them afraid to showed that in not a few instances immipractise violence or fraud in mission sta- grants preferred to be sent to jail rather tions. They therefore steered their ves- than go back to the masters who flogged sels to another quarter. and starved them. |