work; the men for planting and out-of-door work; but no one, white or black, is to be too grand to do his share. The Bishop's share, indeed, is to study and investigate and compare the languages and necessary translations, but no one is to be above manual labour. No one, because he is a white man, is to say, 'Here, black fellow, come and clean my boots.' 'Here, black people, believe that I have come to give you a treasure of inestimable price. Meantime, work for me, am I not your superior? Can I not give you money, calico, what not?'
'This Christian democracy, if I may so call it, has worked well in the long run.'
This observer does seem to have entered well into the spirit of the place; and there can be no doubt that the plan and organisation of the Mission had by this time been well tested and both found practicable, and, as at present worked, more than ordinarily successful. The college was in full working order, with a staff of clergy, all save one formed under the Bishop, one native deacon and two teachers living with their wives in a population that was fast becoming moulded by the influence of Christianity, many more being trained up, and several more islands in course of gradual preparation by the same process as was further advanced in Mota.
Such were the achievements which could be thankfully recounted by the end of 1869.
CHAPTER XII. THE LAST EIGHTEEN MONTHS. 1870-1871.
The prosperous days of every life pass away at last. Suffering and sorrow, failure and reverse are sure to await all who live out anything like their term of years, and the missionary is perhaps more liable than other men to meet with a great disappointment. 'Success but signifies vicissitude,' and looking at the history of the growth of the Church, it is impossible not to observe that almost in all cases, immediately upon any extensive progress, there has followed what seems like a strong effort of the Evil One at its frustration, either by external persecution, reaction of heathenism, or, most fatally and frequently during the last 300 years, from the reckless misdoings of unscrupulous sailors and colonists. The West Indies, Japan, America, all have the same shameful tale to tell-what wonder if the same shadow were to be cast over the Isles of the South?
It is one of the misfortunes, perhaps the temptations of this modern world, that two of its chief necessaries, sugar and cotton, require a climate too hot for the labour of men who have intelligence enough to grow and export them on a large scale, and who are therefore compelled, as they consider, to employ the forced toil of races able to endure heat. The Australian colony of Queensland is unfit to produce wheat, but well able to grow sugar, and the islands of Fiji, which the natives have implored England to annex, have become the resort of numerous planters and speculators. There were 300 white inhabitants in the latter at the time of the visit of the 'Curacoa' in 1865. In 1871 the numbers were from 5,000 to 6,000. Large sheep farms have been laid out, and sugar plantations established.
South Sea Islanders are found to have much of the negro toughness and docility, and, as has been seen, when away from their homes they are easily amenable, and generally pleasant in manner, and intelligent. Often too they have a spirit of enterprise, which makes them willing to leave home, or some feud with a neighbour renders it convenient. Thus the earlier planters did not find it difficult to procure willing labourers, chiefly from those southern New Hebrides, Anaiteum, Tanna, Erromango, which were already accustomed to intercourse with sandal-wood traders, had resident Scottish or London missionaries, and might have a fair understanding of what they were undertaking.
The Fiji islanders themselves had been converted by Wesleyan Missionaries, and these, while the numbers of imported labourers were small, did not think ill of the system, since it provided the islanders with their great need, work, and might give them habits of industry. But in the years 1868 and 1869 the demand began, both in Queensland and Fiji, to increase beyond what could be supplied by willing labour, and the premium, £8 a head, on an able-bodied black, was sufficient to tempt the masters of small craft to obtain the desired article by all possible means. Neither in the colony nor in Fiji were the planters desirous of obtaining workers by foul means, but labour they must have, and they were willing to pay for it. Queensland, anxious to free herself from any imputation of slave- hunting, has drawn up a set of regulations, requiring a regular contract to be made with the natives before they are shipped, for so many years, engaging that they shall receive wages, and be sent home again at the end of the specified time. No one denies that when once the labourer has arrived, these rules are carried out; he is well fed, kindly treated, not over worked, and at the end of three or five years sent home again with the property he has earned.
A recent traveller has argued that this is all that can be desired, and that no true friend of the poor islander can object to his being taught industry and civilisation. Complaints are all 'missionary exaggeration,' that easy term for disposing of all defence of the dark races, and as to the difficulty of making a man, whose language is not understood, understand the terms of a contract-why, we continually sign legal documents we do not understand! Perhaps not, but we do understand enough not to find ourselves bound to five years' labour when we thought we were selling yams, or taking a pleasure trip. And we have some means of ascertaining the signification of such documents, and of obtaining redress if we have been deceived.
As to the boasted civilisation, a sugar plantation has not been found a very advanced school for the American or West Indian negro, and as a matter of fact, the islander who has fulfilled his term and comes home, bringing tobacco, clothes, and fire-arms, only becomes a more dangerous and licentious savage than he was in his simplicity. It is absolutely impossible, even if the planters wished it, to give any instruction to these poor fellows, so scattered are the settlements, so various the languages on each, and to send a man home with guns and gunpowder, and no touch of Christian teaching, is surely suicidal policy.
Yet, as long as the natives went in any degree willingly, though the Missionaries might deplore their so doing for the men's own sakes, and for that of their islands, it was only like a clergyman at home seeing his lads engage themselves to some occupation more undesirable than they knew. Therefore, the only thing that has been entreated for by all the missions of every denomination alike in the South Seas, has been such sufficient supervision of the labour traffic as may prevent deceit or violence from being used.
For, in the years 1869 and 1870, if not before, the captains of the labour ships, finding that a sufficient supply of willing natives could not be procured, had begun to cajole them on board. When they went to trade, they were thrust under hatches, and carried off, and if the Southern New Hebrides became exhausted, and the labour ships entered on those seas where the 'Southern Cross' was a welcome visitor, these captains sometimes told the men that 'the Bishop gave no pipes and tobacco, he was bad, they had better hold with them.' Or else 'the Bishop could not come himself, but had sent this vessel to fetch them.' Sometimes even a figure was placed on deck dressed in a black coat, with a book in his hand, according to the sailors' notion of a missionary, to induce the natives to come on deck, and there they were clapped under hatches and carried off.
In 1870, H.M.S. 'Rosario,' Captain Palmer, brought one of these vessels, the 'Daphne,' into Sydney, where the master was tried for acts of violence, but a conviction could not be procured, and, as will be seen in the correspondence, Bishop Patteson did not regret the failure, as he was anxious that ships of a fair size, with respectable owners, should not be deterred from the traffic, since the more it became a smuggling, unrecognised business, the worse and more unscrupulous men would be employed in it.
But decoying without violence began to fail; the natives were becoming too cautious, so the canoes were upset, and the men picked up while struggling in the water. If they tried to resist, they were shot at, and all endeavours at a rescue were met with the use of firearms.
They were thus swept off in such numbers, that small islands lost almost all their able-bodied inhabitants, and were in danger of famine for want of their workers. Also, the Fiji planters, thinking to make the men happier by bringing their wives, desired that this might be done, but it was not easy to make out the married couples, nor did the crews trouble themselves to do so, but took any woman they could lay hands on. Husbands pursued to save the wives, and were shot down, and a deadly spirit of hatred and terror against all that was white was aroused.
There is a still lower depth of atrocity, but as far as enquiry of the Government at Sydney can make out, unconnected with labour traffic, but with the tortoise-shell trade. Skulls, it will be remembered, were the ornament of old Iri's house at Bauro, and skulls are still the trophies in the more savage islands. It seems that some of the traders in tortoise-shell are in the habit of assisting their clients by conveying them in their vessels in pursuit of heads. There is no evidence that they actually do the work of slaughter themselves, though suspicion is strong, but these are the 'kill-kill' vessels in the patois of the Pacific, while the kidnappers are the 'snatch-snatch.' Both together, these causes were working up the islanders to a perilous pitch of suspicion and exasperation during the years 1870, 1871, and thus were destroying many of the best hopes of the fruit of the toils of all these years. But the full extent of the mischief was still unknown in Norfolk Island, when in the midst of the Bishop's plans for the
