The Telegraph (Brisbane), Wednesday, 3 January 1894, p. 5
Beche-de-Mer Fishery. Uninviting Business.
CONDITIONS OF BOATS’ CREWS. “Unspeakably Squalid and
Dirty.”
LETTER FROM HON. JOHN DOUGLAS.
The Colonial Secretary has received a communication from the
Hon. John Douglas, Government Resident at Thursday Island, in regard to recent
outrages by gulf natives, and the conditions under which the bêche-de-mer
fishing industry is carried on. The statements and proposals made in the letter
are receiving the consideration of the Government. The letter is as follows:—
Government Residency,
Thursday Island, Torres Straits,
December 16, 1893.
Sir,—It has doubtless not escaped your attention that there
have lately been an unusual number of outrages perpetrated in connection with
the bêche-de-mer industry.
I do not propose in this communication to refer to the
details of those outrages. It is desirable, however, that I should make some
general observations in connection with them for your information.
They have occurred almost invariably in boats or on stations
wholly manned or carried on by native labourers.
There have been and there still are employers who treat
these natives fairly on the whole, though they are completely at the mercy of
their masters, and it is quite impossible to exercise any such supervision as
is found necessary in the employment of gangs of South Sea Islanders or other
coloured labourers on sugar plantations. There are doubtless exceptional cases
of gross ill-treatment, though it would be very difficult to prove these. The
cases I refer to are generally those in which there is a starvation allowance
of food. I have, however, known cases where murder has been committed by the
natives in pure revenge for personal injuries and insults. But in the majority
of cases the moving cause in the perpetration of outrage is the desire to
return home.
They are recruited often willingly enough. They have heard
strange tales of the sea from their friends, and they willing to go on a cruise
for a time. They are shipped with the vaguest possible idea of their duties or
their obligations. They perhaps work willingly enough for a time, especially if
they are well fed. But whether they are fed well or ill, whether they are
treated badly or not, there comes over them, long before the expiry of their
legal agreement, an irrepressible desire to return to their own country and to
their tribal usages. They talk of this among themselves. There are always some
of them who know enough about the navigation of a lugger to enable them to
reach the mainland. Then they agree to seize the first favourable opportunity,
and they make a dash for freedom.
If they get a chance they run away with the boat, making
straight for the mainland, landing anywhere they can, and abandoning the boat.
If they find they cannot do this without killing their master, they avail
themselves of the first opportunity, and knock him on the head or pitch him
overboard. It is easily done, and if there is plenty of flour and tobacco on
board so much the better. Such is the history of most of these outrages.
Then as to the industry. It is conducted almost invariably
by men who have only small capital, and who have not the means to go into the
pearlshelling industry.
There are a few exceptions to this, but for the most part a
man who can afford to work a diving boat will have nothing to do with the bêche-de-mer
industry.
It will not pay to employ labour at it on a lugger on a
higher scale than 10s. a month, which is the usual covenanted scale for the
natives. It is not a nice business. Life on board one of these boats, or at the
station on the islands which are resorted to, is unspeakably squalid and dirty.
For some men, however, it has an attraction, and there is often associated with
it a good deal of illicit intercourse with native women. It is altogether a
nasty, stinking business, and at the present time it yields very small profits
to anyone connected with it. A few small commissions may be made by the agents
who consign the bêche-de-mer to China; but I think that most of these agents
would be only too glad to realise the advances made to the trade.
It may be asserted, indeed it has been broadly asserted by
the local Press, which is of an exceptionally unprincipled and inexperienced
type, that the present outbreak of atrocities is due to the presence of the
Moravian missionaries under the auspices of the Presbyterian Federal Church at
the Batavia River. It is further stated that the hands of the police are tied
by the fact that the missionaries have impeded their action, and checked their
efficiency. The statements thus made are most untrue, and most preposterous.
The missionaries have done all they could to facilitate the arrest of
offenders. The arrest of Harry Nichols’ would-be murderers was made by them,
and could not have been made without them. The police, moreover, are just as
zealous as ever, though they have been nearly worked off their feet. Their area
of influence has been from Somerset to the Seadon, about 10 miles to the north
of the Batavia. They have never attempted anything beyond this, along the
western shores of the peninsula, including the Jardine River and Seven Rivers.
Within that area they command, and have commanded, the willing co-operation of
the natives. Beyond it they have never attempted any permanent influence, and
have not the means at present to command it. The police have always acted most
willingly and zealously, and, on their behalf, I most indignantly deny that
they have on any occasion hesitated to do their duty when called upon to do so.
Indeed, both Mr. Subinspector Savage and Senior-constable
Conroy have suffered seriously in health from the hardships they have sometimes
had to undergo while camping out.
It is both cruel and ridiculous to attribute either to the
police or to the missionaries crimes which have their foundation in different
causes altogether.
It is said, no doubt, that the mission station at the
Batavia River is an asylum for some of those runaway murderers. It may be so.
This, however, I will say, that the fact that they have resorted to Mapoon has
enabled us to make some arrests, which we certainly could not otherwise have
made.
It is very evident to me that it will be necessary to adopt
some means to stop these outrages. It can be best done, I believe, by checking
the present system of recruiting; by making a strict scrutiny into the
character of those by whom they are recruited; and by not allowing the mainland
natives to be worked except in combination with other nationalities. In
the meantime I propose not to allow natives from the mainland to be shipped
except in boats where there is a sufficient proportion of South Sea Islanders,
Malays, and Japanese to render their presence harmless.
I shall be glad to know if this proposal meets with your
approval. If it is adopted I feel confident that the outrages will cease.—I am,
&c.,
JOHN DOUGLAS.
