Page:A few facts in connection with the Employment of Polynesian Labour in Queensland.djvu/4

2 description in responsible positions, journalists, travellers, and above all, missionaries and ministers of various religious denominations now in Queensland and on the mission field in the islands of Polynesia.

The persistence in this course of deliberate accusation of the Colonial Government, of brother ministers, of Government officers and ship-masters of high character, and of honourable business men engaged in a valuable and important industry giving employment to many thousands of European artisans and farmers, is altogether incomprehensible.

What, then, are Dr. Paton's charges? They are that the Kanaka Labour business "has been demoralising and ruinous to all connected with it"; that' 'the atrocious crimes and murders connected with the traffic are a disgrace to humanity and to all Queensland"; that "their long hours of labour and hard work and changed circumstances of food, clothing and houses, have caused unexampled mortality amongst the Kanakas"; that when they died they were buried like dogs"; that "dreadful immorality was encouraged amongst them"; that "the cruel oppression and bloodshed cry to to Heaven for vengeance"; and that "it is the worst kind of slavery."

Notwithstanding the overwhelming evidence produced for some time past disproving his allegations the reverend gentleman in the protest before mentioned to the Colonial Office speaks of "the evils that are heaped upon the defenceless Islanders just as they are emerging from the long black midnight of heathenism and cannibalism and of a deadly system that must lead to abuse, bloodshed and God-dishonouring cruelty, little short of that accursed thing called slavery."

It would be wearisome to recount all the evidence which has been brought forward officially or spontaneously to disprove in the fullest and amplest manner these charges. It will be sufficient to quote the statement of a few officials whose bona-fides cannot be called in question, and whose facilities for obtaining a true knowledge of the facts of the case Dr. Paton dare not deny. Then shall be ranged the testimony of ministers of religion, whose zeal for good works and the truth it would go hard with Dr. Paton to challenge, and whose high standing in the Christian world no zealot can impugn.

Rear Admiral Lord Charles Scott, C.B., Commander-in-Chief of the Australian Squadron of the Royal Navy, was instructed by the Imperial Government to watch the recruiting of Kanakas in the Islands of the Western Pacific, and his lordship, supported by Capt. Davies, of H.M.S. "Royalist," reported "No fault was to be found with the recruiting system since 1885," and that "he cannot, after careful consideration, condemn it."