Page:What I Know Of The Labour Traffic.djvu/10

8 And now contemplate the modern "fishers of men," and consider how an ancient and sacred title having lost all its divine meaning, should be revived in a Christian land to depict the practice of some modern Christians when committing acts which cannot be otherwise characterised than insulting to the name of Christ, because they outrage his humanity.

It is of course generally believed that the Government Agent attached to each of these labour vessels is an absolute security against the possibility of such an irregularity as that hinted at above being carried out. Alack! Government Agents are but men, and some are notorious for being as frail as—say woman—there are ways of manipulating a Government Agent, even as there are ways of lubricating the Government appointing him, and the Government Agent has been as big a sham as any other sham ever designed to quiet the mind of a sensitive public having votes. Indeed the traffic in Islanders is so full of mystery, and surrounded by so much weakness, and inexperience, to say nothing of imbecility and prejudice on the one hand, and brutal selfishness on the other, that much care is needed in handling it, lest for one thing we be found, in an excess of zeal to be uprooting wheat while we go spudding up the tares.

Let me help you to penetrate this mystery. Not only are owners of vessels and big grocers deeply interested in the Kanaka fishery, but hundreds of smaller fry are even much more eager for its continuance; the planter of course is anxious, but the little shop keepers of the Northern towns who sell things to Kanakas at a rate of profit ranging up to 265 per cent, are going mad, and mob the Premier and his private secretary with deputations and newsmongers, yelling at the top of their voices "Sirs, ye know that by this craft we have our wealth, keep it up or you will go down," using much more forcible language than I can command. The Premier promises and is glad to get away. Then when the Premier is out of sight the small shop keepers begin like the priests of Baal, to cry aloud and to spare not saying that North Queensland is going to the devil—or it is going to separate—or that it is going to drop sugar, and then there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

The explanation is this: Close to every large plantation, or cluster of plantations, the dealers in men have numerous smaller people who keep little stores for the sale of kickshaws, such as the Kanaka loves.

Every one thousand Kanakas will spend in three years at these little shops the sum of eighteen thousand pounds sterling, in glass beads, Brummagem trumpery and Sydney goods. This stuff which realises for the traders in human beings the sum of eighteen thousand pounds does not cost the fishers of Kanakas one thousand pounds!