370 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



Under the (Imperial) Pacific Islanders' Protection Acts of 

 1872 and 1875, naval officers were entrusted with formidable powers, 

 to be used at their discretion and on their own responsibility. 

 Naval interference, as a rule, amounted to a demonstration that an 

 irresistible power was to be reckoned with by white men or black 

 who overstepped the bounds of fair dealing or resorted to violence. 



After some chaotic years, the Government managed to regulate 

 the labour traffic for the fisheries in matters affecting recruiting 

 licences, term of service, remuneration and other conditions, and 

 the industry then settled down satisfactorily into working order. 



Captain Moresby, as we have already observed, appeared on 

 the scene in a period of transition. New Colonial legislation 

 regarding licences to recruit had just come into force, and such of 

 the recruiters of labour and employers as had heard of them, had 

 suspended operations and were waiting for licences, while others 

 had not even heard of them. In such circumstances, action of a 

 very tactful nature was obviously demanded, but Moresby was 

 enthusiastic and zealous, and treated as a slaver, and therefore a 

 lawful prize, every ship on which an islander could be found who 

 complained that he had been misled as to the term of service 

 (although the offence might have been committed before there was 

 any law on the subject). It need only be said that the courts of 

 appeal did not support his view of the justice of retrospective 

 penalties. The wording of the 1872 Act, forbidding ships to carry 

 unlicensed labourers " except the crew," it seems to me, left room 

 for an elastic interpretation of the word " crew." In a passenger 

 or cargo vessel the crew may be defined as the men necessary to make 

 it go ; but in a fishing-boat which is also a fish-curing factory the 

 definition may be stretched to the point of absurdity. 



The foreign skilled labour employed in the " fisheries " more 

 and more in demand as deeper diving became necessary has 

 always been furnished by the justly self-respecting natives of Japan 

 and the Malay Peninsula, who are not less expert in the making 

 and the legal enforcement of bargains than in deep diving, and may 

 be trusted to safeguard their own interests. 



The sugar industry had no need for aboriginal labour, except 

 duringthe initial operation of clearing the land; and the ring-barking 

 and felling of trees, especially when the natives were supplied with 

 steel axes new toys with which it was a pleasure to work, when 

 contrasted with their own stone implements was light labour, 

 made lighter still by the zest of destructiveness, and exactly suited 

 to their temperament. The planters had no difficulty with them, 

 and already the only terms on which the aborigines would work 

 were well understood. The planter practically said to the local 

 tribesmen : " Come when you like. For a certain number of trees 

 barked, felled or grubbed, you will get enough blankets, clothing, 

 flour, meat, tea and tobacco, and a little money for yourselves and 



