228 THE QUEENSLAND LABOR TRADE. 
fed, well housed, and well protected from exploitation; their hours of 
labor were not too long, they were well cared for when they were sick, 
and practically it was their labor that built up the sugar industry of 
Queensland. Their value as laborers is evinced by the fact that in 
later years the planters paid the shipowners £20 to £25 per head for 
all laborers recruited, and also paid the Government a capitation fee 
of £3 per head, and deposited £5 per head to cover the cost of the 
return passage. Regular food and regular employment under decent 
conditions made fine men of them physically, and the returns always 
compared favorably in physical appearance with the home men. But 
there is no question that the Queensland return, except those who 
had been at some mission school, was as a rule a person to be avoided; 
he had learned something of the white man’s ways and had a certain 
amount of the externals of civilization, but the old-time respect for 
authority had all vanished and its place was taken by a bold, rough 
style of address which did not differentiate between a high commis- 
sioner or a bishop and a recruiter of a labor vessel. All alike were 
hailed by him as mate and all would be asked for tobacco. In effect 
he had lost the charm of the natural state. 
Bishop Patteson stated in 1871 that these returns bore a bad char- 
acter among their own people and were the ringleaders in wrong-doing. 
The general average of morality among the natives seems to have been 
lowered by their Queensland experiences. Those who went away 
undoubtedly improved in their physical condition, yet this was a poor 
compensation for the loss of their old Heathen surroundings with the 
air of mystery, and the time-honored etiquette and good manners 
belonging to them, and with nothing whatever to replace the loss, no 
new set of rules learned, no new motive provided for their lives, no new 
code of morals taught, no new outlook given, no new measure of man- 
kind impressed upon them by their residence in Queensland other 
than that of physical prowess and the mere gaining of money or the 
eating of food of a different character. The returns from Fiji were 
often improved by their stay in civilization, and this was mainly owing 
to the fact that they had either been employed as house servants in 
good families or had merely changed one set of native conditions for 
another—living on a plantation and learning Fijian or mixing almost 
entirely with natives and learning but little English. Practically they - 
still were natives instead of being bad copies of a certain class of whites. 
A very great number of lives have been lost in and owing to the 
labor trade. The death of Bishop Patteson is an instance of the 
terrible result that may follow when men are determined to make 
money by acts of treachery to humanity or in defiance of the ordinary 
laws of hospitality. Peaceful traders have been assaulted, mission- 
aries have been killed, the boats of labor vessels have been attacked 
and the men in them killed. All these facts can be directly traced to 
