230 THE QUEENSLAND LABOR TRADE. 
Before the establishment of local government in the Solomons 
British ships of war were employed in punishing any attacks made upon 
whites. After the death of Bishop Patteson, H. M.S. Rosario went to 
Nukapu to inquire into the causes of his murder. The natives fired 
on the ship’s boats and the fire was returned both by rifles and by the 
ship’s guns, but without intending to kill anyone. A party was landed 
and the native village was burned to teach the savages to respect white 
men. A sailor who was wounded by an arrow afterwards died of 
tetanus. The whole incident was unfortunate in that it embittered 
the people and made the reopening of Santa Cruz all the harder for the 
Mission. ‘The natives of course thought the shooting was connected 
with punishment for the death of the Bishop. At Raga, New Hebrides, 
the paymaster of the Rosario was attacked and twice clubbed. Shots 
were fired from the ship in revenge and four villages were burned, the 
idea being that a salutary lesson was being taught to the natives, and in 
that the innocent suffered along with the guilty the commander argued 
that owners of the burned property would have to get their compensa- 
tion out of the guilty ones, as if the act would not have incensed them 
all, and a hatred for the whites as a whole would result in consequence 
of their burned homes, while they themselves rejoiced over the fact that 
no life had been taken among them! 
The indiscriminate shooting of shells and burning of villages never 
impressed the natives; the only thing they understand in the way of 
reprisals is the actual taking of life. Time and again ships of war 
fired shells into the bush, some of them entering the very houses, but 
due notice had been given and everybody had decamped. At Mapo 
one of the shells fired into the bush on the hills was dug out of the earth 
and was let into the ground and used asaseat. ‘To fire shells thus into 
the bush was certainly an exhibition of power, but the native measured 
matters otherwise, and it was not long before the power of naval ships 
was despised, since they never actually killed anyone as a punishment 
for these attacks on the labor-trade vessels. 
The last legislation on the labor trade to Queensland was the com- 
monwealth act called the “Pacific Island laborers’ act, 1901.”” No 
Melanesians were to enter Queensland after March 31, 1904, and on 
December 31, 1906, all agreements were to end and the final deporta- 
tion was to begin. Exemptions were granted to any who had been five 
years in Queensland before September 1, 1884, or who had been in 
Australia before September 1, 1879, or who had resided in Australia for 
20 years previous to December 31, 1906. Also, exemption was granted 
to natives who were registered owners of freehold in Queensland or were 
married to women not natives of the Pacific Islands, or were suffering 
from bodily infirmity or were of extreme age. 
The Melanesian Mission never felt it its duty to follow the natives of 
these islands to Queensland. Bishop Patteson in 1871 was planning a 
