question of fire-arms. The sale of fire -arms to the islanders in Queensland had been forbidden in 1879, as was also the trade in fire-arms at the islands. The sole effect of the latter regulation was to hand this "trade" to French and Germans. Then, again, a number of "boys" who had completed their contracts in Queensland had bought and paid for cheap guns, and these were confiscated without compensation when the boys embarked on the return vessels. The repatriation of the islanders by the end of 1890, the time prescribed by the Act of 1885, having been found to be incomplete, the Act was repealed in 1892, and the limit of deportation extended. A few years later the obnoxious islanders were finally cleared out of the country, some of them very unwillingly.
My conclusions are:—
(1) That the pearl and bêche de mer "fishers" in many instances wronged and oppressed the aborigines whom they induced to board their vessels, and that murders and reprisals resulted; that to a lesser extent they treated Torres Strait and Pacific Islanders in the same way; that these evils were in course of time successfully overcome by legislation and supervision, and that the industry is now as respectable a business as any other.
(2) That the sugar planters never did the aborigines the slightest harm.
(3) That their agents engaged in recruiting did occasionally employ methods for which they had neither authority from their employers nor any reason except their own cupidity, but that such irregularities were exceptional.
(4) That such irregular, unjust or outrageous conduct could be put an end to, and, in fact, was practically put an end to, by legislation and supervision.
(5) That the South Sea Islanders were, and are, the sbet labourers in the cane-fields.
(6) That the islanders brought to Queenslandwerewell treated on the plantations, liked their work, and in many instances voluntarily renewed their term of service on the completion of their contracts.
(7) That the whole generation of pioneer planters was financially ruined by the stoppage of the labour on the faith of the continuation of which they had spent their capital.
(8) That South Sea Island labour could, after all, only have served to keep the industry going during its early years, because of the insufficiency of the supply. At the present day cane-growers establish plantations on the islands of the Pacific, and already find that the population cannot furnish the number of labourers demanded by a progressive industry, however suited for it the conditions of soil and climate may be.
(9) That Queensland is irrevocably committed to white labour, which, in spite of assertions to the contrary, is shy of field work in the tropics.
