#10. Polynesian Labourers' Act.#--These were the deeds of a few ruthless and disreputable seamen; but the people of Queensland, as a whole, had no sympathy with such barbarities, and in 1868 a law was passed to regulate the labour traffic. It enacted that no South Sea Islanders were to be brought into the colony unless the captain of the vessel could show a document, signed by a missionary or British consul, stating that they had left the islands of their own free will; Government agents were to accompany every vessel, in order to see that the "Kanakas" were well treated on the voyage; and, on leaving the colony, no labourer was to receive less than six pounds worth of goods for every year he had worked.
These regulations were of great use, but they were often evaded; for, by giving a present to the king of an island, the sailors could bribe him to force his people to express their willingness before the missionary. The trembling men were brought forward, and, under the fear of their chief's revenge, declared their perfect readiness to sail. Sometimes the Government agents on board the vessels were bribed not to report the misdeeds of the sailors; and in the case of the _Jason_, on which the agent was too honest to be so bribed, he was chained below by the captain, on the pretence that he was mad. When the ship arrived in Queensland, the unfortunate man was found in a most miserable state of filth and starvation. For this offence the captain was arrested, tried, and imprisoned. Whatever regulations may be made, a traffic of this sort will occasionally have its dark and ugly features, yet it may be truly enough said that while the "Kanakas" have been of great service to Queensland, the colony has also been of service to them. The islanders are generally glad to be taken; they have better food and easier lives on the plantations than they have in their homes; they gather a trunkful of property such as passes for great wealth in the islands, and when they are sent home, after two years' absence, to their palms and coral shores, it is in full costume, generally in excellent spirits, and always more or less civilised. Sometimes, poor fellows, they are stripped and plundered by their naked relatives, but at any rate they help, by what they have learnt, to improve the style of life in those native groves, so sunny but so full of superstition and barbarous rites.