Pacific

No Forced Labour In The

Letter to the Editor fTIHOSE who write to you suggesting A the introduction of conscripted labour for the benefit of the natives, and of Islands industries, ignore, or are not aware of, the fact that we are bound by Article 6 of the Anti- Slavery Conventions, which reads; — “Officials of the Administration, even when they have the duty of encouraging the populations under their charge to engage in some form of labour, shall not put constraint upon the said popu lations or upon any individual members thereof to work for private individuals, companies or associations.”

Even with a view to work of a public nature, the Conventions lay down that forced labour may only be called out for great emergencies, such as floods and earthquakes.

The German wireless propagandists are just itching for us to make careless statements about native labour, and lose no time in using them, without scruple.

I am, etc.,

(Rev.) Cecil V. Longden.

Three Park Road, Wigan, Lancs., England. 18/3/1940.

Editorial Note : Apart from sugges tions by occasional correspondents—who seemed to be merely “trailing the tail of their coats”—it never has been seri ously proposed, in the last 25 years, that labour should be conscripted in the Pacific Islands. Any move in that direc tion would not have the slightest pros pect of success.

Mr. A. E. Cornish, of the Fiji District Administration, arrived in Sydney re cently to spend several months’ fur lough.