Crises In New Caledonia

Freedom Granted to 10,000 Indonesian Indentured Labourers

rpHE decree granting free residence, I with the right to compete at a rea sonable wage on the free labour market, made to over 10,000 Indo-Chinese and Javanese coolies in New Caledonia, was approved by the Administration, after being agreed to by the General Council at an extraordinary session by II votes out of 15. .

This should bring to an end agitation and strikes which have caused concern for some time. Labour conditions in the French Colony will be revolutionised by the abolition of this indentured labour, on which mining companies and the agricultural and coffee growing indus try have so long relied; while logically the release of Tonkinese labour to the free market must also apply to French planters and employers in the New Hebrides. .

Both in mining and in agriculture the Caledonians are facing a crisis. The im mediate future of nickel and chrome is uncertain. * In addition to the labour problem, decline in demand for locally grown foodstuffs (and industries like laundrying, which farmers as well as townspeople had taken on) is becoming serious as Allied troops depart. Pre-war export markets, for coffee in particular, have been lost.

Fortunately, the presence during the last 3i years of hundreds of thousands of Americans, Australians and New Zea landers has made the individual Cale donian a comparatively wealthy man, and the country is well able to stand a process of modernisation. It Is believed that by a new process, nickel ore can be treated at the mine to bring content up from 4 or 5 to over 50 per cent.; and plans are afoot to refine the mineral at the Noumea smelters up to over 99 per cent. Previously the final refining from about 75 per cent, a a received from Cale donian smelters was done in Europe.

The end of labour under coolie condi tions stresses the need for reorganising the agricultural industry, for which trac tors, bulldozers, cultivators and 5-disc ploughs are to be bought, and an ambi tious public works programme is to be instituted. All of which may encourage settlement and perhaps a small influx of settlers from Europe.

Generally speaking, cattle-growers will be less affected than coffee-planters by the loss of coolie labour, because they generally use native Melanesian and half caste stockmen and rouseabouts. But

there is a move to take from the big property-owners, like Maison Ballandes, some of the best cattle country, and split it up for agricultural development.

Since last century, every Republican paper published in Noumea, and practic ally every Republican speaker, has alleged that there has been an unholy alliance between the great Societe le Nickel (in which the Rothschilds once held supreme interest, but which prior to the war mainly profited France’s “200 families” whose representative Mr. Ban douin was), the Marist Mission, the big stores, and the Bank of Indo-China.

“The land is theirs and the mines are theirs, so that free colonists and free miners can no longer work —convict labour was followed by Asiatic coolie labour —and the Colony and white colonist can go to the devil” —such has been the chief and the chronic griev ance for the past 60 years.

The question remains: Will the new decree and the new General Council make matters different, and shift the balance of power, and will Governors in future be appointed less by nickel interests and more by democratically-minded French Governments with the good of the Colony at heart? This question is in everybody’s mind.

The Governor's Announcement

rpHE Governor and French General JL Commissioner for the Pacific, M.

Jacques Tallec, made a special an nouncement over the air.

He said that approximately 12.000 Indo-Chinese and Dutch East Indies’ workers had been introduced under the immigration law of December, 1935, and through agreement with the Dutch ad ministration. They came on five-years contracts as indentured labourers at mini mum wage scales. They were not allowed to change employers or discuss wages, and infringements of contracts could be pnished by the local Administration.

After five years the worker had the right of repatriation, or could volunteer to contract a new engagement, in which latter case he now had the right to elect his employer. In 1938 the New Caledonian Government had agreed with the Nether lands administration to forego right to punish administratively Javanese who had re-engaged. . , , , All contracts had expired by 1944, and most at different periods before then, but

the war had made it impossible to re patriate these labourers. Conditions had indeed become very different from what had been envisaged when the 1935 arrangement was made. This had been the cause of friction and uneasiness be tween employees and employer which the latter may not have clearly understood.

For their part the Indo-Chinese and Javanese workers failed to appreciate the reason for the necessity to accept re strictions on their liberty for a period longer than that they had contracted for.

The war and the economic needs of the country were responsible. The Japanese were at Guadalcanal; the wartime pro duction of nickel and chrome had to be pushed to the limit; while to lessen trans port difficulties the country’s agriculture had to contribute as much as possible to US and New Zealand troop maintenance.

It was such pressing needs as these that had forced the Administration to compel indentured labourers to continue work ing for their employers beyond the period of their Contract.

This necessity had now been removed, and the Colony must return to a strict honouring of its undertaking to these immigrant workers. The evolution of coloured races was also in accordance with the development of world opinion, and to hasten this evolution the French Empire had pledged itself at the Brazza ville Conference.

Following the Governor’s announce ment, the Indo-Chinese and Javanese were allowed to terminate their inden tured contracts from July 5. Working conditions under their new grading were to be announced. For the time being they need permits to move out of the district in which they have been work ing. Their wages are likely to be fixed around 45 francs a day, which is a big increase over coolie rates (a minimum of about 125 francs a month, plus food).

Appeal to American General

rIS marks the culmination of a long struggle between the indentured labourers and the French authori ties.

In the course of that struggle, the coolies—to the great embarrassment of the French Government —addressed the following letter, on March 14. 1944, to the General in Comand of the United States Forces in New Caledonia:— “We, the Tonkinese residents in Cale donia, French subjects and proteges, sub iect to French laws and respecting these laws, have the great honour to request your support.

“Several times we have asked for our liberty since our contracts ended, long ago. At no time have we refused to work, but we want to work like men and

not like animals. Furthermore, we have no way of making ourselves heard in the metropolis (Paris).

“For asking for liberty and a little more comfort, a little more rice and bread for our wives and children, we have been savagely punished; 15 of our men have been for several months on one of the Belep Islands, where the most atrocious means of coercion are used against them; two of them, it seems, have died recently. Besides, for stopping Work at the Chagrin mine, 600 Tonkinese workers were put on a little desert island without drinking water and subjected to hardships and treatment forbidden even in gaol. We ask you, could not an inquiry be made to prove the truth of our statements? , . t , rr . inin „ At t ?rpnfS esnecia Fi oa—are treated rwiHpH ally at Toumourou and we have decided to stop work on April 1 For 7 dollars F a work per day we get 5 to 7 dollars a m **We are housed in filthy huts, Bto 10 people in a room 2 yards square. The beds are few in number so that, while some are working, the others go to bed, and vicfe versa.

“At each of our requests for better conditions we have been treated like the most hardened criminals. Several times we have asked to go and fight beneath the flag of Free France alongside the Allies, but this was refused, and our requests stifled so as not to make them public, . . .

“we ask that, through your interme diary, you should have our letter trans mitted to the authorities in Paris so that French Government may take the necessary steps concerning us, and make all the necessary inquiries about the way j n winch we are treated here in New Caledonia. « We hope that you sirj a citizen of free America and a compatriot of Lincoln, the great man who was the first to abolish slavery, will be good enough to take pity on us. We thank you from the bottom Qf our hearts for troubling about us the first time—though the fact of our hav ing dared to wr it e to you brought down “ ’“™S& repw “ ton 0 " the Part ° f our oppressors.

“We beg of you to send our letter on to the French Government. It is not possible for us to be any longer martyred

and treated like dogs—we are men, not animals.”

The Chagrin Mine

rE Chagrin mine referred to in the letter, where one of the Indo- Chinese strikes took place, Is a mine run by a French Caledonian company, of which M. Milliard, head of Ballandes, the chief store in Noumea, is managing director. The French board manages the mine on behalf of a Melbourne com pany which bought the mine off the original French owner in 1938 with Aus tralian capital. Australian shareholders received no dividends and last year the Australian company went into liquida tion, each Australian shareholder being given shares in the French company.

The mine was named “Chagrin” on account of the disappointment of two ticket-of-leave men who discovered the mine in the old days. Each received a sum of money for the find, but when thev asked also to be allowed to return to France, this was refused them.