Problems

N. Hebrides Labour

Neither Natives nor Imported Labour Keen To Work

From Our Own Correspondent T to , u . A . VILA, Feb. 10.

HE labour position in the New Heb rides is becoming increasingly acute.

The few Tonkinese who are left, being citizens of the “free, independent and democratic republic” of Viet Nam, are now free to work, or not, as they please, and it is difficult to obtain suffi cient labour to carry on plantations.

Some planters, in order to get their copra cut are offering half of it to any Tonkinese or natives who may be willing to do the work. As a rule, however, the Tonkinese prefer to be their own masters.

Many of them, both at Vila and at Santo, have their own jeeps, which they run as taxis, while others are contractors, market gardeners, barbers, motor mech anics, small shopkeepers, etc.

The natives are as reluctant as ever to engage in toil and when they do get the urge to work they demand fantastic wages. Casual labour in Vila now costs 6/- to 7/- per day, with meals thrown in, hours 7 to 5 with a nice long spell in the middle of the day; and, even under these conditions, the employer who is unwilling to break the law by giving his boys an “appetizer” finds it difficult to keep them.

A well-known planter, who incidentally was primarily responsible for the intro duction of Tonkinese labour into the New Hebrides, proposes to go to Java shortly to investigate the possibility of obtaining indentured labour from the island. His efforts will be watched with great interest by the planters in this Group; but, in view of the Communistic outlook of the Javanese, it is doubtful whether the situation would be much improved by the introduction of such labour.

It has been reported that the difficulty of geting sufficient labour was one of the reasons for the recent sale to French interests (at a figure of about £36,000) of the largest British-owned plantation in this Group.