New Move To Solve
p. 23 · Read in the full issue
New Hebrides
Labour Problem
Mr. Emile Retard, of Santo, New Hebrides, will visit Tarawa soon to look into the possibilities of recruit ing copra cutters in the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony for plantations in the New Hebrides, according to a recent GEIC newsletter.
Mr. Ratard, who is a cousin of Mr. George Brechterfeldt, of Betio, GEIC, will represent a consortium of New Hebrides planters.
European planters in the New Hebrides have long been hampered by lack of labour, as the New Hebrideans, who generally have their own plantations, seldom care to work for extended periods on the plantations of others unless amenities such as free liquor and picture shows are provided.
Over the years, various attempts have been made to solve the labour problem—by importing labourers from French Indo-China (now Viet nam), Italy, Tahiti and Wallis Island.
Only the importation of labourers from Indo-China ever amounted to anything—thousands of these people being brought in between 1921 and the outbreak of World War II on five-year contracts.
In the last few years, a few dozen Gilbertese have been employed in the tuna fishing industry at Palekula, Espiritu Santo. But the present move is believed to be the first to obtain Gilbertese for New Hebrides copra plantations.
Provided the New Hebrides planters can meet the strict con ditions that the GEIC Government is likely to insist on, the Gilbert Islands could prove a fruitful source of labour, as those islands are poorly endowed with resources for their ex panding population to develop.