This,
as I have stated, 1 take to be a proof that the managers and owners
consider that they have nothing to conceal from the public. m How
is it in Torres Straits ? I receive only one reply to my letters, and
not one single individual amongst the pearl-fishing " bosses," whom I
meet at the store or the hotel, has the courtesy to offer me a sail in
his boat, or invite me to visit his station. I apply to officialdom for
information, and it is not supplied to me. I have travelled in many
lands, and never had such discourtesy shown to me as here. There must
certainly be a reason for this. One pearlfisher informs me that my
advent and the letters I send have created quite a scare in the
Straits. " A few of us held a meeting, and we decided that it should be
generally understood that we would not answer your letters, and that
you should be kept away from the stations and fishing grounds." "But
why send me to Coventry in this way ?" I ask, astonished. " Well you
see, you have the reputation of writing strongly, and we don't want to
be stirred up. Personally, I am very pleased to meet you. Let's have a
drink." I decline this solatium to my injured feelings, and at
once set to work to find out what there is to conceal in the working of
the Torres Straits pearl-fisheries.
Melbourne
capital and Melbourne interests are largely represented in the sugar
districts of Northern Queensland. The pearl-fisheries in the Straits
have been established by, and are essentially in the hands of Sydney
firms. There is a great difference in the public opinion of Victoria
and New South Wales. Outspoken journalism is not relished in the sister
colony. But that can hardly account for the treatment I receive in the
Straits. Little by little I find out what is the evil on the
pearl-fishing stations which it is hoped to hide from the world.
Standing at Burns, Philp & Co.'s store, talking to gentlemanly
captains, who have just come ashore from the elegant yachtlike boats
anchored in Port Kennedy, I see case after case of spirits carried down
to their dingies. Extra preparations, perhaps, are now being made for
the Christmas holidays, but all the year round the stores of a fishing
station include an abnormal amount of liquor, which is supplied to the
hands employed, divers and Crews of the boats. I am told on good
authority that the amount of drinking on many of the stations is
something frightful. Many station stores are only private grog-shops.
The crews of different boats buy cases of liquor from their: employers,
meet at some island, and have a day's debauchery, as regularly as some
English artisans keep Saint Monday. Drink is the curse of the Straits,
and an act ought to be passed prohibiting any strong liquor being
supplied to the Malays and the. islanders employed in pearl-fishing. It
is bad enough to see Malays and Polynesians come to the hotels here and
get bottles of grog, with which they retire into the bush to get drunk
and quarrel amongst themselves, the knife occasionally being called
into play, but on the lone islands in the Straits, supplied with cases
from the station stores, I am informed that there are at times
veritable scens of Pandemonium. The loss to employers in this
waste of time is of course very great, but the custom of supplying men
with liquor for an occasional spree sprang up at the commencement of
the pearl-fisheries. Employers argue it is better to give the men
liquor and let them have their saturnalia over on the station or some
lone island, where, when it is over, they will set to work again, than
to let them go to Thursday Island and spend their money at the pubs
there, with the difficulty of getting them back to the scene of their
labours. Liquor, it is said, these men will have. If one employer
attempts to run his boats on Blue Ribbon principles, the men leave him
for others where there is periodical grog and a spree. There is no
doubt, that, to counterbalance the loss of time, a large profit is made
out of the sale of grog to the men, and that many of them, by drinking
up their wages, are kept from leaving. Some employers, I daresay, are
heartily sick of the system. They should arouse public opinion and a
bond should be signed by every owner and manager that no strong drink
should be supplied to their hands. Until 1878 the islands in Torres
Straits formed an Alsatia for European
