238
Continuation.
COOLIE TRAFFIC
law officers of the Crown, to whom the question was referred, were of opinion that he ought to have been tried on a charge of piracy jure gentium. Eventually, on appeal, the Privy Council held that the evidence before the Chief Justice did not go to show that the ship was a slave ship, and that therefore the Chief Justice was wrong and the second order of discharge should be reversed.
The following story, taken from the newspaper files of 1856 gives some idea of the horrors of the coolie trade in those days. The Dutch ship Banca, carrying a human freight of between 350 and 370 left Macão for Havana in the early part of the year but was forced to put back when it was found that her water casks were leaking. She dropped anchor in the outer harbour and remained there for weeks, undergoing repairs. The coolies were not allowed to land, for fear they might make their escape.
Then,
For three weeks, whatever discontent may have prevailed, no fears of an outbreak would seem to have been entertained. On one Sunday night, a Chinese doctor on board warned the Captain, that mischief was brewing. In preparation for a rising of the coolies, the small arms were placed on the poop, and two guns were loaded with grape and pointed forward. About 9 p.m. the disturbance commenced. The captain first fired a shot or two overhead that had no effect and the coolies advanced to the assault with belaying-pins, bricks torn from the cooking places,
a volley of small arms and the discharge of the big arms followed. This drove the coolies below. Flames speedily burst through the after-hatch, and in a matter of minutes the vessel was in a blaze fore and aft. The mainmast soon fell with a crash. Then the fore and mizzen, and about midnight the magazine exploded. Of the Europeans, the captain, gunner and steward were killed together with 220 to 230 of the coolies. The survivors were picked up by the steamer Queen, Captain Endicott's cutter, a lorcha and a fast boat.
COOLIE TRAFFIC (2)
Only a few days ago a well-known China coast steamer left Hongkong for Samoa with a human cargo of indentured labour. The coolies, well-provisioned, comfortably housed, and according to their standards, reasonably well paid, viewed their departures with equanimity. Their return passage was guaranteed and they were assured of good treatment in their new home.
Under such conditions is coolie immigration conducted today. Let us draw back the curtains of sixty or seventy years however, and see the vicious system, which then obtained here and in Macao. Slavery was supposed to have been abolished, but all the evils of that infamous trade in human beings were associated with that high-sounding misnomer "coolie immigration."
On the Holy City of Macao must fall the greatest share of discredit for the inauguration and maintenance of this form of slavery, but Hongkong also played a part which reflects little honour on a number of administrators.