[Editor: This article, regarding the Australian sugar industry and Kanakas, was published in The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 12 August 1901.]
The sugar industry.
Kanaka labour question.
Dr. Maxwell’s report.
Brisbane, Sunday.
The report of Dr. Maxwell, sugar expert of the Queensland Government, compiled at the request of the Federal Premier, is now available. It deals very voluminously with the conditions of the sugar industry of New South Wales and Queensland.
“In reviewing briefly the several considerations set forth in the report,” says Dr. Maxwell, in conclusion, “it is necessary to observe that, while economic factors may require that the sugar production interest of Queensland and New South Wales shall be individually considered, and from the respective standpoints of the two states, the question of the cane sugar industry of Australia must be approached upon broader lines, and by an observance of the laws which are laid down in conditions of nature, in which conditions economic laws must have their foundation. In recognition of those conditions of nature, the vast and extended sugar-producing areas of Australia are resolved into four several districts — New South Wales districts, and the districts of Bundaberg, Mackay, and Cairns, which districts are primarily distinguished by the divers climatic conditions which obtain within them.
“Inquiry into and comparison of the rate of compensation for white labour and South Sea Island labour in Queensland led to the finding that white labour engaged in the work in the cane-fields is compensated at the rate of £1/7/10½ per week in the district of Bundaberg, £1/9/11 in the Mackay district, and £1/15/4½ in the Cairns, with an average for all the districts of £1/11/0½ per week, or 5/2 per working day. The South Sea Islander is charged with the rate of cost amounting to 14/3 in the Bundaberg district, 12/4 in Mackay), and 13/11½ in Cairns, making the general average 13/6 per week, or 2/3 per working day.
“Connected with ascertaining the rates of compensation, it was attempted to determine the relative coefficients of value of white and South Sea Island labour. The labour coefficients, or powers of the different races in the abstract, that is when each is at its highest, are very various. The Anglo-Saxon has the highest labour power in conditions most favourable for its exercise. The gradation in the coefficients of the other races descends to an equivalent that is only one-half or less than that of the labour power of the Anglo-Saxon. The co-efficients of the labour of several races in the abstract are vitally qualified by the conditions of nature in which the labour has to be performed, and these qualifications of the labour power have to be considered in a determination of the value of labour which is found to depend upon such as the following factors:— Skill, endurance, and stability in the performance of labour.
“When white labour is considered in relation to these factors, it is found that its highest coefficient of value in Queensland obtains in the Bundaberg district, that that coefficient is notably lower in the Mackay district, and that its value is reduced to a minimum in the ultra-tropical district of Cairns. When South Sea Island labour is subjected to the qualification of the same factors its value is found to be lowest in the most southern districts, and highest in the Mackay district and the localities to the north.
“In bringing the relative coefficients of value into comparison with the actual rates of compensation of white labour in the three several districts, it is found that the cost is in inverse ratio to the value; that in the Bundaberg district, where the coefficient of the white man is highest, his labour costs least, while in the most northern district, Cairns, where the white man’s labour powers is at its lowest, the cost of the labor is 26½ per cent. higher than in the district of Bundaberg, a result which economically can rule the white man in the north out of competition with southern white labour, when the labour is engaged in producing the same commodity for sale at the same price. The same condition appears, in a less impressive degree and in a reversed form in the case of the South Sea Islander. The islander is worth least and costs most in the most southern districts, while in the district of Mackay and farther north, where his labour power reaches a higher level, the cost of his labor is least.
“If the conditions and the cost of labour in the sugar districts of New South Wales are considered, then the laws and results observed to obtain in Queensland are found in a more accentuated form. The labour coefficient of the white labourer is more pronounced, while the alien sinks in prominence and concern. From this it appears that the labour powers in the climatic extremes of the sugar areas are made to economically compensate each other, the higher efficiency of the South Sea Islanders at a relatively less cost (who predominate numerically in northern districts) counterbalancing the domination and the efficiency of the white labourer, who prevails in greater numerical strength in the districts of the south, and whose labour stands at a relatively low cost in those districts when compared with the north.”
It is indicated that invention may be expected to provide mechanical devices for harvesting the cane crop and other work. These will further strengthen the current tendency to substitute lower by higher forms of labour where the conditions of nature permit. The tendency, already very marked, will be accelerated by the settlement of a greater number of white families upon the cane-growing area, resulting also in more intense productive cultivation of the partially-exhausted soils. The increase of white settlers upon the sugar-growing lands during the past decade, and the concurrent increase in the volume of sugar produced with the reduction in the number of islanders employed, demonstrate the present tendency, and indicate that under the current operation of given natural laws, and particularly in certain latitudes, the Pacific Islander is a relatively declining factor in the sugar production of Queensland.
Source:
The Argus (Melbourne, Vic.), 12 August 1901, p. 5
Also published in:
The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), 14 August 1901, p. 5
The Examiner (Launceston, Tas.), 17 August 1901, p. 13
Editor’s notes:
alien = a foreigner (someone who was not born in the country, i.e. a person from a foreign land); someone who is not a citizen of a country; (in a racial context) a non-white foreigner (can also refer to someone born in the country, but who is of foreign ethnic origin); someone who belongs to a different race or ethnicity; in an early Australian context, someone of non-British or non-white origin
Anglo-Saxon = a British person, someone of British ethnic background; something that is British in origin or style; an English person, someone of English ethnic background; something that is English in origin or style; someone who is (in large proportion) descended from the West Germanic tribes (Angles, Jutes, and Saxons) who settled in Great Britain; in a wider context, can also refer to North Europeans who appear to be ethnically or racially related to the West Germanic tribes); of or relating to Anglo-Saxon people, history, or heritage
divers = a number of items (all of which are not necessarily different, they may all be identical, i.e. distinct from “diverse”), several, sundry, various; “divers” is also an archaic spelling variant of “diverse” (a number of items which are different to each other, a wide range of various types)
Federal Premier = the Federal Prime Minister, the Australian Prime Minister, the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia
islander = (in the context of labourers on sugar plantations in early Australia) a Pacific Islander (workers originating from the Pacific islands were also known as “kanakas”)
kanaka = a Pacific Islander employed as an indentured labourer in various countries, such as Australia (especially in Queensland), British Columbia (Canada), Fiji, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu; in Australia the kanakas were mostly used on the sugar plantations and cotton plantations in Queensland (the word “kanaka” derives from the Hawaiian word for “person” or “man”)
See: 1) “Australian South Sea Islanders”, State Library of Queensland
2) “Kanaka”, Encyclopaedia Britannica
3) “AGY-2566 | Royal Commission of Enquiry into certain cases of Alleged Kidnapping of Natives of the Loyalty Islands, in the years 1865 – 1868; and the state and probable results of Polynesian Immigration”, Research Data Australia
4) Keith Windschuttle, “Why Australia had no slavery: The islanders”, Quadrant, 19 June 2020
5) “Digitised @ SLQ – Islanders speak out about deportation in 1906”, State Library of Queensland, 15 August 2013
6) “Kanaka (Pacific Island worker)”, Wikipedia
Maxwell = Dr. Walter Maxwell (1854-1931), an agricultural scientist who investigated and reported on the sugar industry in Australia during 1900-1910; he was born in Paradise (Durham, England) in 1854, spent approximately ten years in Australia (1900-1910), and died in Conway (New Hampshire, USA)
See: 1) John D. Kerr, “Walter Maxwell (1854–1931)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Maxwell, Walter (1854 – 1931)”, Encyclopedia of Australian Science and Innovation (Centre for Transformative Innovation, Swinburne University of Technology)
per cent. = an abbreviation of “per centum” (Latin, meaning “by a hundred”), i.e. an amount, number, or ratio expressed as a fraction of 100; also rendered as “per cent” (without a full stop), “percent”, “pct”, “pc”, “p/c”, or “%” (per cent sign)
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