it is to-day
one of the principal reasons for its decay.

Those planters who from principle or from fear of the law do not
resort to such means generally have a special recruiting district,
where they are well known, and where the natives know the treatment
they are likely to get on the plantation, and feel sure they will not
be cheated, and will be taken back to their homes in due time. These
planters, I am happy to say, find hands enough, as a rule, while the
natives take care not to go to a French plantation if they can help
it. The system of recruiting is very simple. The cutter anchors at some
distance offshore, and a dynamite cartridge is exploded to announce
her arrival; some time afterwards one of the whale-boats goes ashore,
all the crew armed to the teeth, while the other boat lies a short
distance off, to watch the natives, and to cover the retreat of those
in the first boat in case of attack. The planter, as a rule, stays
on board his cutter. These warlike practices are really unnecessary
in many places, but as one never knows what indiscretions the last
recruiter may have committed, and as the natives consider all whites
as belonging to one organization, it is the part of prudence to follow
this old recruiting rule.

I will not pretend to say that the natives will never attack
without provocation. Even Cook, who certainly was both careful
and just, was treacherously attacked in Erromanga, for the
Melanesian is bloodthirsty, especially when he thinks himself the
stronger. But to-day it may be stated as a certainty that no attack
on a recruiting-ship or on any white man occurs without some past
brutality on the part of a European to account for it. As one of the
Governments does nothing to abolish kidnapping, and as the plantations
go to ruin for want of labour, it would be to the interest both of the
settlers and of the natives to abolish the present recruiting system
entirely, and to introduce a conscription for work in its place, so
that each male would have to work for a term of years on a plantation
for adequate wages and good treatment. This would be of advantage to
the islanders even more than to the planters. It would create order,
and would employ the natives in useful work for the development of
their own country.

It will appear from all this that recruiting is still a somewhat
dangerous undertaking, especially on the north-west coast of Malekula,
the home of the most primitive and savage trib