French imperialism spreading European values in the Pacific. After exterminating much of the indigenous people of the New Hebrides, today’s Vanuatu, French imperialism kidnapped tens of thousands of its Vietnamese subjects to replace decimated native labor on the island’s plantation hells.

‘The Indo-China Slave Dealers’ by Marcel Joubert from The Daily Worker. Vol. 5 No. 319. January 10, 1929.

(Translated from L’Humanite by Valentine V. Konin.)

“This is not a title of a book of adventures…This is the account of the crimes committed by the French engineers in the islands of the Pacific, where the imported Indo-Chinese workers suffer and perish like slaves.”

This, alas, is not a title of a book of adventures. This is a tragic chapter of the colonization, recently proclaimed by the socialists as a necessity of civilization. In the light of a few harshly exact facts, this is only a glimpse into the inconceivable existence granted to the laborers of Indo-China. This is a bunch of facts challenging in itself all those who pretend that slavery is abolished; all those who applaud the colonial policy of France; all those who deny to the people of the colonies the right to free themselves from the yoke of the imperialist pirates.

Importation of Workers Increases.

According to an agreement between the governor of Indo-China and the High Commissioner of France, the colonists are authorized to obtain in Indo-China all the labor necessary for their plantations. As result, the number of Indo-Chinese laborers “imported” to Nouvelles Hebrides was 500 in 1923, 2,139 in 1925, and 4,607 in 1927.

This year the High Commissioner of the Pacific has asked for 8,000 new recruits for Nouvelle Caledonie and 18,000 for the Nouvelles Hebrides.

This importation of labor is done by actual recruiting offices legalized in their atrocious traffic of human flesh. These offices profit by the misery of the Indo-Chinese population by exporting all those who starve on the soil from which they were driven by the colonization. The “Tribune Indochinoise” explains the workings of this recruiting:

“Their dazzling promises allure the famished men and women; they flash before their eyes the promises of El Dorado; and upon the arrival in the forests these unfortunate beings find themselves condemned to hard labor.”

Use Force.

Sometimes the recruiters employ better tactics. They unroll their victims by force. A certain Indo-Chinese magazine points to a case when a few minors, among them a 14-year-old girl, were kidnaped from their families and forwarded to the plantations and mines under the protection of militia. The unfortunate laborers, seduced by the or enlisted by force, know nothing of what awaits them upon their arrival. Treated like slaves, separated from their wives and children, forced to labor 14 and 15 hours a day, undernourished, unsanitary, under the incessant watch of actual torturers—and for a salary which is only mocking if it exists at all!

Here are a few facts drawn from the tragic balance sheet of the legalized slavery of the Pacific:

At the beginning of this year, at Patte Villa, on the concession of Comptoirs Francais des Nouvelles Hebrides, an Indo-Chinese laborer, who had stolen a bottle of Peruvian bark belonging to a French overseer, was bound by the latter and beaten until he expired. At the Societe des Hauts-Fourneauz de Noumea, following the protest of a few laborers against the horrors they were forced to undergo, the guard fired at the group and killed a few of them. In the report presented to the governor of Indo-China, the High Commissioner of the Pacific admitted the intolerable treatment inflicted on the imported laborers. He admitted that a little girl died from being violated. He admitted that one colonist in order to calm down the dissatisfaction among his abused workers injected into some of them a subcutaneous dose of turpentine.

“Amusements”

A sailor who has returned from a voyage describes the atrocious amusements of the slave dealers, which he had witnessed in a port. The slave dealers tied a laborer to the end of a long cord and dragged him through water in order to attract the sharks and make them follow their living prey. Another laborer, while having a discussion with a guard, was suddenly hurled into the sea. The guard persisted in throwing stones at him to prevent him from grasping the land until after the sharks had had their meal. For wanting to take snapshots of these horrible scenes the sailor was imprisoned for 15 days. His negatives were destroyed and he himself discharged.

L’Echo Annamite relates that on the island of Moketoa on the concession of Societe des Phosphates du Pacifique, “the married coolies wishing to protect their wives from the lewdness of the guards were shot to death without any other procedure of the law!” The wounded were put an end to, and those trying to escape were charged with rebellion.

Police Use Guns.

At the already mentioned Societe des Hauts Fourncaus, the workers rebelled at their treatment. The police were called and made full use of their guns. And the list of grievances and assassinations imposed upon the Indo-Chinese who had been torn away by force from their families and their country is very long indeed!

Chinese workers work for the lowest salaries, their owners succeed in realizing scandalous fortunes. The Comptoirs Francais des Nouvelles Hebrides, where a few above-mentioned cases took place, has seen its income rise from 470,661 francs in 1921, to 1,652,607 francs in 1924. At the same time their dividends on shares grew from 40 francs in 1921 to 60 in 1923 and 100 in 1924. The Compagnie Francaise Immobiliere des Nouvelles Hebrides reached a million-franc income in 1926. And in the same way rise the fortunes of all other companies exploiting shamelessly the Indo-Chinese slaves put at their mercy by the French imperialists.

Socialists Uphold Imperialism.

The socialists can speak of the noble civilizing character of work carried on by imperialist France; they can deny to the people of the colonies the right to free themselves from the bloody guardianship of the slave dealers. Leon Jouhaux can declare the necessity of continuing the forceful enrollment of the indigent Indo-Chinese workers. They will demonstrate once more their solidarity in preparing for the imperialist despotism.

However, they will not prevent the colonization from being an unbearable yoke for the natives; nor will they prevent them from realizing their sad plight and organizing towards their liberation. But their liberation will be possible only through the complete overthrow of the imperialists and socialists, who, in spite of their attempts to defend colonization, shall not prevent the working-class from carrying out triumphantly the movement for the liberation of the colonial peoples.

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1929/1929-ny/v05-n319-NY-jan-10-1929-DW-LOC.pdf