ABSTRACT
There were two official suspensions of Oceanian labour trade to New Caledonia from 1882 to 84 and from 1885 to 90, although during the second period the ban was circumvented, with acquiescence of the Administration, by importing labourers as 'free immigrants'. In 1879, on his tour of the New Hebrides, Contre-Amiral Du Petit-Thouars found that in certain islands of archipelago it was impossible to recruit for New Caledonia 'because the natives say that the recruits come back with too few goods and that contracts are not always kept'. After recruiting for Queensland and Fiji was stopped, in the early years of the 20th century, New Caledonia had only the competition of internal market of the New Hebrides itself, soon to acquire an even worse reputation in the matter of labour abuses. Revisionists have pointed out that on the beaches in the islands, recruiting practices were sometimes better policed by fear of local retribution than by supervision of the regulations.
