Thus, to the alcohol peril was added another danger to the natives,--work on the plantations. They were kidnapped, overworked, ill-fed; it was slavery in its worst shape, and the treatment of the hands is best illustrated by the mortality which, in some places, reached 44 per cent. per annum. In those days natives were plentiful and labour easy to get, and nobody worried about the future; so the ruin of the race began, and to-day their number hardly suffices for the needs of the planters. Then the slave-trade to Queensland, Fiji, even South America began, so that the population, relatively small from the first, decreased alarmingly, all the more so as they were decimated by dysentery, measles, tuberculosis and other diseases. Against all these harmful influences the missions, unsupported as they were by any authority, could only fight by protests in the civilized countries; these proved effectual at last, so that the missions deserve great credit for having preserved the native race. Yet it cannot be said that they have restored its vitality, except in Tanna. It seems as if the system of imbibing the native with so much European culture, and yet separating him from the whites and regulated labour, had been noxious to the race, for nearly everywhere the Christianized natives die out just as fast as the heathen population. About ten years after the French, the English began planting, and to-day nearly all arable land along the coast is cultivated. The English suffer much less from lack of labour, which is doubtless owing to their more humane and just treatment of the hands. In the first place, they usually come from better stock than the French, and, secondly, they are strictly controlled by the Government, whereas the French Government does not even attempt to enforce its own laws. There is now some question of importing Indian coolies; the great expense this would entail would be a just punishment for the short-sighted cruelty with which the most valuable product of the islands--their population--has been destroyed. Only by compelling each native to work for a definite period could a sufficient amount of labour be produced to-day; but such a system, while extremely beneficial to the race as a whole, stands but a poor chance of being introduced. The products of the islands are coprah, coffee, corn, cocoa and, of late years, cotton. The chief item, however, is coprah, for the islands seem specially suited for the growing of cocoa-nut palms. Rubber does not seem to thrive.