image

nla.gov.au/nla.obj-443859322/view?sectionId=nla.obj-47772... - a cropped version of this pic appeared in Pix on 15th January, 1944...in a feature article on the State Library of NSW... Pix's caption: 'LIBRARIANS Principal Librarian, Mr. J. Metcalfe (seated) and reference librarian, Mr. S. T. Pentelow, discuss a problem. They have been handed down an important trust by many illustrious men who built up the library during its difficult days. They should see that not only current needs are fulfilled, but that some scholar 1000 years hence will be satisfied.'

This is the little-known story of exploited foreign workers, told by Auntie Joyce Lea. "I am a proud South Sea woman. My dad was blackbirded, from Tanna island in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu). Put to work in the cane fields in Bundaberg, as slave labour. There was no money, they worked for their food, and I think about this quite often, how hard it must have been for them," said Lea. "He told us the story of how he was lured on the boats with fake jewelry. They took jewelry onto the islands and showed the Kanaka people on the island that if they wanted more they only had to come out to the boats. This is the story my Dad used to tell us and then when they got their quota or the number of people they wanted on a boat they would just pull up anchor and then they sailed and he was put to work into the canefields of Bundaberg." They came from 80 Pacific islands, mainly in Vanuatu and the Solomons. The 40-year-long indentured labour program was the backbone of Queensland's colonial-era sugar industry. Professor Clive Moore from the University of Queensland is a leading historian of the Pacific. "I don't think there is any immigrant group in Australia who were worse treated than Australia South Sea Islanders, and If you think about it right through the process, there are only people who were at least partly kidnapped and brought here illegally, that's the Australian South Sea Islanders", said Professor Moore. "The death rate was higher than any immigrant group to ever come to Australia, and are a scandal, and they're the only immigrant group that ever had an act of Parliament passed by the federal government to totally deport them. You put those three things together and it explains a lot of the problems we have a century later in the South Sea Islander community, " he added. Source: www.sbs.com.au/news/article/south-sea-islanders-mark-suga...

Excellent composition!

Cooles Bild, sehr schön.

Superbe, bravo !!!! Via yesterday's Explore at #336 on Fluidr

What game are they playing?

I don't know - but one player is catching a rubber ring?