The government of the Pacific country of Vanuatu is to appeal to Britain and France for compensation for 19th century "slave voyages" which saw 62,000 Melanesians uprooted to work in the sugarcane fields of Queensland and Fiji...Labourers were sold to plantation owners for £6 to £9 a head and were typically paid £6 a year to work six days a week in cane plantations, where at times the death rate was as high as one in 10.