New Guinea Natives?

How Should We Treat The

To the Editor.

Sir, —It was with great pleasure and interest that I read the article by Cap tain Milton, and now that we have an unbiased organ to voice our many needs there will be many more willing to risk the displeasure of the Admin istration, and what improvements take place in the future will be solely to the credit of the P.I.M.

Captain Milton was unfortunate in his “Kiap.” I have been here for 17 years, and have met many good fel lows on the Administrative staff, and there are still many here, but they are tied down by ordinances not of then making.

The other kind never had such a job in their fives, so make the most of it by slinging their brass hat about on all and every occasion, without any consideration for the man who pays their salary. They do not want advice; they know everything. Some of them have been here a long time (nearly a week) so should be pitied, not abused.

They do not know what they are doing is not “cricket.”

As regards the treatment of native labour, the following has come under my notice. The recruiter will go many days in the bush. At one village he will recruit six “boys”—only to find two days later, that they have run back to their village. It is no use his going back after them, as he will not get the axes, knives, etc., that he paid them, or the boys. So they sit down and wait for another recruiter to come along and so get a big supply of goods in. Many villages make a practice of this, and nothing is done to prevent it.

Again, the recruiter will find many boys in the towns, willing to “make paper.” In this case he gives them 20/- hand money, and they are to sign on in the morning. In the morning they have changed their minds—“no like,” and will not give the hand money back. If the recruiter complains to the “Kiap” he gets no satisfaction, but is told that it is his own look-out, and the boy gets the twenty shillings for nothing. There are many in the towns living on this game.

Is this looking after the best interests of all concerned—allowing the boy to become a rogue and the recruiter —well, that old saying, that the recruiter has one foot in the grave and the other in calaboose, leaves the recruiter lucky, very lucky, that he is not a centipede, or he would have ninety-nine feet in the calaboose.

An employer will take a boy to be signed at the District Office. After every question has been put to him to find out if there are any faults with the recruiting, and the boy is made to understand what he is doing, the con tract is signed by the D.O. on behalf of both parties, the Administrator acting as guardian and trustee for the native. This boy has cost the em ployers, with issue and fees, anything from £12 to £25.

Three months later this boy deserts.

No attempt is made to return him;

but the Administration wants the three months’ wages that are due to him, and they will give it to him first time a patrol officer goes to his village. The boy is entitled to three months’ cala boose for deserting; so if they can pay the boy, why cannot they bring him back, give him the three months, and make him complete his contract?

They say that they cannot be both ered, going out to all these outlandish villages. So who gets the money, and why?

Say that the boy does not desert but dies. We pay his wages into the District Office, that his next-of-kin may get it. This no employer objects to. But if the Administration cannot be bothered going out to these out landish villages to bring back desert ers or pay them, they cannot be both ered to pay the next-of-kin. So far, I have never met any of the next-of kin of my boys, who have received the wages of the dead boy.

The native is only a child; but he is also a born thief, liar and black mailer, and the policy of sparing the rod and spoiling the child has proved itself rotten. During the military ad ministration, when the kunds was in vogue, I never saw a boy get worse than I received myself as a child. No one told me that it was brutal. In fact, they seemed to think that I did not get enough. Anyhow, it did not do me any harm. There are hundreds of boys in calaboose, and thousands more running about that ought to be in cala boose; so if that is called looking after the interests of the native, it is time they gave it another name.

The other day a boy stole about £15 worth of goods from me. This means that he has got to go to Rabaul to be tried, and will cost me £100 and two months’ lost time. So the boy goes free, and the only one who is sorry is the boy himself, as he would willingly do 12 months for a trip to Rabaul.

The British flag flies on all the Ad ministrative offices, yet we have no voice in the making of the laws by which we are ruled, or trial by jury for a capital offence, or even one of the many privileges that that glorious flag has always stood for.

When I first came, 17 years ago, I made it my business to learn the na tive “talk,” without the native know ing the fact. My object was to get a knowledge of the native mind, and to know what he was thinking about. To this purpose I obtained the services of a house boy to a former German Gov ernor. Afterwards I was in Native Affairs, Police Master, and other branches that were connected with na tives. Since civil administration I have bought from the natives, sold to them, recruited them, and worked them in large numbers for a living. So I should claim to have as good a knowledge of the native, if not better, than most people up here. I am now left with one arm (a good one), one eye (by

no means good), have never called any man “master” except my father and King; but ask, with many others, the right to be allowed to earn an honest living in a country which we helped to take.

I am, etc.,

A. Le Breton Mount.

Wau, New Guinea.

December 18, 1931.