Cheeky Natives.

When the Master Must Be Firm.

[Letter to the Editor ] For a considerable time past a lot of controversy has been going on about the treatment of natives in the islands and elsewhere.

Mr. Vogan’s article in the P.I.M. of November, 1932, shows he has had ex perience of natives, and I agree with many things he states.

Notwithstanding the good name a master has amongst his native em ployees for fair, square treatment, etc., there happens along occasionally an in solent, cheeky native, a type which the writer has met, and one who deliberately tries to cause trouble amongst the other natives employed on plantations by agi tating to slow down and neglect their legitimate duties.

I overheard such a native once, after I had warned him about his behaviour, and asked him to mend his way or he would be in trouble soon. Turning away to attend to other things, he told my other natives I was afraid to touch him.

A few days later things began to get worse, and I observed other natives in clined to be insolent to me. Sending the labour to work one morning, I noticed they were standing round their houses a considerable time after bells, so I walked down to the native quarters to inquire what was wrong. Passing the dock (or copra shed) I heard this native agitator holding forth that he was not afraid of the master, and he would try him (meaning to challenge me to a fight).

In such a position, there was nothing else to do, but to oblige, and do it quickly. Needless to say, I have had no more trouble on that plantation from natives for some years.

My experience has been with both bush natives and mission natives, or partly civilised ones. The bush natives I have found, on the whole, to be honest, truthful, and loyal to their masters, while the mission natives are the least to be depended on, their principal failings be ing laziness, cunning, suspicious and lying thieves—with exceptions, of course.

Perhaps the biggest rogues of all are ex-police natives, who generally become cocky and suffer from swollen heads (“me been policeman”). Recently, the writer heard the following conversation between a trader and a mission native who was “putting the nips into” the trader for credit: Native: Me boy belong mission. Me no got money now. Me no all the same white man. He got plenty money. All something he dear too much; price be long copra he go down, cotton he no good altogether. Which way me boy be long mission make now— Trader: Go and work for a plantation master and earn money to buy what vou want.

Native: Me boy belong mission. Me no savvy work along plantation belong white man.

Yet I read in the “Crown Colonist” magazine the following statement: “It is pathetic to see hands of ragged natives wandering about out of employment.”

Fancy this, in Equatorial Africa, where the natives would be well off naked, and can go back to their yam and banana patches. This is the kind of maudlin rubbish which is being propagated by some missionaries, by empty-headed tourists, who are saturated with down

south notions, and by impudent political go-getters, who are on the pay roll, and who associate with the clique that keep them there, irrespective of the truth about things.

Mr. Gordon Thomas’s plea, asking that the missionaries and traders come to a peaceful understanding, and allow one another to operate their own individual interests without unchristianlike antago nism, is the thought of a big-minded man. Unfortunately, I fancy he over looks the human element, and their nasty, spiteful, revengeful ways.

Thirty years ago the natives were a very different class to what they are to day. They then respected the manly white man; but since that time there has crept into the Pacific Islands a lot of vested interests, each pushing their wares, and many using unscrupulous methods (missionaries included) to do their neighbours a dirty turn, which al ways reacts in time, and comes home like the boomerang to the party who throws it.

As far as the New Hebrides are con cerned, and owing to the peculiar views operating against British planters’ in terests in obtaining foreign indentured labour, might I suggest a way out of

the antagonism between missions and planters? The few British plantations left would willingly sell their properties if offered a reasonable price by the mis sions, and this would, incidentally, put a stop to any further chicanery, and leave the field to the missions to further their own plans in their own way. Live and let live!

I am, etc.,

M. G. Wells.

Malo, N.H.

Jan. 12, 1933.

The Lord Howe Island cricket team, which has been visiting New South Wales, returned by the “Morinda” on March 9. In 11 matches the Islanders suffered only four defeats.