How New Guinea Trader

would Deal with the Problem.

Letter to the Editor, Apropos your article under this head ing on December 20: Speaking from what I know of the Mandated Ter ritory, this should not be much of a problem.

In the first place Chinese are no asset to any country, less so to a new country like New Guinea; for, instead of being a pioneer race or help ing to develop the country they bleed it for all it is worth and send what they make to China. The balance stops there, for in case of trouble there is such a thing as expropriation, so if sent home his money is there. They make the excuse that the white man goes to his country, so he has the right to go to the white man’s country, but the whites do not go there to compete with the working class of China. In stead they have developed the country and found work for many thousands of workers. The Chinese in the Pacific are mostly coolies who came with the intention of competing with the white working class. All over the world it is the same; they want the money the working man should get, therefore they are undesirables. Australia is heavily taxed to enable it to pay the unem ployed a dole so that they may live.

There would be a lot less unemployed if there were less Chinese market gar dens, cabinet makers, tea vendors, fish hawkers, Chinese laundries, etc.

In this Territory the Chinese are mostly indentured coolies who have been allowed to stay 18 years over their term. During that time they have made enough money to be big men in their own country; so they have had a good innings and have no cause to

complain if sent back now. It would be doing China a good turn, as, at the present moment she has need of them.

Generally speaking, they are not decent, kindly, law-abiding citizens.

Even the agreements with their dummys are drawn up by a lawyer to enable them to evade the law. In Ger man times there were no lawyers in the Territory, now there are as many as there are police in Rabaul and the Chinese seem to be their best clients.

Everything they do must have the assistance of the lawyer; they are too cunning to get caught, and when they are caught they can always find enough money to get out of trouble.

Because they do not commit burglary or hold up the banks, as in Samoa (same issue “P.I.M.”) does not prove that they are law abiding; they are only law abiding because they are frightened to take risks that are likely to do them bodily harm. Every ordin ance that is issued is thoroughly read and discussed by them to find out if there are any flaws in it. Why they have not imported their own Chinese lawyer I do not know, but it is a good thing for our own and the Administra tion that they have not. Everything they do is lawful, but only just within the law. In B.S.I. they pirate the trade of the white trader, which means that the latter will get into trouble later on over missing Chinese schooners.

The Administration will not issue a trading licence to Chinese for many reasons. It wishes to assist the white traders. A planter may have many trading stations in the villages near his plantation; he places a Chinaman in each station and pays him so much a ton for all the copra he buys; the goods or cargo belong to the China man; he can buy it where he likes and sell it where or how he likes, also the copra, as long as he sells it to the planter at the set price. There is'no getting away from the fact that this Chinaman is trading pure and simple, yet the planter’s name is over the door; and on paper he is an em ployee of the planter. This Chinaman is as guilty of breaking the law as the planter; other men who have their name over a Chinese store are in the same boat. If a planter or trader has more stations than he can look after himself, what is to prevent him from putting a white man in charge of one and a halfcaste in the others under the white man? There is noth ing wrong with the half caste; his father was a white man, and the white man owes him something. If treated justly he is miles better than a China man. The Vunapope Mission turns out very good boys and first class artisans.

Again these Chinamen in native vil lages often have native women who are bringing halfcaste Chinese into the world who will be a far more serious problem in the near future.

If a petition was sent by the traders to the Administration asking that where a trading licence was granted with a Chinese employed, that such trading must be done under the super vision of the trader himself, who must be present himself also, there would only be about six signatures to it out of hundreds of traders who have stations. This gives an idea of the hold that the Chinese have on the trad ing industry in the Territory.

I have been trading for many years and have read with interest the many versions of the Traders v Missions dis

cussion. I have had as many as 20 stations at a time and my best were alongside the Catholic and Methodist Missions, and I never knew them to do a shillings worth of trading in the Ter ritory. What they do in other parts I cannot say; but I had to close down the stations near the Lutheran Mission.

Getting back to the problem. Return all the indentured Chinese back to China as agreed between them and their employers; no licences to be issued to Chinese or other Asiatics; where a Chinese is employed by the holder of a licence, he must at all times be under the supervision of his em ployer. If it is a trading licence the employer or a white man must be present while so trading. This will not prevent them from doing any work that does not require a licence. Marriages with native women (native fashion) should be illegal.

During my eighteen years I do not know of any Chinese merchant who has spent money for the good of the Territory. A few have plantations in New Ireland under a 30 years’ lease granted by the Germans, and these leases will soon expire; but outside of these plantations the good of the Ter ritory did not trouble them one iota.

It is not charity to find work for our own workers first, but our duty. At present they need it badly.

I am, etc.,

“Biviara.”

New Guinea, 25/2/’33.