Native Crime In

Solomons

Letter to the Editor IN recent issues you have remarked about something being wrong with the B.S.I. Government. I might say it is about time they began to realise that the white population here require just as much protection as the natives.

A stricter rule is needed over the na tives, and corporal punishment should be enforced throughout the group. The “boys” do not worry over a gaol sentence.

The end of last year, natives broke into one of Levers food stores at Cape Marsh and stole a large number of bags of rice and also meat. If those boys had known that the penalty would be a thrashing they would not have been so eager to commit those crimes, but the punishment they get is nothing to them.

Also, they should be made pay for the food stolen, and the damage done. They do not fear the Government one scrap, so how can a planter hope to manage them?

I also notice by the same issue that in New Guinea it is an offence for natives to carry knuckle-dusters or razor blades.

Why isn’t such a law made here in the Solomons forbidding natives to carry knives in sheaths, when their work does not require same.

I am, etc.,

F. J. Whitlock.

Cape Marsh, 22/2/’34.