Is Australia Making Criminals

In New Guinea?

Outspoken Comment by Territory Resident

Letter to the Editor.

IN recent years, ten white men have been charged with killing natives; at least ten corpses of natives were dis covered and produced. Countless other whites have been imprisoned and fined for assaults on natives.

The great majority of whites charged are Australians and a large number of these are returned soldiers, with exem plary records, both civil and military.

The Mandates Commission of the League of Nations demanded to know the reason for the high criminality amongst whites in New Guinea. Well may the man in the street ask “Why?” Germany is asking, also.

The civilian, the planter, and the gold miner of New Guinea know the reason, and can remedy the trouble immediately, but are not allowed to. Not until dozens more of the finest pioneer types of Aus tralians are rotting in gaol will any remedy be attempted, and even not then if officialdom of N.G. can prevent it. This long and high record of criminality (words of the League of Nations) will go hard against us should the Mandate come up for review—and it should.

The whole system of governance of the natives is wrong and utterly unworkable, hence the high criminality. Our system has been tried for fourteen years and has failed miserably. Let us revert to the German method, even for one year, as a trial, if only to save our Australian pioneers from the soul-destroying experi ence of imprisonment.

To give just one instance, I have worked and lived near a big plantation.

For three years a refined, educated German managed this estate, employing 200 natives. The work was well done, the boys were smart and contented and in the whole three years the German used the cane once only. Since he left, five equally educated and really fine types of Australians have managed this estate.

One was punished for killing a native and four others were all fined for assaulting natives. And the said natives now are an arrogant, dirty and dangerous mob.

Not one of the five Australians —quiet, decent-living men, an asset to any coun try—was to blame. It is the impossible and inhuman system they were, and are, working under. It is inhuman in that the poor kanaka has eventually to pay and pay dearly, because a few canings withheld now will cause us to shoot them down in droves at a not far distant date.

Thus will our much advertised “sacred trust” be fulfilled.

I have no hesitation in stating that boys are receiving far more punishment now than in the German time, because then they knew if they deserved it the cane was there. Now, repeated and flag rant wrong-doing is their normal mode of life, encouraged and pampered by our weak and dangerous system—dangerous in the extreme to both black and white.

The Germans show an infinitely cleaner and more humane record than ours. Not one half of the number of natives were

killed unlawfully (I am not including bush fighting in new areas) and illegal as saults were unknown.

In further support of my contentions, in different districts here the German Go vernment had a qualified doctor, who attended sick employed boys and kept them in the Govt.’s hospital for sixpence (6d.) per day. To-day, several sub districts have no qualified doctor, but we pay two shillings (2/-) per day for our boys, who are attended and often ope rated on by medical orderlies with no recognised qualifications whatsoever.

Were a referendum to be taken as to

whether we retain the Mandate or Ger many be given it, the number of Aus tralian returned soldiers who would vote for Fritz would shock Canberra out of its stupid complacency, but probably would not surprise Geneva.

Understand, please, we do not want the Germans back here because they are Germans: but we want their system, which enables white men, not to be treat ed, and in some cases hounded down, as potential criminals.

Should this appear far-fetched, I will quote the senior member of the Legis lative Council, who complains of the legis lation for “a pack of hooligans and criminals.” (February 13th. Legislative Council, Rabaul. page 103 of Debates, No. 2 Session). General Griffiths, an able leader with wide knowledge of Colonial Administration, (a tragedy he did not carry on here from 1920) must have realised the seriousness of the situation and no doubt did his utmost to combat the dangerous drift. His recommendations to Canberra would make exceptionally in teresting reading and should be made public for the benefit of New Guinea generally. Presuming such recommenda tions were made, is Canberra sufficiently courageous to act on same?

It is a well known fact that District Officers on patrol escorted by armed police boys and with all the majesty of the Government behind them have to have

recourse to the cane in order to get their work done. No one censures them for so doing; but why hide the fact. And if they find the cane essential, what of the isolated pioneer, miles distant from his next neighbour, with not an ounce of Govt, support—much the reverse unfor tunately! Of course District Officers do no actually do the correcting themselves and probably will deny this, for obvious reasons; but the fact remains.

Our -whole system is fundamentally and criminally wrong—that is proved to the hilt by the fact that savage sentences inflicted do not, nay cannot, act as a deterrent. Why not come out in the open, renounce our proverbial British hypocrisy and govern this country as it should be governed? France, Italy, Belgium and Japan, all of whom are mandatories, re fuse to be overawed by their “sacred trusts,” and also refuse to sacrifice their nationals to an obviously insincere and spurious sense of humanitarianism. Are we a lesser breed than these?

And, bear in mind, the martyrs of this vicious, unsound and utterly inhuman sytem, are educated, splendid types of Australians, on whom the country relies in time of war, now manufactured, goaded and legislated into criminals.

I am, etc..

Veri.

New Ireland, 14/11/34.