Barracks System

The Evils of Native Barracks System Planters Discuss Remedies

THE evils that arise out of the “labour barracks” system, so much in evi dence in New Guinea, were referred to re cently in an article in this journal.

Thousands of native labourers are em ployed on New Guinea plantations and goldfields under the indenture system.

They are recruited from their villages, transported sometimes hundreds of miles to their places of employment, and housed and fed en masse, in groups ranging from a dozen to several hundreds.

Nearly always, these communities of young native men are quite isolated — they have no intercourse with native village life, and they usually are divorced entirely from their womenfolk for the period of their indentures. Nothing more need be added —anyone who knows any thing of life among tropical aborigines will know what happens, and it is not a condition creditable to either a British administration, or to the mission bodies, which have assumed responsibility for the moral and social welfare of the natives.

In our previous article, we urged that some attempt should be made to establish native villages and gardens near the scene of employment, where the labour ers might have their womenfolk and children, and live natural lives. Appar ently, we trod on a thorny subject.

Private letters from New Guinea resi dents suggest that the chief obstacle to the reforms we suggested is the hostility of the missions. This is amazing, be cause the conditions which notoriously exist in most labour lines in New Guinea are a standing reproach to Europeans.

We shall quote from one very striking letter, written privately by a planter in Manus, T.N.G.

“Being an idealist of sorts,” he writes, “I once had visions of employing none but married people who would ultimately produce a more or less civilised labour line in the years to come. But I’ve got no further than the idea.” And he pro ceeds to explain why.

"The old men in the native villages are averse to allowing the women to leave; firstly, because they are a work ing asset and secondly, because they can enjoy the younger generation of fe males during the absence of their part ners. This latter phase is kept sub rosa by the natives in their dealings with whites, unless they know the latter in timately, because they know the Ad ministration and Missions to be un sympathetic.

“The Missions are fanatically opposed to native women leaving the sphere of their village influence, unless it is to work for particular missions. The reason for this, given to me by missionaries, is that when women go away among men under such conditions, they almost in evitably drift into a life of prostitution.

This is true enough of unattached women among a lot of men; but, in the case of wives accompanying their husbands to the plantations, there probably would be no more promiscuity than there is in the villages, where the sharing of a man’s wife with his ‘one-talk’ is an age-old custom. I think the real motive behind the attitude of the missions is the wish to keep the women under their own eye

in the villages, so that they can influence the children. The old men support the missions. They urge the young men to leave their women behind so that, when they return, their women may be wait ing for them with a garden and food supply.

“Your suggestion that separate houses be provided for labour, instead of bar racks, is of interest: so I will relate my personal experiences in this regard.

“At one time I provided nothing but small houses, to accommodate ten units.

These were sound, raised three feet off the ground and constructed of native materials. I was visited by a District Officer and told to demolish them and build barracks, with either a cement or sawn timber floor. In the event of my not doing so within six weeks I would be

fined £100 and have all my labour con tracts cancelled. These, he said, were the instructions given by the then Ad ministrator; everyone in this district being similarly instructed.

“A barracks of galvanised iron and cement floor, 120ft. x 20ft. was provided, costing approximately £500. But, in a short time, the labourers asked to be given permission to build their own shacks. This was granted and some half dozen were erected. Then came another District Officer, who ordered me to de molish them, together with four good native-material buildings on the plan of the old one, and force the labour to live in the barracks erected.

“The Administration in this district is still housing native employees in build ings infinitely more dilapidated than any we laid claim to, and were condemned on the two previous occasions.

“I have found that houses occupied by men alone aggravate the unnatural morals to which the native is heir.

Furthermore, we are unable to rear any pigs beyond about three months’ old, and as fast as I replenish our fowl yard it is cleaned out. The native has no respect for the other man’s property, unless it is forced on him and, having no interest in the plantation beyond the period of indenture, they give themselves up to vandalism.”

Mr. Harold Baker, well known in the Pacific Islands through his connection with Dewars Ltd., has been very ill in a Sydney hospital, suffering from appendi citis and complications. Aided by a magnificient physique, he is beating the illness, however, and is now at his home in Sydney, and convalescent.