B.S.I. Boys Are Scornful
p. 29 · Read in the full issue
Those Bungling N.G.
Wharfies!
From Our Own Correspondent.
Tulagi, Jan. 11.
WHEN the B.P. liner Malaita arrives in the Solomons each trip, a gang of B.S.I. boys is picked up as cargo workers to unload her freight throughout the group.
Usually, when she leaves the Northern Solomons for Rabaul (in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea) the natives are left at Faisi until the Malaita returns to pick them up again on her voyage down through the group to Sydney. On a recent trip, however, the B.S.I. boys were carried on to Rabaul, and spent much time in interested study of the New Guinea freight workers.
Their caustic remarks on the return to Tulagi about the way in which their New Guinea friends mishandle cargo, if true, show that the extended tour is not likely to improve the way the Solomon Island labourers handle things. Apparently, cases of beer are banged on wharves by the New Guinea wharfies till the wharves re semble pools of lager, and other cargo is treated with equal disrespect.
Policemen, in uniforms that greatly im pressed the Solomon boys, according to reports, stood uselessly by. Apparently, neither our labourers nor our police are likely to be improved by seeing how things are done in the Mandated Territory.