Risk of Uncontrolled

Areas N.G. Government Insists On Reform

By Gordon Thomas

ANOTHER example of the trouble that follows in the train of declaring dan gerous areas in New Guinea “uncontrol led” and then granting permisison for anyone to enter, providing they conform with certain conditions, was brought to the notice of the public recently when a young miner (and, incidentally, a minor), S. H. de Kantzow, came before the Rabaul Supreme Court for sentence on a charge of assaulting a native and doing him bodily harm.

The Crown’s case was that the accused had whipped, punched in the nose and broken off the tooth of one Ravakia.

Counsel for defence brought out mitigat ing circumstances, showing how the native, who was an indentured labourer with a record for deserting, had run away, been captured, and that the accused had threatened him with disfiguring his teeth if he again deserted. This the native did, despite the threat, which the accused felt bound to carry out.

Counsel for the defence laid consider able stress upon the disadvantages of the indenture system.

His Honour Judge Phillips sentenced the accused to a year’s imprisonment, and fined him £40.

The fundamental cause of the whole un happy business was the fact that the youth found himself in an isolated, dangerous and officially “uncontrolled” area of New Guinea; and he was inexperienced and was unsuited to be solely in charge of native labourers located in hostile country.

The wear and tear upon the nerves of old-time miners, accustomed to the vicis situdes prevailing in such localities, is often more than they can bear. There is the constant vigilance against attack; the careful supervision of the labourers; the teupply of rations to be kept up: the treatment of their ailments and, on the top of everything else, the financial worry of the undertaking. All this was thrust upon the shoulders of a mere youth, emerg ing from his “teens.” Officialdom should never have allowed such a lad to enter and remain in an “uncontrolled” area.

Since the December murders, in the Chimbu River area, the Administration has definitely excluded all whites —other than officials —from “uncontrolled areas.” We may now hear less of crime In these dis tricts, and fewer charges brought against whites, who live under abnormal condi tions and excessive mental strain.

Of recent years most of our troubles have come from these same dangerous areas, where contact has not been pro perly established. There has been too much of the Speed Age in a Stone-age country.

Mr. S. G. C. Knibbs, Commissioner of Lands and Crown Surveyor, of Tulagi, Solomon Islands, and Mr. J. C. M. Scott, manager of Messrs. Burns Philp (S.S.) Co. Ltd. at Makambo, have been appointed members of the S.I. Advisory Council.

They have filled the vacancies caused by the transfer to Palestine of Mr. P. C.

Hubbard, and the resignation of Major F. R. Hewitt.