Inconsistent Native Evidence

From Our Own Correspondent.

Rabaul, May 27

IN March, three indentured labourers, two men and a woman, arrived at Kokopo from a Bainings plantation and laid a complaint to the Government officer that the European plantation manager had committed rape on the woman. It was stated that the offence had been witnessed by the manager’s cook-boy looking through a hole in the floor.

To verify the statements the A.D.O. (Mr. B. W. Sherman) made a visit to the plantation and there reconstructed the alleged offence, but found that it was im possible through the hole in the floor to make the observation alleged by the cook-boy. Becoming suspicious the A.D.O. warned the complainants of the gravity of making false statements and insisted on the truth being given.

At this juncture the woman made a statement that there had been no rape, and that the whole story was concocted by the cook-boy who had been assaulted by the master. As revenge, he had sug

gested that she should go to her husband and complain of being raped by the mas ter. The cook-boy would then corroborate the evidence, reporting that he had seen the offence committed, through a hole in the floor.

A similar signed statement was made by the cook-boy who admitted the charge was “trumped up” for the purpose of ob taining revenge on the plantation mana ger.

On May 7, the two natives (Ningmi, the woman and Isaash, the cook-boy) ap peared before His Honour Judge Phillips in the Supreme Court on a charge of conspiracy. To the surprise of everyone present the pair pleaded not guilty eventually maintaining that their original story, as told at Kokopo on the first oc casion, was true.

After summing up the evidence Judge Phillips acquitted both the defendants.

Mr. J. A. Todd field anthropologist of the Australian National Research Coun cil, will return to New Guinea shortly.

He spent over 12 months in 1933-34 at New Britain, and many of his observa tions and conclusions have been published in the Council’s quarterly journal, “Oceania.”

Mr. Harrison W. Smith, Chevalier du Merite Agricole, left Tahiti by the Maun ganui at the end of May for a three months’ visit to his estate in Maine,

U.S.A.