Pack-Drill Goes!

More Political Interference In New Guinea?

REPORTS have reached Australia that there has been political interference with the prison system in New Guinea, which has worked satisfactorily during the past two years.

In the period prior to 1932, there was great and growing dissatisfaction in the territory with the Administration’s methods of punishing native offenders — particularly those guilty of minor crimes.

The natives usually were given a term in the calaboose; but, to the native mind, the gaol sentence represented no punish ment whatever. They enjoyed regular food, regular hours, shelter and security and, in leisurely mowing the District Officer’s lawn or patching a section of

roadway, they worked no harder than they would if they were carrying on in the service of their regular employers.

It is not too much to say that the prison system became a farce —or, at any rate, it was a farce in the eyes of tho natives, but a real tragedy to the plan ters, traders and miners. The latter were in no circumstances allowed to adminis ter corporal punishment—yet if they sent their native servants along to be punished by the officials for some offence, all that happened was that the offender was committed to a term in the ever-welcome calaboose.

It was really a dangerous situation; but no one did anything about it until General Griffiths took charge, as Adminis trator, in 1932. That sane and practical man sized up the situation very quickly, and he introduced a system of pack-drill to the New Guinea prisons. Native offenders were suddenly required to do something more than eat and sleep and carry out a few leisurely tasks. They were marched out frequently into the prison yard, loaded with bags of sand or stone and, under well-trained native police, were compelled to march briskly up and down for considerable periods, setting down and lifting up their burdens at the word of command.

It was a laborious punishment, but what made it more hateful to the native mind was the monotony of it. Native prisoners learned to regard the pack drill part of the calaboose with horror; and the calaboose lost all its attractions.

A sentence of imprisonment came to mean something to the native mind; the improvement in labour discipline through out the Territory was marked, and very welcome. There was nothing cruel or improper in the pack-drill system—it was exactly the thing that was needed to make the prison system effective.

But immediately the Minister in Charge of this Territory, Senator Sir George Pearce, made his official visit there in August, orders were given for the dis continuance of pack-drill, and the old calaboose system has been reverted to.

No explanation has been issued; so it can only be presumed that some mis chievous fool has reached the Minister’s ear with a horrid suggestion of what Geneva may think; or that some strange new wave of sentiment has swept over the New Guinea bureaucracy.

The steady “Europeanisation” of the primitive races of New Guinea is produc ing a very large class of sophisticated, or “flash,” natives, who are very hard to control, and who always are eager to undermine the control and discipline of the white man. Men experienced in New Guinea conditions declare that sooner or later there will be an unfortunate out break; and when that comes the blame for it can be laid directly upon the heads of those gentlemen responsible for such “reforms” as the abolition of the pack drill system.