Natives

Making Good Artisans Out Of Papuan

Interesting Policy of Government and Missions

From Our Own Correspondent.

Pt. Moresby, Dec. 2.

“Tyro residents in Papua are more alive than the missionaries to the urgency of using the most effectual means of giving the natives suitable occupations,” wrote Rev. Joseph King in 1908 in his work “W. G. Lawes of Savage Island and New Guinea,” when discussing the indus trial problems of the L.M.S.’s under takings.

“Our methods must be determined,” he wrote, “by the kinds of labour they are likely to pursue, as the resources of the country are developed under Anglo- Saxon enterprise.

“As things are certain to go ahead in this hustling age, the only way to con serve the natives is to prepare them for an industrial career.

“They must be workers, wage-earning and tax-paying workers or, like other drones, they will perish; and this fact must be clearly recognised in consider ing questions of education and political policy.”

That policy, laid down in 1908, has been developed for over 25 years, under the combined efforts of the Government and missions, into a properly regulated sys tem of industrial training, of which it appears that the natives are taking satis factory advantage.

One of the foremost technical institu tions in the Territory is the school of the Incorporated Kwato Extension Asso ciation, under the management of Mr.

Cecil C. G. Abel, in the Eastern Division, where Papuans are taught the art of house-building, boat-building and furni ture-making, after an extensive course of preliminary trailing.

The demand for skilled workers has increased throughout the Territory, and it is from such industrial training centres as Kwato that settlers look for their experienced native carpenters and assistants.

Kwato Mission has been under a good deal of criticism lately, and those most concerned are watching activities there keenly, and not in unfriendly fashion.

To date, six trained natives from Kwato are working at Misima as carpenters for the Oroville Co. and the Quartz Moun tain Mining Co. A further two are at Buna and two others are at Tufi, where a new store has been under construction.

The work of these natives has been reported as being extremely efficient.

During the year the Steamships Trad ing Co.’s vessel Nusa was reconditioned by boys from Kwato under the direction of their instructor, Mr, A. Swinfield.

Other natives have been employed as carpenters by Burns, Philp and Co. Ltd. and various planters in the Eastern Division, Three cutters are at present under construction at the school for Steamships Trading Co. and a large dwelling of asbestos and wood was recently built at Kwato itself. Apart from carpentry and boat-building, a number of pupils have been employed in dressing stones for a new church.

Colonel Hooper, who recently inspected the Kwato technical school and made a report to the Lieutenant-Governor (Sir Hubert Murray), stated that the natives engaged in boat-building at Kwato do work “equal in appearance to the same

class of work done in white boat-building yards, and in fact more care seems to be taken at Kwato for general efficiency than is otherwise met with in Australia.”

There are 29 pupils at present attend ing the technical school, continued the report, 16 of whom are doing the first year course and 13 the second year. The third year pupils are engaged solely in house-building, boat-building and furni ture-making. These natives have also completed most of the Government’s wood-work course.

Along with other missions in the Ter ritory, Kwato Extension Association re ceives a subsidy from the Government for the technical and general education of Papuans. This is paid out of the Native Taxation Fund, held in trust for the natives of Papua by the Adminis tration and made up by a special tax, levied on all males between the ages of 16 and 36, with certain exceptions. The proceeds are expended solely on the Papuans: (1) On the general and tech nical education of natives; (2) on pur poses having for their object “the direct

benefit of the natives of Papua, as may be prescribed.”

Another technical training school, which is doing good work, is maintained by the Methodist Missionary Society at Fergusson Island, in Eastern Papua.