Saving The Native

Races

Work of Suva Medical School

THE most important work that is being “*■ done in the Pacific to-day is that grouped around the Native Medical School, in Suva, Fiji, where young men of the native races are being trained as medical practitioners. Thus equipped, those young men go back to their own territories and, through their knowledge and their personal influence, they assist the indigenous people, especially the Polynesians, in adjusting their ways of life to “Europeanisation”—which usually is fatal to native races.

The driving force behind the native medical school, and behind a great deal of the medical work that is being done among the South Seas people, is the Rockefeller Foundation. It is an interest ing reflection that the Rockefeller mil lions, assembled by means that at least were dubious, should now be used for the salvation and rehabilitation of the peoples of the Pacific Islands.

The medical school is conducted along side the Suva hospital; and a number of medical men are giving it the benefit of all their skill and experience. Especially notable in this connection are Dr. D. W.

Hoodless, Dr. D. C. M. Macpherson and Dr. S. M. Lambert, of the Rockefeller Foundation. We quote from the conclud ing paragraph of a paper by Dr. Lambert, entitled “Depopulation of the Pacific Races,” and published by the Bishop Museum, Honolulu: “From the standpoint of population, the Pacific is divided as follows; “1. The eastern Polynesian islands, whose populations have declined to a point that seems to preclude their racial regeneration.

“2. The mid-Pacific islands of Poly nesians, Micronesians and Melanesians, which have passed through the period of decline and are safely on the upgrade.

“3. The purely Melanesian islands to the west, which are still in the throes of decline.

“There is presented a summary of the population data available, and the con clusion is reached that the cause of native decay is largely disease.

“Fiji is taken as an example, and evidence is presented that the native medical practitioners, natives trained in simple medicine, have played a large part in the racial recovery of the Fijians. The other mid-Pacific groups and the British Solomons have joined forces with Fiji to provide themselves and Fiji with better education for these native practitioners.

“It is urged that north-west Melanesia (New Guinea. Papua, etc.) consider carefully whether this would not be the solution of her problem of racial re generation.”

Mr. J. N. Montgomery, of Oil Search Limited, sailed from Sydney by the Macd hui on September 30 for Port Moresby with a party of geologists to conduct sur veys in Papua on the exclusive permit area of 12,000 square miles recently grant ed to Oriomo Oil Ltd. Mr. Montgomery, who for the last two years has been in charge of Oil Search Ltd.’s operations in New Guinea, said that the concession is situated in the Gulf and Delta divisions, and that the expedition will be supple mented later by two geologists and a sur veyor, who will leave Sydney in December.