Primitive Natives

Careless Whites and Primitive Natives

[Elsewhere, there are published references to the meeting held recently in Rabaul, where the European community expressed alarm about the growing cheekiness and lack of discipline among natives in and near the town.

The followmg is part of a letter, written by a leading resident of Rabaul, who puts the case for the natives. All our information is to the effect that the native menace in Rabaul is more serious than our correspondent admits, and our sympathies are with the Europeans who held the meeting.

Nevertheless, there is something to be said for the natives. Our correspondent is perfectly correct when he directs attention to the vicious practice— permitted by the Administration over long years— of assembling hundreds of primitive men in “labour lines,” far removed from their villages and womenfolk, and expecting them to behave like docile, unsexed animals. He is not so correct when he charges the Rabaul Europeans with drunkenness and profligacy. The great majority of Rabaul householders behave with proper re straint before natives.]

Letter To The Editor.

fTVHE thinly-disguised purpose of the meeting was manifest to all.

In spite of previous failures, one more attempt is to be made to bring pressure on the Administration, and perhaps on Canberra, to re-introduce the barbarity of permitting the white man to flog the native, under the so-called pretext of “firmness and kindness.” This is, or is thought to be, the panacea of all evils, real or imaginary.

What are the true facts of the case?

Isolated cases, deplorable in themselves, have been collected and clumsily pieced together in order to create the erroneous impression that the present Administra tion is either inert or incompetent, and that this Territory is unsafe for European women. Undue prominence is given to what natives are alleged to have at tempted against whites. Yet dead silence shrouds the sins of the European against the native.

In Rabaul and its environs to-day there are 805 Europeans, and, besides numer ous Asiatics and half-castes, between 3000 and 4000 natives. Large numbers of these natives have been drawn from distant and widely different parts of the Terri tory. They are suddenly introduced into a form of life with which they are en tirely unacquainted. Naturally, they do not know the white man’s language and he is ignorant of their's, so the only medium of communication is the nebulous “pidgin,” Unfortunately, numbers of these native servants are married men separ ated from their wives, and this is a per petual temptation to incontinency, solely through the white man’s mismanagement.

In Rabaul, native servants are dis tributed according to the master’s salary.

Some homes have two, others three, while the “nobility” can usually retain four—a cook boy, a house boy, a wash boy, and a boy for, the grounds.

The first duty of the cook boy is to bring morning tea to the bedside of the yawning master and mistress. Next, pre pare the bath. In many households, the occupants are not overscrupulous as to how they are attired in going to and from the bathroom. Again, a boy is often sent to a bedroom, while persons are still in bed. Husbands often censure their wives for want of proper care before native ser vants, and wives likewise blame husbands, but still the practice continues.

Entertaining—cocktail parties during the day and beer parties at night—is a part of the artificial tropical life, where the natives’ services cannot be dispensed with. Native servants in some house holds not infrequently witness most irre

sponsible behaviour among Europeans, This is no more than the bare truth—l have seen it during long years in Rabaul.

Temptations largely of the Europeans’ making are perpetually placed before natives. With what result? If a native stares twice at a female, displaying a large area of fleshly charms, or even if she merely imagines he stares, the in discretion, magnified beyond all propor tion, is told from one end of Rabaul to another. The next process is that the offender is hurried to the District Office, charged with what he .does not under stand, and interrogated according to the usual fashion: “’E true, ’e no true?” If the native answers, even without under standing it, “’E true,” another piece of evidence has been secured that the Terri tory is not safe for European women.

No one interested in native welfare can ignore the exhibitions of drunkenness, im morality, concubinage and other indis cretions too frequently displayed before the natives. Little wonder they are so often perplexed, and sum up the white man’s vaunted civilisation as a huge lie.

If the group recently formed to advo cate certain measures against the de fenceless native changed its name and ideal into a League of Public Decency, and demanded a higher standard of pro priety from Europeans, then something might be accomplished which would benefit black as well as white. Example is the best teacher.