Australia's Native Policy in New Guinea

By Mrs. H. M. Rex

[Mrs. Rex is a well-educated woman who has spent some years in New Guinea, and made a first-hand study ! of the native pioblem. In appearance, she is slight and delicate; yet she managed her own go 7 d claim and a team of native labour ers. in the rain-soaked jungle at Edie Creek, on the top of the Morobe Ranges; and she has led prospecting parties out into the unmapped and “ uncontrolled ” areas. She is a woman of definite opin ions and, as this article shows, her opin ions are interesting .] WE hear quite a number of complaints regarding the ever-increasing insol ence, etc., of the New Guinea natives, due to the slackness of Administration con trol. I have lived there for the last four years, and I think that some of these complaints are justified.

While I am not in favour of the indi vidual employer being allowed to take the

law into his own hands, and punish his labour as he thinks fit—because of the individuals who would abuse such a pri vilege—nevertheless I do think it is the duty of the Administrator to see that a convicted prisoner is adequately punished.

The employer may legally restrict his nat ives’ weekly tobacco issue. This is not a severe punishment, as the other natives share their tobacco with the delinquent, I would suggest that the jails be built a day’s walk from the nearest settlement and that prisoners do their “time” in the precincts of the jail.

It costs quite a lot to “make court” if you have to come in from the bush to do so. If the native is sentenced to a week, or a few weeks in Wau jail, his work usu ally consists of road making, getting fire wood, etc,, under the supervision of a native police boy. Thus, he is in the midst of the activities of aeroplanes, cars, stores, and white people, and he possibly meets a number of “one talks” (natives of his own village or district) —all of which cannot fail to interest and amuse him; and I am inclined to think that a short term of such “punishment” is too much like a pleasant break from the monotony of the bush to be a serious deterrent.

My own boys did not seem to be par ticularly unwilling to go jail in Wau.

One said he preferred calaboose to taking a hiding from me. In four weeks’ time he ■ came back from what amounted to a month in jail, and I asked him, “Would not it have been better if he had taken the hiding?” He said, he didn’t know.

No Stigma In Jail

THERE is no stigma attached to being sent to jail, and the excitements at tached to working in Wau appear to com pensate for the disabilities, such as loss of tobacco and meat issues, and the Sun day holiday.

I believe a week’s pack-drill in a jail yard would be a far more severe punish ment than six weeks’ of road-making, etc., in Wau; and the charge so frequently heard that calaboose is conducted mainly with an eye to supplying the Administra tion with cheap labour, would have no foundation.

I think also that prisoners should be given the same rations as their employ ers are compelled to issue. It costs a lot of money to make your labourers strong and healthy, and to have them returned from jail in a weakened condition is not fair to the employers. Tobacco, being a luxury, is different, of course.

I THINK that when a native tells lies in court, it should be regarded as a serious offence. The average New Guinea native is not simple at all. He can manu facture a very clever statement and can stick to it. At present, such a lie, when detected, merely earns a reprimand from the officer in charge; and mere words do not occasion the native undue distress.

The employers who may be compelled to travel miles, and be considerably out of pocket because of a concocted charge

he must answer, has no redress, and I am of the opinion that the prestige of the white man is considerably lowered by such cases going unpunished. I do think the native loses respect for all authority when he is not punished for something which he knows he should take it in the neck for. That earns his contempt—and justly, too.

IpROM my cook-boy I hear that the * gangs of prisoners who are road-mak ing., etc., are becoming a menace to other natives passing by. So detour has to be made, to avoid a fight. The reason given is that passing natives give or may give cheek to the working prisoners.

According to the cook-boy: “Man belong calaboose ’e got big feller work.

Now bel belong him not belong this feller work. Nother feller man ’e walk about nothing—’e got plenty to much sass. Al right, calaboose ’e like fight ’im!”

So, if this is usual, either a white police master should always be in control of a gang of prisoners or, better still, the pri soners should be punished by being given pack-drill in the prison yards. Natives do not like unconstructive work—it causes them to feel humiliated —so pack-drill should be a genuine punishment. jC'OR criminal offences against females -*■ without any mitigating circumstances, I would hang the native—the white man, also.

In districts not yet under control, or only recently brought under control, I would be very lenient with a killer. It must be very easy to revert to what has been the usual custom for generations, when in heat of anger.

I would under no circumstances take an accused man to Rabaul for trial, or native witnesses. So many natives want to go there, and I think they would possibly commit perjury to have such a trip.

I would class alluvial mining as gen eral labour, providing it is not night work, and I would not permit work on Saturday afternoons.

P>OLICE MASTERS in New Guinea should be about the best men in the force. Theirs is not an ordinary police man’s job.

I should think it would be better for everyone concerned if their social status was raised. Could not a tropical police force be built up with a cadet system.?

Character Of Natives

T FOUND the natives I dealt with, on * the whole, very well-mannered, not only to me, but to each other. When at work, they would warn each other con tinually of any pending fall of earth or splash of water. They would always offer to carry anything I might have in my hand, and proffer a helping hand or word of warning should we come to a difficult or dangerous place.

They are inveterate thieves and liars, and they are not at all embarrassed at being found out —very quick with ingeni ous excuses for themselves yet they retain the manners of gentlemen.

Once they learn that it is not regarded by the whites as cornme il faut to expose the person in public, they rather go to

the other extreme and become somewhat prudish 1 have bathed with native women m the place set apart for the women to wash; and not one of them would remove their grass skirts, although they were delighted with a cube of soap, and used W^ n £ toW them they couldn t get clean like that, I understood one to say that it wasn’t the “fashion belong mission to entirely disrobe. This was some distance up the Markham River.

I have seen a number of boys and men, after they have had a swim, all with wet laptops— presumably they thought it im modest to strip and hop in, as most of our own lads would do This self-consciousness is to be regret ted. I went a good way up the Sepik River once where neither the men nor women wore any clothes. I was told they were a most moral people. It would seem that the more we seek to hide our bodies

the better it would be to hide what is in our minds.

Religious Instruction

TT is deplorable that mission activities should be allowed to continue in the present fashion. The animosity the dif ferent sects have for each other, apart from damaging the prestige of the white race, is certain to be passed on to their respective converts.

Surely we Australians can summon up enough courage and commonsense to pro tect the natives in our Mandate from be coming participants in the endless and utterly futile controversies raging around the theories of transubstantiation; effi cacy of total immersion as against other forms of baptism; or whether keeping the sixth or the seventh day as a day of religious observance is vital to eternal salvation; whether those who do not ac

cept certain particular gods will “perish everlastingly”; and so on. Even if we are too cowardly to take steps to protect our own children from being intimidated by these endless and useless arguments, surely we should not allow these stone age natives to become involved in such discreditable controversies.

The Administration is not at all remiss in seeing that nowadays the native is not exploited by his employer. lam hoping that Public Opinion will bring sufficient pressure to bear upon the Administration to compel it to protect the native against the trouble-making activities of the mis sions.

The old days of fighting and raiding are practically over for the native, and so, in the areas now under control, much of his interest in life has gone. When he re turns to his village after finishing his

labour contract, there is little to amuse or interest him.

I would suggest that the time is ripe for the introduction of some small schools in the largest of the native villages. I would like to see school-masters chosen for their commonsense and proficiency in sport. The natives might be taught reading, writing and arithmetic, what team work in sport means, and they could be taught a number of other sensible and practical things also, such as personal hygiene, village sanita tion, road-making, bridge-building, cook ing, raising crops, etc.

I would like to see the school the social centre of village life, as the House Tam boran used to be, and, as now, in places, the mission is.

I would like to give the native the op portunity of acquiring material know ledge, healthy amusement and construc tive occupation, and of being education ally fitted to, in time, hold his own with the whites.

As we are going to occupy their country we must, in decency, give them the op portunity to raise themselves to our stan dard of what we call civilisation, equip their children to meet ours on a 50-50 basis.

Superiority does not lie in the colour of one’s skin, but in behaviour. We may hot always be the black man’s “master.” Let us so educate him that we may not fear for our children, should the pendulum swing the other way.