Our Responsibility For Native

Welfare

New Guinea Missionary's Spirited Reply to "Papuan's" Letter

Letter to the Editor.

IT would be hard for a person unac quainted with the Islands to believe that the letter about native education, which appeared in your December issue over the anonymous signature of “Papuan,” could have been written by a sane or civilised man. Although it was sub-titled “The Commercial View point,” it is to be hoped that it repre sents the views of very few people inter ested in commerce.

Since is does, however, state the case of the man whose sole interest in the Islands is to make as much money as he can as rapidly as possible and by whatever means; and since, moreover, one sometimes hears like views ex pressed with equal vehemence and bad logic, it may be well to offer some re buttal.

It would be useless to attempt to re fute all the erroneous statements made by Mr. Papuan. His remark about the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dred Scott case is simply false. The Constitution of the same States, which acknowledges that the negro has exactly the same rights before the law as the white man, is one great document he failed to quote in support of his ideas.

But he makes a grievous error when he identifies civilization with “Com merce and the Enterprise of Capital.”

It cannot be denied that commercial enterprise plays an essential part in the development of anew country, and that it has an important share in the work of civilizing primitive peoples.

But civilization is a thing of the mind and the spirit, and does not mean merely the outward material condition of man.

It is precisely because our civilization has for a long time been losing sight of spiritual values, and concentrating on business and money, that it is in grave danger of disappearing. No more glaring example of such error is needed than Japan (or Russia) of to-day. Who can seriously say that the present activi ties of the Japanese are more civilized than those of any savage Islands tribe ? And yet what people have made greater strides in commercial endeavour and modern methods ?

Mr. Papuan’s viewpoint is wrong, therefore, because he is in the wrong position. But it may also come from a false idea of the nature of the educa tion that is desired for the natives. If, by the education of the native, we mean a training suited to his requirements and abilities; if we mean teaching him re ligious and moral truth and the forma tion of good habits and character; the fundamental skills of reading, writing and simple mathematics; the principles of hygienic and healthy living; the knowledge of simple agriculture; and

other practical and elementary matter —if that is what native education aims at, then Mr. Papua is either foolish or ignorant in opposing it.

INDEED, such education is in reality an extremely important need in a primitive country. It is, in fact, essen tial to the well-being of all the people, white or native, and should form one of the chief objects of governmental solicitude. Before attempting to demon strate the truth of this view, however, it should be observed that education of some sort is inevitable. There can be no question of whether or not the native is to receive education. The only ques tion is about the kind of education he should get. For, apart from all formal and organised education, the native is learning new things, and unfortunately, sometimes, new tricks, by mere contact with the white man and his civilization.

He observes the ways of his masters and, in his ignorance, often misunder stands.

For instance, the natives of this dis trict are at present convinced that all the business of making money and pur chasing goods is a tribal secret of the whites; and that if they could only get the key to the matter they, too, could get into the swim. That has possibilities for trouble.

Your own experience, sir, can suggest many similar, and even more trouble some episodes in primitive places. They are the fruit of the activities of “bush lawyers” and the informal self-educa tion of uncivilised races in contact with

Europeans. If there were ho other reason for a proper training of natives, this fact alone would make it at least advisable.

BUT other reasons urge the same conclusion. Even from a purely mer-

cenary viewpoint it has advantages. It is reasonable to suppose that such an education as we are considering will contribute to raising the standard of living of the native. That entails in creased business for the merchant. If the native can be taught the importance of proper housing and gardening, for instance, somebody is going to make money by providing him with building materials, and agricultural implements, and the many other things that an im proved economic condition would de mand.

Again, the very reason advanced by Mr. Papuan for opposing education— namely that business requires cheap and abundant supplies of labour—is really an argument demanding education. For it is plain that the natives of these parts are rapidly decreasing in numbers.

Education of the right sort can help greatly to stay the death march by im proving sanitary conditions, by lower ing the rate of infant mortality, and most of all by giving the native people something to live for.

Mr. Papuan could lighten the burden of his ignorance by reading the essay by Dr. W. H. R. Rivers in “Essays on the Depopulation of Melanesia”, pub lished at Cambridge University in 1922.

Or would he like to pay coolies 2/6 a day to do the work, as people in Fiji must do ? But perhaps he hopes to have made his fortune and got out be

fore the consequences of his methods would fall upon us.

Anything that will provide commerce with stronger and more intelligent ser vants should have its support, and edu cation would do that. And if those who talk in high terms, as Mr. Papuan does, of the development of the Territories, are sincere, they must admit that de velopment will proceed more rapidly and efficiently with the intelligent and active co-operation of the natives.

BESIDES, commercial ventures could hardly prosper or even begin, if some measure of education did not pre cede and accompany them. The very safety of our lives in these places is due more to the influence of the education given by the missions, than to the rifles of police boys. And if we are to hope for honest and upright natives in the future; if we wish to be free from the danger of native risings and like troubles, we should place our reliance on right training. Peace and order are essential to prosperity, and the most effective force for peace and order in any state is education based on and permeated by solid religious principles.

Such education is of immense value not only to the commercial interests, but also to the government. Certainly, it makes the preservation of public safety a simpler matter. It could be a valuable force for co-operation in the work of public health, a vital concern of all of us. And in a general way, it makes in telligent co-operation possible between the natives and the officers who are charged with their welfare.

BUT when all is said the great and fundamental reason for such edu cation is that the native has a right to it. Before God and before the law he has precisely the same fundamental and inalienable rights as the white man, be he King or Mr. Papuan. One of those rights is that of knowing and serving God, and of developing his intelligence in order to do it better. And against his rights no mere selfishness of white adventurers can prevail.

Mr. Papuan surely must be such a man. Those citizens who have settled down permanently in these Territories, who have a stake in the country and an interest in its future, can hardly share his views. His kind are happily rare.

After all, if the Christian missionaries of other times had not educated Mr.

Papuan’s barbarian forefathers, he would be roaming the primeval forests of Europe to-day. Likely enough, selfish citizens of the Roman Empire opposed the idea.

When any government does everything in its power to assist such education it does only its plain duty. In some places, unfortunately, limited finances, and lack of definite policy, among other things, hamper such action. But the Papuan Government is to be commended for at least an earnest try.

Finally, it might be well to call the attention of the Papuan Police to this fellow’s letter. Any man who thinks that “natives have no rights” and that “we have no duties toward them” be yond a vague humanity, is a dangerous citizen. If they do not expel him from

the Territory, he should at least bear watching. Whether he walks out or is thrown out, however, he will probably land finally in some club, where he can flay the government and the missions to' his heart’s content, and explain to bored members how education ruined the honest settler and Empire-builder. 1 am, etc.,

James Hennessy, D.D.

Buka, New Guinea, February 1, 1938.