Guinea

Employers’ Troubles In New

Some Pertinent Comment on Territory Affairs

WRITTEN FOR THE PACIFIC ISLANDS MONTHLY BY MRS. HELENA M. REX

I BELIEVE the administration is gen uinely trying to administer justice to black and white alike in the Mandated Territory—no easy task for ordinary humans.

But the majority of residents who are in a position to criticise are very disturbed and shocked at some of the severe sentences passed on employers of native labour in the last few years.

Away in the bush, or on a lonely plan tation, the employer often has to be doctor, nurse and arbitrator to his labour. There is no Kiap or police master around the corner to run to.

If the employer has a flash trouble making native to deal with, he has two courses to pursue. He must master that native or throw in his job. Sometimes he hasn’t that option; he must master that native or possibly be murdered.

Insubordination spreads like a flash, and quick action has to be taken, I have always maintained the average Government official doesn’t know what the raw native is like. He has never dealt with one; there is always the go between, the police boy. A native takes far more notice of another native than of a white man. He is well aware that the white man dare not lay a finger on him; not so his fellow native.

I think, if our cadets or patrol officers, at some period of their training, were sent to the bush with only raw natives to discipline, and no police-boys to aid them, they would quickly realise the im possibility of running a disciplined camp with their hands in their pockets, and would be more fair to the employer who does on occasion break the law by cuffing or hitting a native when driven to it. It only makes trouble to demand the impossible from people.

Once, I cuffed a native on the head with a dish. I didn’t hurt him, and he admitted I didn’t. However, the native was taken from me for a month, I paid his wages, while he grew vegetables for the police and washed floors for the Assistant District Officer’s wife. To maintain I had assaulted him was both unfair and ridiculous.

On all sides, you hear employers complaining of similar treatment.

THE views of the missionaries (who, I fear, rather run the Territory) on this subject are worthless. They always have and always will deal in bribes. If it doesn’t take the form of something concrete, its a promise of Heavenly felicity to come. They do not play fair. They obtain from the Ad ministration special concessions on the strength of their activities being of a spiritual nature. But that doesn’t pre vent them entering into the sordid, money-making businesses they affect to so despise. Many a small trader’s

honest and legitimate business has been ruined by the Mission Stores. If they are going in for trade give them no concessions. It all has to be paid for out of the taxpayer’s pocket.

Almost any employer of labour will fight shy of the mission product—he is so utterly untrustworthy—and I don’t wonder at it.

IT seems to‘me that it is hard on the small miner in New Guinea that he should have to contribute so largely to the Administration funds. He has to pay a fee for this and a fee for that; a fee for signing on labour; for a licence to hold a revolver; and for another licence to use it; and so on. There is a never-ending call on his pocket, as well

as the tax of 5 per cent, on all the gold he wins. Storekeepers, business men and officials are practically exempt from all taxation, as this tax is only on gold, and they have little use for fire arms, and do little signing on and off of labour, that the miner and plantation owner has so much of.

I would like to see the small miner exempted from this 5 per cent, royalty tax on gold. He is a definite asset to such a country. He opens up and pioneers the country. Why can’t the big companies bear the burden of the 5 per cent, tax? As is well known, they have had special laws enacted in their favour. They are holding up miles and miles of good alluvial ground that the mining laws were originally framed to make available for the small man.

If these companies were prohibited from working alluvial ground, the popu lation of Wau would be fifty times greater than it is. There would have been a road to the coast long ago; farming, business and building would have increased beyond recognition. The money now pouring overseas would have been spent in the country. Although some directors and shareholders might still be using the humble tram, surely the prospector, the pioneer, is of more

importance to the country than he is now treated as being.

IAM in favour of the indentured labourers being given “hand-money” —that is, a percentage of their wages every month—instead of allowing it all to accumulate for the two or three years of their contract. If they get a little every month, say only 2/-, they get more pleasure, and so more reward for their work, and are not subjected to the temptation to steal.

It is a pity the trade stores are allowed to stock such tinsel rubbish as they do—mostly Chinese and Japanese junk. You can see to read through some of the lap-laps. No effort is made to teach the native to appreciate quality, or to spend his savings wisely.